OUR LEADERSHIP
Our team of therapists, medical personnel, and support staff have years of professional experience in treating addictions and other medical and mental health disorders.
Laura Herrmann
MA, CVRC
Partner, Chief Executive Officer
Laura has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare marketing field with over 20 years in the executive level in management, operations, strategy and sales leadership and as a C-Level executive.
Working early in her career with digital and full marketing agencies, she found her passion in healthcare, mainly behavioral health. Laura continued her career when she moved to Denver, and became the Senior Director of Professional Relations, Digital and Product Marketing at Eating Recovery Center and ACUTE Center for Eating Disorders in 2015. She was then brought on as Chief Marketing Officer for Gallus Medical Detox Centers in 2019, growing them into a successful high end, high acuity detox in three locations, and has since opened her own company providing strategic and leadership guidance to numerous companies in the behavioral health space.
With a master’s degree from Tufts School of Medicine and Emerson College in Health Communication, Laura has continued to find excitement and challenge in her chosen field. She serves on the board of LIGHT Movement and is a Core Values Recovery certified Recovery Coach. Please contact her at laura@serenityforlife.com or (303) 434-0602.
Dr. Gershom Hernandez
MD, Board Certified Psychiatrist
Medical Director
Dr. Hernandez is a board-certified psychiatrist with extensive experience across the full continuum of behavioral health care, including inpatient, outpatient, and substance use treatment settings. He earned his Doctor of Medicine and completed his psychiatry residency training after a strong academic foundation in biological sciences, equipping him with a comprehensive and evidence-based approach to patient care.
Throughout his career, Dr. Hernandez has held multiple senior leadership roles, including serving as Medical Director for both outpatient and higher levels of care such as Intensive Outpatient (IOP) and Partial Hospitalization (PHP) programs. In these roles, he has overseen multidisciplinary teams, including psychiatrists and nurse practitioners, while driving clinical quality, program development, and patient-centered outcomes.
He has also served in executive medical leadership as a Chief Medical Officer, where he provided both clinical and administrative oversight and led system-wide quality improvement initiatives. In addition to his leadership experience, Dr. Hernandez has worked extensively in high-acuity inpatient settings, managing complex psychiatric cases and collaborating with legal systems to provide expert clinical evaluations when needed.
Dr. Hernandez brings specialized expertise in adult and geriatric psychiatry, medical detoxification, and residential substance use disorder treatment. His approach emphasizes thoughtful diagnosis, individualized treatment planning, and continuity of care across all levels of treatment.
Briana Severine
MS, LPC, LAC, CPRP
Chief Clinical Director
Briana holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from California State University, Long Beach, and a Master of Science in Developmental Psychopathology from the University of Reading in England, where her graduate work focused on trauma. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Addiction Counselor in the State of Colorado.
She has worked across the full continuum of care, including individual therapy, intensive outpatient, residential treatment, and acute psychiatric hospitals. She has extensive experience treating trauma and complex mental health conditions, including work with high-profile clients and professional women, such as healthcare professionals.
Briana’s background includes private pay outpatient practice, as well as clinical leadership and marketing for a family of residential treatment programs, and the development of a women’s trauma-focused IOP. She is the founder of Sanare Psychosocial Rehabilitation, a private-pay, community-based program providing intensive, real-world clinical support for adults with persistent mental health challenges.
Her work is grounded in delivering sophisticated, trauma-focused care that helps clients process and resolve underlying trauma, allowing them to move forward with greater clarity, stability, and emotional freedom.
Susanne Neal
LAC, LPC
Therapist
Susanne Neal, LPC, LAC is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Addictions Counselor with extensive experience working in mental health, trauma, and substance use treatment. Her clinical background includes work in women’s recovery programming, community mental health, detoxification settings, private practice, and trauma-focused care. She previously worked with women navigating substance use and trauma at Summit Women's Recovery and has spent years supporting individuals through complex life transitions, emotional challenges, and recovery processes.
Susanne utilizes a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) framework while integrating trauma-informed and body-based approaches to help clients better understand the connection between past experiences, emotional patterns, and present-day functioning. She is trained in EMDR and Brainspotting and works collaboratively with clients to build insight, strengthen coping skills, and create meaningful, sustainable change.
