Advancing Trauma Healing Through Science

I am honoured to serve as a facilitator in the groundbreaking Reset Breathwork Study — a collaborative research project led by Prof. Dr. Isabel Dziobek (Humboldt University Berlin) and Dr. Martha Nari Havenith (Max Planck Institute / Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience).

This 1.5-year longitudinal study is currently the largest scientific investigation on the impact of breathwork on trauma. It explores the neurophysiological and psychological effects of circular breathing techniques, such as Holotropic and Conscious-Connected Breathwork, on individuals with early life adversity and trauma histories.

Funded by the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, this research bridges clinical neuroscience with somatic practices — investigating how non-pharmacological methods can evoke altered states of consciousness (ASCs) that support emotional integration and trauma processing. Preliminary findings suggest significant improvements in emotional well-being and a reduction in depressive symptoms.

As a facilitator, I hold and guide sessions for participants within a strictly defined research framework, ensuring safety, integrity, and depth. This role allows me to actively contribute to the intersection of scientific inquiry and embodied healing, and to advocate for breathwork as an accessible, evidence-based tool for trauma recovery.

Read more about the project here:

Exhaling the Past – Reset Breathwork Study Overview

Or see the scientific publication:

Nature Mental Health – Breathwork & Altered States

Over a period of three months, I had the opportunity to lead a full-scale health and resilience intervention at one of Switzerland’s most renowned private psychiatric clinics: the Sanatorium Kilchberg near Zürich. This initiative was designed to support healthcare professionals operating under intense pressure — including medical doctors, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, hospital managers, and psychiatric nurses.

Within this setting, I facilitated weekly trauma-informed breathwork and sound therapy sessions, grounded in current neuroscientific research and tailored to the specific needs of clinical staff working in high-intensity environments.

The focus was on regulating the nervous system, restoring resilience, and cultivating somatic self-awareness as a foundation for emotional hygiene and long-term well-being. Each session was designed to offer a space for deep decompression, emotional integration, and regenerative recovery — addressing burnout, vicarious trauma, and chronic stress.

The intervention was well-received across departments and showed measurable effects on participants’ subjective well-being, emotional clarity, and physiological recovery. As a result, elements of the program were integrated into the clinic’s internal health and resilience framework, marking an important step towards embedding somatic-based approaches into institutional mental health structures.

This project represents a key milestone in my work to bridge evidence-based somatic therapies with clinical environments — and to advocate for the inclusion of body-oriented, frequency-based modalities in high-performance medical and therapeutic systems.

INSIGHT Forum | Somatic Sound Intervention by Isabella Stephanie Hauck
In resonance with Prof. Dr. med. Franz Vollenweider’s lecture on Psychedelics, Meditation & Neuroplasticity

The convergence of psychedelic research and contemplative practices opens up new perspectives on mental health, emotional regulation, and systemic transformation. In his keynote, Prof. Dr. Franz Vollenweider, one of the world’s most influential psychedelic researchers, outlined the neurobiological mechanisms underlying psychedelic-induced changes in perception, self-awareness, and affective processing and highlighted the growing evidence of synergy with mindfulness-based interventions.

As part of this evening, Isabella Stephanie Hauck offered a scientifically-informed Sound Activation, grounded in somatic neuroscience, trauma-sensitive practice and frequency research. Her work focuses on the regulation of the autonomic nervous system through sonic entrainment and vibrational coherence.

The intervention utilized tuned gongs, infrasonic pulses and harmonic layering to stimulate vagal tone, promote interoceptive awareness, and foster states of relaxed alertness often described as prerequisites for integration, emotional resilience, and neuroplastic change. Drawing from her clinical experience in psychiatric care and her applied research at the intersection of sound, trauma recovery, and self-leadership, her work explores how non-verbal stimuli such as vibration and resonance can modulate embodied cognition and support post-acute integration processes.

Her broader vision under the framework of Intrinsic Human Dynamics - aims to establish frequency-based interventions as valid tools in transdisciplinary mental health work: bridging clinical neuroscience, trauma therapy, and somatic leadership models through immersive formats that activate the body’s innate capacity for regulation, coherence, and systemic alignment.

