UC San Diego

Karen K.L. Chang is a lifelong learner, and has pivoted her professional and personal lives with meaning and purpose onto an enlightening path of studying and researching Energy Psychology (EP) modalities from the number cruncher industry. Her foray into EP began when she keenly searched for biofeedback devices to facilitate communication with her beloved mother, who was comatose for years after a failed open-heart surgery. Karen believes we have the innate power and ability to re-activate our healing capacity from within. Once re-activated, profound self-knowing and healing begin.

Karen is a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist (CCHt) with continuing education credentials in EP. She offers self-care educational services in her private practice, including meridian tapping, clinical hypnotherapy, HeartMath training, and other EP techniques. In addition, she conducts sessions, training, and workshops online in both English and Mandarin Chinese.

Karen received her MBA from the University of Washington (Seattle) in 2010, and her B.B.A. in Finance from National Taiwan University, Taiwan. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Energy Psychology to research the domain of multidimensional healing.

For over 40 years, I have been dedicated to helping people discover freedom and clarity in their lives. My journey began at a young age, when I first recognized the power of making others feel better—it created a positive energy that inspired me to pursue a career as a stylist. As my passion for helping others grew, it naturally evolved into becoming a transformational life coach, hypnotherapist, LIGHT practitioner, and Reiki Master.

Through my work, I blend decades of experience in hairdressing—along with my personal life experience—where my clients often call our sessions "Hair-apy," with powerful coaching techniques and hypnotherapy. I believe in helping clients understand that where they are now is just the beginning of their journey toward where they truly want to be.

My qualifications include being a Certified Hypnotherapist and LIGHT Practitioner from UC San Diego Center for Integrated Health, a Licensed Cosmetologist in the State of California, a Certified Transformational Life Coach through the Brave Thinking Institute, a Certified Family and Systemic Constellation Practitioner and NLP through 5 Changes, and a Reiki Master.

Personally, I have navigated the challenges of being adopted, growing up as a gay man, and overcoming many years of substance abuse, discovering more of my true self along the way. These experiences have shaped my deep sense of gratitude for life and my understanding that each day is an opportunity to learn, grow, and help others do the same. I have personally witnessed transformation with my clients in health challenges and gaining personal joy in their lives. It is my honor to assist you on your path to a more fulfilled, empowered life and a greater sense of freedom.

Isabela Tena is a Master Hypnotist with over 17 years of experience as a practitioner and instructor of hypnotherapy and several other holistic practices. Her expertise in hypnotherapy includes past life regression and metaphor intervention. As the director of the Spanish department for the Palo Alto School of Hypnotherapy, she teaches and certifies the Hispanic and Latino community worldwide through venues including Zoom, radio, TV, self-organized holistic tours, and in-person classroom teaching.

Dorthy Tyo is a certified Master Hypnotist and owns the Palo Alto School of Hypnotherapy, where she is also a director and instructor. The school has remained active since 1977, which she purchased in 2009. Before becoming the owner, Dorthy taught and developed classes with the previous owner and founder for over 20 years. In addition, she has a thriving private practice in Palo Alto, CA. Her background is in psychology, which she studied at SUNY in Cortland, NY, and she continues to research and learn more about the brain and how thoughts affect emotions, biology, well-being, and lives. Her teachings and private practice continue evolving with newer developments and learning.

Dorthy is an author and developer of many teaching manuals. She co-authored the book Guided Empathy Meridian Tapping: GEMT Practitioner Certification Manual, an innovative approach to healing/resolving past beliefs and perceptions that have manifested into dis-ease. She's also a guest speaker and YouTube channel co-host. Dorthy's working on a new book about the scientific approach to hypnosis for a better understanding by the general public. She is proud to be certified as a LIGHT Professional by UC San Diego's Centers for Integrative Health.

A filmmaker by profession, a physicist by education, and an avid lifelong student, Tom Thudiyanplackal is a first-generation Indian-American gradually gaining comfort with the Western way of life. Tom's career spans over two decades, with credits on numerous projects ranging from Bollywood blockbusters like Carry On, Munna Bhai and 3 Idiots to the Emmy-nominated documentary Seed: The Untold Story. He is a prominent voice in the emerging virtual production field and a sought-after speaker and presenter at major global conferences for the media and entertainment industry.