Known for her warm, grounded, and nonjudgmental style, Susanne creates a supportive therapeutic environment where clients can safely explore the challenges impacting their mental health, relationships, and overall well-being. Her areas of focus include trauma, addiction, anxiety, depression, women’s issues, and emotional wellness
Lisa Ketcham Hendrickson
BA, RYT, Reiki Master, Lifestyle Medicine Coach
Integrative Wellness Director, Nurse, Grief Coach
Lisa Ketcham-Hendrickson is an integrative wellness practitioner, nurse, yoga teacher, Reiki Master, sound practitioner, and founder of Tributaries Holistic Health and Human Recovery, LLC. With more than 30 years of nursing experience, including decades in emergency and trauma care, she brings a distinctive ability to bridge Western medicine and holistic healing.
Lisa’s work is grounded in the belief that true healing must honor the whole person—body, mind, spirit, nervous system, and energy bodies. Drawing from yoga philosophy, lifestyle medicine, scientific evidence, trauma-informed care, and lived experience, she creates spaces where individuals can reconnect with themselves and move toward healing through awareness, embodiment, ritual, movement, and community.
Her professional path has also been shaped by her own experiences with grief, trauma, recovery, and transformation. These experiences became the foundation of Human Recovery, a coaching model rooted in nervous system regulation. The model recognizes that although suffering takes many forms, healing often returns us to the same essential practices: honesty, self-study, surrender, repair, and reconnection.
Lisa offers integrative coaching, yoga, sound healing, workshops, Reiki, retreats, and community gatherings that support individuals in reclaiming themselves, not just surviving life, but learning how to live more fully, consciously, and connected.
CATE Gremillion
PHR, SHRM-CP
Director of Human Resources, Payroll, Client Advocate
Cate has a strong background in human resources, office management, and payroll. A graduate of Barnes Business College, she brings over 20 years of HR and payroll expertise to the team. Cate is a SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) and an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management.
Among her many past achievements, Cate created and implemented the first-ever wellness program for Clear Creek County, Colorado—an initiative that continues to positively impact county employees.
In her current role, Cate serves as the Director of Human Resources, Payroll Coordinator, and Client Advocate. She is passionate about supporting both employees and clients. Cate finds deep fulfillment in fostering a positive work culture and being a trusted resource and advocate for those on the path to recovery.
Loriel Brune
M.A., RCP, NCFRC, SFRC, CVRC
Director of Family Coaching and Recovery Coaching
Loriel Brune is a compassionate and experienced Family Recovery Coach dedicated to helping individuals and families navigate the emotional challenges of addiction, recovery, boundaries, and relational healing.
With more than 18 years of experience in the recovery field, Loriel is known for her grounded, supportive, and direct approach that empowers clients to move from crisis, confusion, and emotional overwhelm into clarity, stability, and healthier communication. Loriel specializes in family systems, codependency recovery, boundary work, people-pleasing patterns, shame resilience, and rebuilding trust within relationships impacted by addiction and emotional pain.
She creates a safe and supportive environment where clients can strengthen self-worth, develop healthier coping strategies, and reconnect with their personal values and emotional well-being. Through education, coaching, and compassionate guidance, Loriel helps families and individuals develop healthier relationships with themselves and others while supporting long-term personal growth and recovery.
Stacy Wallace
M.Ed, LPC
Trauma Intensive Specialist
Stacy Wallace, M.Ed, LPC is an experiential trauma therapist and breathwork practitioner who specializes in helping women heal from trauma, relationship wounds, life transitions, grief, addiction, and patterns that keep them disconnected from themselves. Her work is deeply rooted in mind-body healing, emotional expression, and experiential approaches that support lasting transformation beyond traditional talk therapy.
Stacy integrates modalities including experiential therapy, breathwork, psychodrama-informed interventions, nervous system regulation, movement, and expressive techniques to help clients process unresolved trauma and reconnect with authenticity, empowerment, and joy. Her approach is warm, interactive, and collaborative, with a strong emphasis on helping clients better understand the connection between their emotions, body, relationships, and lived experiences.
Before entering private practice, Stacy worked across community mental health, residential treatment, corrections, and intensive treatment settings in Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida, and Colorado. She brings a grounded and compassionate presence to her work and is passionate about creating spaces where women feel deeply seen, supported, and empowered in their healing process.
At Serenity for Life, Stacy provides experiential trauma intensives and group work designed to help women move through trauma in deeply transformative and embodied ways while building greater self-awareness, resilience, and connection.
In addition to her work with Serenity for Life, Stacy is the founder of The Daybreak Collective, a Boulder-based private practice focused on trauma therapy, breathwork, experiential healing, and women’s emotional wellness.
Chelsea Van Essen
LPC
Trauma Intensive Specialist
Chelsea Van Essen, LPC is a trauma-focused therapist specializing in experiential, relational, and somatic approaches to healing. She works with individuals navigating trauma, attachment wounds, anxiety, identity development, life transitions, and emotional dysregulation, with a strong emphasis on helping clients reconnect with themselves in authentic and meaningful ways.