Research meets resonance.
A new paradigm of inner listening - where sound becomes a medium of embodied truth.

https://www.mind-foundation.org/event/insight-forum-en-vollenweider

Within the framework of the Berlin Senate’s Department for Justice, Intrinsic Human Dynamics designed and facilitated a workshop series dedicated to mental health, diversity and cooperation in public institutions. The programme aims to strengthen relational awareness, resilience and collaboration within diverse and interdisciplinary teams.

Together with Uchenan Jonas, Sarah Ulrich & Dr. B. , we co-facilitated Workshops that combine somatic education, applied neuroscience and systemic reflection. Through the Motto: From Intrinsic Shift To Collective Impact.

Each module invites participants to explore how contact, communication and regulation unfold within professional interactions and how diversity and nervous-system awareness can serve as key resources for healthy organisational culture.

My role was to initiate and create the concept, project management and lead the modules on nervous system literacy, trauma-informed leadership and somatic communication, using Breathwork, movement and reflective dialogue as tools for integration. Through these embodied approaches, participants learned to identify their own stress responses, build co-regulation capacity and translate self-awareness into effective teamwork.

The series forms part of a broader effort to embed human-centred health and diversity frameworks into Berlin’s justice structures - creating environments where inclusion, safety and collective intelligence can flourish.

Web3-Based Cultural Event

Sonic Immersion Set with 3Ohm at the iconic Studio 1 of Funkhaus Berlin, as part of a forward-looking cultural gathering rooted in Web3 innovation, consciousness, and collective creativity.

The set opened the event with a powerful gong-based sound ritual, combining Gong Resonance and Human Frequency Tuning to create an immersive, deeply grounding field for the participants. Using five planetary gongs, the performance was specifically designed to induce a state of parasympathetic regulation, mental clarity, and emotional openness - setting the energetic tone for the full day of Web3-based exchange and co-creation.

The unique acoustic qualities of Studio 1, formerly part of the historic GDR broadcasting system, provided the perfect environment for this vibrational intervention, allowing frequencies to fully expand and impact both body and mind.

This collaboration with 3Ohm exemplifies my commitment to bridging technology, sonic healing, and cultural transformation - using ancient instruments like gongs within cutting-edge environments to foster states of expanded presence and creative alignment.

3Ω is a sonic liberation project I co-founded with Paloma Angulo and Storm Hartley.

Together at Spatial Festival at Funkhaus Saal II, we merge gongs and psychoacoustic electronic music to create immersive somatic experiences that explore the transformative potential of sound.

My contribution to the collective centers on Breathwork, and nervous-system-informed facilitation. At Spatial Festival, I guided the Breathwork Session “TERRAHYMN”, a 4DSOUND performance developed in residency at MONOM (Berlin). This work is based on the principle of physioactive listening — merging the vibrational potency of gongs, Conscious Connected Breath, and hypnotic language to regulate the nervous system, expand spatial awareness, and access altered states of consciousness.

For me, breath is a tectonic force - a vital rhythm that moves through both the human body and the Earth itself. In TERRAHYMN, this concept unfolds as a sonic journey through deep time and geology, mapping the inner landscapes of the subconscious and revealing hidden architectures of resonance.

The performance bridges ancient vibrational arts and modern psychoacoustics, using sustained frequencies to dissolve sensory boundaries and invite coherence, embodiment, and internal regulation.

Event Link

Produced by: MONOM SOUND Berin

Composition & Gong Performance: 3Ω (Storm Hartley, Paloma Angulo, Isabella Stephanie Hauck)

CCBreathwork: Isabella Stephanie Hauck

4DSOUND Spatialization: William Russell

‍ The pilot study Mental Health in Clubs (in collaboration with Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, FernUniversität in Hagen, Deutsche Psychologen Akademie and supported by Clubcommission Berlin and Awareness Akademie) addressed the mental-health and resilience challenges of professionals in the nightlife, art and club sector. 

My involvement spanned two key dimensions:

I delivered an expert key note on dependency disorders, trauma and rehabilitation within the club ecosystem - connecting nervous-system regulation and somatic leadership with industry-specific conditions.

