Dr. Cara Maxson is a Naturopathic Medical Doctor specializing in the mind-body connection and the emotional, psychological, physiological, and spiritual dimensions of chronic disease. With a background in neuroscience, training in trauma-informed and somatic approaches, and more than a decade of intensive apprenticeship in a shamanic path, Dr. Maxson brings an integrative perspective to understanding the complex factors that influence health, healing, and human potential.
Her approach is grounded in the understanding that our psychology is not separate from our physiology. The nervous system, our lived experiences, emotional patterns, beliefs, perceptions, relationships, and sense of meaning all contribute to how we experience ourselves and interact with the world. Rather than viewing symptoms in isolation, Dr. Maxson seeks to understand the broader context in which imbalance develops, addressing the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the individual.
Dr. Maxson believes that meaningful healing begins with curiosity, awareness, and a willingness to explore the underlying patterns that shape our health and lives. Just as we evaluate our external environment for influences that may compromise health, we must also consider the internal environment, including the physiological stress response, nervous system regulation, emotional conditioning, and habitual patterns of thought and behavior.
The body’s systems do not function independently. Cellular processes, organ function, immune activity, hormonal signaling, and nervous system regulation interact continuously. Likewise, our physical health influences our emotional and psychological well-being. Understanding these relationships creates opportunities to support health through a more comprehensive and individualized approach.
Dr. Maxson integrates naturopathic medicine with mind-body therapies and trauma-informed practices to help patients develop greater awareness of the connections between their experiences, their nervous systems, and their physical health. Her work emphasizes the importance of recognizing how past experiences and deeply ingrained protective patterns may continue to influence present-day responses, often outside conscious awareness.
Her therapeutic perspective is informed by the work of leading clinicians and researchers in trauma, somatic psychology, neuroscience, and nervous system regulation, including Janina Fisher, Pat Ogden, and Ruth Lanius. She has pursued training in Somatic Experiencing with Abi Blakeslee and Arielle Schwartz, and polyvagal-informed training under Rebecca Kase and Arielle Schwartz. These influences inform her understanding of how the nervous system adapts to stress and adversity, and how greater awareness, safety, and regulation can support the process of healing.
Her therapeutic toolkit also includes Brainspotting, with training from its founder, David Grand, and MindSight, informed by training under Dr. Daniel Siegel. Through these approaches, she explores the relationship between attention, perception, emotional experience, and the brain’s capacity for integration and change.
Dr. Maxson also incorporates EVOX therapy as an approach to exploring perceptions and their relationship to emotional experience. By helping patients examine longstanding interpretations and habitual responses, she seeks to create opportunities for greater self-awareness, more adaptive patterns, and a more empowered relationship with their health and lives.
Alongside her clinical and neuroscience studies, Dr. Maxson has spent many years studying with and sitting in the presence of spiritual teachers, including Adyashanti, Mooji, Gangaji, and Jac O’Keefe. Her spiritual inquiry has deeply informed her understanding of consciousness, identity, suffering, presence, and the possibility of relating to life beyond conditioned patterns of thought and identity.
For more than a decade, she has also pursued intensive study as an apprentice within a shamanic path, as well as working in the Shamanic De-armoring space. This sustained commitment to spiritual practice and experiential learning informs her appreciation for the role that meaning, connection, awareness, and personal transformation can play in an individual’s healing journey.
She approaches this dimension of care with respect for each person’s unique worldview and recognizes that spirituality can be an important source of meaning, resilience, and connection for those who wish to explore it.
Dr. Maxson’s goal is to inspire and empower patients to become active participants in their own healing. She believes the body has an inherent capacity for repair and adaptation, and that naturopathic medicine and integrative therapeutic approaches can help identify and address obstacles that interfere with health and well-being.
Having spent many years pursuing her own path toward improved health, she understands the commitment, patience, and discipline that lasting change can require. She recognizes how deeply ingrained patterns can persist even when we consciously desire something different, and how transformation often involves more than intellectual understanding alone.
One of her most important roles as a physician is to recognize the unique potential within each individual and help them reconnect with their own capacity for healing, growth and change. Her work is centered on supporting patients as they develop greater self-awareness, cultivate a more regulated relationship with their internal experience, and make choices that align with the lives they wish to create.
Her philosophy emphasizes that healing is not simply about eliminating symptoms. It is also about understanding oneself more deeply, developing a different relationship with the body, mind and life, and creating the conditions in which greater vitality, resilience, and well-being can emerge.
Dr. Maxson is also a Certified Holistic Pelvic Care™ Practitioner, trained by Tami Kent, a Death Walker, trained by Zenith Verago, Biotherapeutic Drainage Practitioner HeartMath trained practitioner and EVOX Practitioner.
Through the integration of naturopathic medicine, neuroscience-informed perspectives, somatic and trauma-informed approaches, and a deep commitment to personal and spiritual inquiry, Dr. Maxson offers an individualized perspective on health that honors the complexity of the human experience and the potential for meaningful change, not only physically but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
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