Chelsea’s approach is warm, collaborative, and deeply grounded in nervous system awareness and relational healing. She integrates experiential and body-centered modalities to support clients in moving beyond survival-based patterns and toward greater emotional flexibility, self-understanding, and connection. Her work emphasizes creating safety, fostering curiosity, and helping clients access deeper healing through experiential processing and authentic therapeutic relationships.
At Serenity for Life, Chelsea brings a compassionate and grounded presence to the clinical team. She is passionate about supporting women in developing resilience, self-trust, emotional expression, and deeper connection to themselves and others while engaging in transformative trauma work within a supportive community environment.
In addition to her work with Serenity for Life, Chelsea is the founder of Logos Healing Institute in Colorado, where she provides trauma-informed psychotherapy and experiential clinical care.
brandon lutman
LCSW, CCTP-II, SP, CET-II, CAP, EMDR
Trauma Intensive Specialist
Brandon Lutman, LCSW, CCTP-II, SP, CET-II, CAP, EMDR is a trauma-focused therapist specializing in experiential, somatic, and action-based approaches to healing. Licensed in both Colorado and Florida, Brandon works with individuals navigating complex trauma, addiction, shame, codependency, attachment wounds, and relational challenges. His approach is deeply experiential and rooted in helping clients move beyond survival patterns into greater authenticity, connection, and emotional freedom.
Brandon integrates modalities including Psychodrama, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, expressive arts, inner child work, and other experiential therapies to support deep nervous system healing and lasting transformation. He is particularly passionate about helping clients explore the ways trauma becomes stored within the body, emotions, relationships, and behavioral patterns, while creating spaces that foster safety, curiosity, and meaningful change.
At Serenity for Life, Brandon brings a grounded, compassionate, and highly experiential presence to the clinical team. His work emphasizes embodiment, emotional expression, relational healing, and experiential trauma processing in ways that help women reconnect with themselves and move toward fuller, more empowered lives.
In addition to his work with Serenity for Life, Brandon maintains a private practice through Lutman Counseling, LLC, where he provides virtual therapy in Colorado and Florida as well as experiential trauma intensives and immersive workshops.
D.J. Bishop
MA, LPC, LAC
Trauma Intensive Specialist
D.J. Bishop, MA, LPC, LAC is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Addiction Counselor with extensive experience working with trauma, substance use, relationship challenges, and emotional healing. His approach is experiential, trauma-informed, and deeply relational, helping clients move beyond survival patterns and toward greater connection, self-understanding, and emotional resilience.
D.J. has worked in both private practice and intensive treatment settings, including leading trauma-focused individual and group intensives. He integrates modalities such as EMDR, Brainspotting, psychodrama, experiential therapy, and nervous system-focused work to support meaningful and lasting healing.
At Serenity for Life, D.J. brings a grounded, compassionate presence and a strong belief in the transformative power of safe relationships, authentic connection, and experiential trauma work. He is passionate about helping women reconnect with themselves, process unresolved trauma, and build lives rooted in empowerment, stability, and deeper emotional freedom.
In addition to his work with Serenity for Life, D.J. maintains a private practice, DJB Therapy, in Colorado, where he continues to provide individual therapy and trauma-focused clinical care.
Erin Henry
LCSW
Trauma Intensive Specialist
Erin Henry, LCSW is a trauma and attachment-focused therapist with over 15 years of clinical experience spanning private practice, nonprofit work, and experiential trauma treatment. Her work is deeply rooted in somatic, relational, and nature-based approaches that help clients reconnect with themselves, their bodies, and their sense of safety after trauma.
Erin specializes in trauma recovery, nervous system regulation, relational healing, and post-traumatic growth. She integrates experiential modalities including Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), equine-assisted psychotherapy, movement-based work, and nature-informed therapy to support deeper emotional processing and lasting change. Her approach is warm, grounded, and highly experiential, with a strong emphasis on healing through connection, authenticity, and embodiment.
As a breast cancer survivor herself, Erin also brings lived experience and deep compassion to her work with women navigating trauma, identity shifts, and life transitions. She is passionate about creating spaces where women can heal in community, reconnect with their inner strength, and move toward lives that feel more aligned, empowered, and meaningful.
In addition to her work with Serenity for Life, Erin is the founder of https://www.rewildtherapy.com, a Colorado-based private practice specializing in trauma therapy, nature-based healing, equine-assisted psychotherapy, and women’s trauma intensives.