Additionally, I facilitated two Circular Breathwork sessions with sound-based intervention (April 2024 & February 2025) for club employees across Berlin, including at the venue Tresor Berlin. In these somatic containers I guided regulated breath, nervous-system awareness and group integration, followed by reflective dialogue and embodied reset

By bridging the health-science framework of the study with somatic, embodied practice, this work enabled the core themes of Sound Therapy, Nervous System Leadership, Embodiment and Regulation to be applied in a field where creativity, (neuro-)diversity and high stress converge. The youth-oriented club scene carries unique psychosocial demands and this platform allowed me to contribute to a systemic shift in health-culture for this creative environment.

Link: mentalhealthinclubs.de

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Community Resonance & Sonic Co-Creation

The Quantum Gong Gathering is a community-led, experimental format initiated in Berlin through Intrinsic Human Dynamics, 3Ohm, and an expanding collective of gong players, frequency artists, and sound practitioners.

This gathering is a living sound laboratory - dedicated purely to the exploration of multi-gong resonance and the subtle intelligence of frequency. Without performance, structure or agenda, it invites participants into deep listening, vibrational attunement, and free-flowing co-creation.

Always hosted in natural or unconventional spaces, the gatherings serve as temporary sanctuaries for sonic immersion and embodied presence - weaving together people across disciplines through a shared devotion to sound.

Rooted in reciprocity and community care, all sessions are donation-based, inclusive, and ever-evolving. The aim is not performance, but presence - a collective tuning of nervous systems, relationships, and environments through the field of the gong.

The Telegram community is open to all who feel the call to co-create, get more infos or simply receive:

Join the community

In the heart of the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by vast silence and mystical nature, we created a space for deep self-exploration - a field where intrinsic growth could unfold naturally. Together with Daisha Seeberg and Nina Gausling, I co-facilitated the Quantum Shift Retreat, a week dedicated to somatic expression, emotional consciousness, authentic relating & nervous system leadership.

My main focus within this retreat was holding the Neuronal & Trauma-Informed Space - guiding participants through circular breath-based and body-oriented processes that supported nervous system recalibration and emotional release. Through conscious breathing, somatic inquiry, movement and sound, we invited the body to remember its natural rhythm of relaxation and coherence.

This retreat was designed as an immersion into the field beyond our habitual environments, a setting that allows for true integration of change. When we step outside of our daily structures, we can meet our inner patterns & triggers with awareness and safety.

What unfolded was a collective experience of embodiment, connection, intrinsic shift and recovery. Each day offered space to rest, to reconnect with one’s own system, and to expand awareness into the quantum field of possibility.

LINK

The Art of Presence

As part of the Playground Festival 2024 at the mystical Crypto Castle, a dedicated somatic activation space was created within the intimacy & tantra program — curated for real connection, emotional depth, and expanded states of consciousness.

In this setting, a solo-guided Breathwork Journey was offered, interwoven with a two-gong soundscape designed to facilitate nervous system regulation, emotional opening, and deep interpersonal presence. The session became a portal into altered states, allowing participants to soften their defenses, meet one another through conscious breath and eye contact, and ground into the safety of the moment.

Surrounded by nature and framed by castle walls, this activation invited attendees to reconnect with their inner truth and access a deeper layer of embodied intimacy — far beyond conversation or surface-level interaction.

By merging somatic self-exploration with communal ritual, the experience contributed to the festival’s larger vision of transformational celebration — where creativity, vulnerability, and embodied awareness are not separate, but deeply intertwined.

Participating in the heart of a seventeen gong ensemble unfolding through microtonal vibration and trance inducing resonance together with a full string orchestra in Halle am Berghain.

This program brings together the meditative intensity of Giacinto Scelsi, the Tectonic structures of Iannis Xenakis, and the quiet luminosity of Tōru Takemitsu’s Requiem, alongside a new work by Berlin based conductor and composer Avi Caspi. Performed in total darkness, within the stripped geometry of Halle am Berghain the evening emphasizes sound as physical presence; immersive, immediate, and unadorned. where orchestral music is infused with the spatial and emotional logic of the club. Space itself becomes an acoustic organism, shaping and shaped by the music, inviting the audience to relinquish passive listening and enter a dynamic field where sound and space converge, destabilizing the boundaries between sensation and structure, presence and perception.

Caspi’s composition for a collection of handmade meteorite gongs, blurring the line between percussion and atmosphere, provokes seismic structures from within the body of the orchestra itself. voices on the edge of articulation.

Event Link