My Education and Helping Experience

I have been working as a coach, teacher, mentor and guide since 2000. Within these decades I’ve been continuing my education formally and informally within addiction, recovery, human behavior, relationships and psychology. I have lived experience in many areas that you may seek a counselling therapist for and I am currently studying to be an accredited BACP counsellor within the United Kingdom under supervision.

Formal Education

Integrative Counselling Advanced Diploma Student, BACP Accredited - April 2023 to present
Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy Certification - Embody Lab - 2022
How the Brain Forms New habits: Why Willpower is Not Enough, Institute for Brain Potential CE Brian E. King. Ph.D., 2012
Why We Worry: Understanding and Treating Anxiety Disorders - IBP CE - John Preston, Psy.D., ABPP, 2011
Anger, Forgiveness, and the Healing Process - IBP CE - Robert Grant, Ph.D., 2010
Life Coach Certification – Coaches Institute International – 2009
Bachelor of Arts - Vermont College – 1998
Associates Degree - North Central Technical Institute - 1983

My Recovery Story

Although I’d earned a prestigious technical degree and stood toe to toe with professional engineers, physicists, CEOs, and managers for twelve years while working with laser systems, I did not enjoy it. Many of the personal and mental health issues I would later help others heal from through coaching programs were affecting at this time as well. I stopped abusing substances realized how I unhappy I was, quit my respectable-to-the-world job and became a self-supporting exotic dancer, stripper by another name, in my mid-thirties.

During this time in San Francisco, I returned to College for my Bachelor’s Degree, began writing and continued my self-education. I also started my own counselling therapy and began unraveling the tendrils of self-neglect and abuse that led me to have a somatic body memory of being sexually abused as a child, a fact of life I’d repressed for over 50 years. While my personal healing journey continued, my life to now finally made sense. The self-reflective work of awareness, understanding, acceptance and approval, self-appeal work and philosophy I’d been teaching for decades, brought me to my personal truth and ultimate liberation from self-sabatoge and neglect. Today I continue befriending myself in new caring ways and my journey to self-love flourishes.

It was only after standing confidently on a stage although feeling insecure inside, growing my esteem and confidence from the inside out and settling into my bones and breath with patience and purpose that my feelings of inner safety, trust and peace are palpable.

My Evolution to Self Appeal and Present Day

I believe there is a wisdom to life that we may never fully understand but that, if we’re lucky, will propel us forward in ‘our’ best way. Without realizing it at the time, but today fully embracing as universal and human truth, is what Carl Rogers, one of the founders of Humanist Psychology, is that ALL people have the ability to ‘self-right’ if given the opportunities. My experience has shown me, led me, and sometimes pushed me to believe this with every fiber of my being. This is true healing, happiness and health and this is what I want the people I work with to experience as well.

Susan Bremer Professional Accomplishments

With a focus on empowering women, I’ve spoken at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley, CSU Stanislaus Panhellenic Society, a local chapter of the National Organization of Women, women’s retreats and business groups. I’ve appeared on Fox News and been interviewed in San Francisco Bay Area media. My writing has appeared in Gauntlet and Men’s Health Magazines and an anthology, Flesh for Fantasy, Producing and Consuming Exotic Dance. My memoir, From Sex Appeal to Self Appeal: Stripping Barriers to Recovery—Leaving Addiction, Returning to Body and Mind chronicles my unique journey away from approval-seeking and external validation to one of internal validation and self-respect. In my TEdx Wilmington talk, Self Appeal, Not Sex Appeal to Embrace Your Sexual Body, I illuminate my journey and advocate why it’s important that all women own their bodies.