Hey I'm Star Bond
Licensed Psychotherapist & Trauma-Informed Coach
I did not learn trauma from textbooks alone. I learned it by living inside systems of instability, adversity, and survival long before I ever entered a classroom.
My childhood was shaped by experiences many people spend a lifetime trying to understand—poverty, addiction, abuse, chronic illness, and relational chaos. These experiences sharpened my capacity to see beneath symptoms, honor complexity, and work with trauma in ways that are both precise and deeply human.
My teenage years could’ve easily been captured as a PBS after school special. I was a runaway and Deemed chronically “incorrigible” by the courts.
At twelve, I was hospitalized for the first time. By fourteen, I was already moving through the court system. My adolescence unfolded inside institutions—psychiatric units, courtrooms, mandated programs—places where I was routinely labeled, medicated, and managed. I learned early what it feels like to be reduced to a diagnosis, a file, a problem to be solved, rather than a person to be understood.
Alongside all of this, Lyme disease was quietly shaping and wreaking havoc on my internal landscape—altering my mood, my cognition, my energy, my capacity to regulate—long before it was ever identified. What was labeled defiance or disorder was, in reality, a body carrying significant trauma, illness and disconnection, responding the only way it knew how.
I spent the first half of my life believing that I was broken, crazy and destined for a life of hardship - just to spend the second half of it healing, reclaiming and owning the hell out of my worth and wisdom.
After spending several years traveling (and healing) in and out of Central America in my late teens and early 20’s, I returned to the states and embarked upon my academic and professional career. New York City served as a training ground not only for personal development, but it was also my introduction to radical social work, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, grassroots organizing and the various forms of art-based activism I have grown to love and deeply respect. I hold a bachelor’s degree in social work from New York University as well as a master’s degree in social work & program development from Columbia University with a concentration in contemporary social issues and gender studies. I graduated top of my class, magna cum laude in both programs and managed it all, both clinicals and rigorous coursework with an infant on my back-–literally.
In my life and travels, I have had the privilege of studying with healers, mystics, elders, and medicine people from around the world—experiences that have deeply expanded and integrated my understanding of life, culture, and healing. My personal history and varied training have offered me meaningful insight into the many layers of the human experience. With compassion and humility, I explore both the blessings and challenges of life—love, relationships, motherhood, trauma, and grief—while holding reverence for the divinity woven through all things. From this place, I work passionately to help others reconnect with their own grace, wisdom, and inner authority.
I am a certified yoga instructor and an independent folk herbalist, and I often integrate my deep interest in neuropsychology and quantum physics with a respect for plant medicine in my work with others. In 2023, I completed formal training through the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) via the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, earning certification as a psychedelic-assisted therapist.
In 2025, I attended a week-long immersive meditation and quantum healing retreat with Dr. Joe Dispenza, further deepening my experiential training in meditation, coherence, and applied mind–body healing practices.
I’m an Ivy League graduate with 15+ years of clinical experience in trauma-informed care, specializing in harm reduction, PTSD recovery, and leadership development.
I offer regular trainings and consultations to organizations nationwide, supporting the development of anti-oppressive, relationally-rooted practices and policies aimed at uplifting our most vulnerable and at-risk populations. A growing focus of my work is supporting those who support others—leaders, educators, clinicians, coaches, and change-makers seeking sustainability, coherence, and integrity in their work and lives. I also provide supervision and mentorship to students and clinicians who are committed to deepening their trauma-informed practice, ethical grounding, and relational skill. My work is rooted in decolonized approaches to mental health that prioritize relational repair, cultural humility, and community-based healing.
I’m deeply passionate about trauma-informed care—not as a buzzword, but as a foundational lens that shapes everything I do. In my clinical work, I specialize in trauma, PTSD, and addiction recovery, working with individuals, couples, and groups. My approach to addiction and harm reduction is both innovative and relational in soul—unconventional by design, and grounded in deep respect for each person’s lived experience, agency, and path toward healing.
I currently travel between NYC and Western North Carolina for my private practice. I see clients globally and provide ongoing DEI consultation across the country. I’m also a psychedelic therapist and serve as the Educational Director at the Pearl Psychedelic Institute, a nonprofit mental health clinic and research center committed to expanding access and education around psychedelic-assisted therapies for low-income and traditionally marginalized communities.
When I’m not working, you can catch me being a rebel-hearted, loud-mouth New Yorker who loves live music, chicken-tending, dance-filled nights, bougie hotels in exotic places, psychedelics, banned books, and dismantling the patriarchy.
