About Julie Tallard Johnson

Julie Tallard Johnson MSW, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist who maintains a private counseling and consultation service, Healing Services Overlooking the River, established in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, in 1995. Here she offers the Wheel of Initiation Course, spiritual journaling classes, Bindu Breathwork, writing consultations and one-on-one transpersonal counseling. Her studies and investigation into cognitive-behavioral therapy, mind training, thought transformation, Buddhist philosophy, transpersonal counseling, and group dynamics lead to her development of the Wheel of Initiation and a year-long Initiation course, which she has facilitated since 1995. She employs a multicultural approach in her work, knowing that each person has to find a spiritual practice that is personally relevant for them. In 2008 the land adjacent to her practice was opened up so that others could enjoy its one-acre prairie spiral-labyrinth and 40 acres of nature paths as a place for meditations and writing retreats.

            Julie obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she had a double major in sociology and social work. In 1982 she began her career as a social worker and case manager of a program in Minneapolis for those with chronic and persistent mental illness. She soon became supervisor of a new program where she designed and coordinated “friendship circles” for the adult mentally ill.

            While in graduate school at the University of Minnesota at Duluth, she researched self-help and support groups and could not find one that was set up for siblings and adult children of the mentally ill. As a result, she designed and authored The Eight Stage Healing Process for Families and Friends of the Mentally Ill. This book was published by Doubleday in 1989 and Julie toured the United States, Canada, and Australia teaching the eight stages and offering instructions on how to set up a healthy self-help group. She founded the National Siblings Network in the United States through the Alliance of the Mentally Ill, and Australia adopted her eight-stage protocol, incorporating it into their primary national program for families of the mentally ill.

            Julie has studied neurolinguistic programming (NLP), cognitive behavioral and rational emotive therapies (RET), as well as mind training. Through her continued studies she came to value narrative therapies (storytelling) in helping others to heal, and she has integrated this dynamic into her own work. She has also studied and worked with the ancient I Ching since the age of sixteen which resulted in her book: I Ching for Teens.

            In addition, she is a teacher of Vipassana meditation, which she has also practiced for two decades.Her personal meditation practice began at the age of 16 where she was initiated with a mantra. She took instruction in Rebirthing Breathwork as well as Shamnic Breathwork, Holotrophic and Bindu Breathwork™. Along with this she studied and applied mandala work and the healing power of circles, wheels, and mandalas in the transformative process.

            Julie is the author of nine books, two for adults and seven for youth.

They are:

Hidden Victims Hidden Healers: An Eight-Stage Process for Friends and Family of the Mentally Ill

            Understanding Mental Illness: for Teens Who Care About Someone with Mental Illness

            Celebrate You: Building Your Self-Esteem           

            Making Friends Finding Love

            The Thundering Years: Rituals and Sacred Wisdom of Teens

            Teen Psychic: Exploring Your Intuitive and Spiritual Powers

            I Ching for Teens: Take Charge of Your Destiny with the Ancient Chinese Oracle

            Spiritual Journaling: Writing your Way to Independence

            The Wheel of Initiation: Practices for Releasing Your Inner Light           

 

Julie has also self-published a manual for group facilitators of the Eight Stage Healing Process. She has received many positive reviews and awards for her books including three Roundtable awards, Best Youth book from New York Library, and the Independent Book award for best multicultural book for youth for The Thundering Years: Rituals and Sacred Wisdom for Teens (His Holiness the Dalai Lama wrote a piece for this book). Her Teen Psychic: Developing Your Intuitive and Spiritual Powers book received a Star Review in Publisher’s Weekly and remains one of her most popular books with young readers.

            Julie has a blog: Living the Initiated Life that she updates regularly, offering readers a means for spiritual inquiry through journaling and meditation. She also writes columns on spirituality for two local papers. She lives with her husband, Bill, and daughter, Lydia, outside of Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Contact Julie at julie@julietallardjohnson.com.