Equipped with storytelling prowess and a rich understanding of Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts, Tom teamed up with Paula Marie Jackson to embody the latter's unique mind-body experience into a protocol that could meet stringent research standards for repeatability and transferability. Light-Induced Guided Healing Therapy (LIGHT) was born out of this combination of West and East, of lived-in, first-hand experiences woven into a soothing tapestry of creative and imaginative worlds populated with the end user's highest potentialities realized into a custom heaven-on-earth experience.

The transformative effects of this affirmative self-activation have been witnessed and verified through countless encounters in the classroom setting, research, and one-on-one experiential sessions with certified LIGHT professionals. Tom continues engaging with the growing LIGHT users and professionals community to develop new content, curriculum, and experiences.

Tom lives in San Diego with his wife and enjoys the year-round weather and endless stretch of beaches of Southern California. He actively engages in creative pursuits and innovation, spending much of his free time in activities that provide a better understanding of the human condition to address complex issues using entertainment's gentle and stimulating effects. You may spot him with his cameras enjoying sunsets along the beach, writing poems, or humming new tunes he composes for future films and shows.

Paula Marie Jackson co-founded Light-Induced Guided Healing Therapy (LIGHT), a research-backed mind-body protocol to augment self-efficacy and deliver several other benefits that improve physical and mental quality of life. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1999, and due to the severity of her case, she was told she'd be wheelchair-bound within six months. Instead of giving in, supported by her spiritually-centered mother, she devoted herself to prayer and meditation, which led to spectacular realizations that she encoded into a specific visualization and self-hypnosis protocol that she repeated daily. In a few months, she regained the use of several afflicted faculties and returned to work.

In 2011, Paula decided to find a way to deliver her mind-body practice to others with similar challenges on her mother's insistence — this meant putting it to the test using the rigors of science to be sure of its benefits and applications before sharing it with the public. That started the journey of LIGHT as a protocol designed to be standardized, repeatable, and transferable as required by the research paradigm. Two pilot studies were conducted at the University of California, San Diego, over the next eight years, leading to solid data supporting the protocol's efficacy that encouraged the university to include LIGHT as a curriculum for self-care.

In 2019, Paula launched a certified training program for advanced hypnotherapists to become LIGHT professionals at the Centers of Integrative Health (CIH) within UC San Diego. She has now accepted LIGHT as her life's work to aid humanity and raise consciousness.

Publications

Case, L. K., Jackson, P., Kinkel, R., & Mills, P. J. (2018). Guided imagery improves mood, fatigue, and quality of life in individuals with multiple sclerosis: An exploratory efficacy trial of healing light guided imagery. Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine, 23, 2515690X17748744. doi:10.1177/2515690X17748744

Hsu, S.-H., Zi, Y., Wu, Y., Jackson, P., & Jung, T.-P. (2018). Exploring mental state changes during hypnotherapy using adaptive mixture independent component analysis of EEG. IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIOCAS), 1-6. doi:10.1109/BIOCAS.2018.8584715

A Preventive Medicine physician and nutritional epidemiologist, Dr. Saxe is an international leader in the 'food as medicine' movement, with pioneering research in whole-food, plant-based dietary interventions for cancer patients.

Alex Bobadilla serves as Revenue Manager and Patient Navigator for the UC San Diego Center for Integrative Medicine. She helps patients navigate scheduling, insurance verification, and provider selection, and supports revenue cycle issue resolution. She also coordinates the Supervised Lifestyle and Integrative Medicine Program for Weight Management.

Douglas Ziedonis is the executive vice president for the University of New Mexico Health Sciences and chief executive officer of the UNM Health System. He is a physician-scientist and academic leader internationally recognized for his work in addiction, mental illness, and recovery-oriented interventions.

Katie Witkiewitz is a professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico and a clinical psychologist whose work focuses on substance use disorder and recovery. Her research, training, and supervision emphasize mindfulness-based relapse prevention, relapse prediction, and mechanisms of change in treatment.