Trauma Retreat for Women

“I got more from this retreat in six days than I had from years of previous therapy.”

Lauren, New Zealand

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Led by Tess Hunneybell

I am a British trauma psychotherapist with over twenty years of clinical practice, and a distinctly considered approach to this work.

I trained rigorously and take the clinical side of this seriously. I also believe that this work does not need to feel like a punishment — or to be painful. Warmth, humour, and simplicity are not extras. They are part of what allows something to shift. In my experience, the moment something complex becomes genuinely understood — not only intellectually, but in the body — is the moment change begins.

I have spent my career doing this work in two very different settings.

At San Flaviano, I work with women who have travelled from across the world to spend a week turning towards what they have been carrying. In Senegal, I work from a simple house in a village with young boys — many of them forced to beg from childhood — as part of Every Kid Counts, the humanitarian organisation I founded. The same principles apply in both places. Trauma is trauma, and human beings are human beings.

What this has taught me is that the most complex psychological processes can be made simple. The work does not need to be heavy. And you — your body, your responses, your survival strategies — are not wrong. They have been adaptive. Something was interrupted. With the right conditions, it can complete.

I have been running these retreats at San Flaviano for fifteen years. More than 1,200 women have come through this place. I live here — this is my home — and I am present throughout the week.

Private, Discreet, Individually Held

The trauma work you do at this retreat is yours alone. There are no sharing circles, no expectation to explain yourself to the group, and no pressure to disclose anything before you are ready — or at all.

Your therapeutic sessions with me are private, carefully paced, and held with complete clinical discretion. What happens in that room stays there.

Across the week, you will have individual sessions with me, alongside small group workshops, somatic therapy, and gentle trauma-informed yoga. The workshops are used to explain and organise what you are experiencing — to give language and structure to the work. The somatic work and yoga support the body to settle, regulate, and integrate what is shifting.

What happens around the table, on the walks, over dinner — that is something different. Not therapy. Simply the particular ease of being alongside women who understand without needing much explanation.

Connection here is not facilitated.

There are no introductions, and no performance, no expectation to speak about yourself in a group. No guided touch, no eye contact practices, no structured ways of “getting to know each other.”

You arrive, you settle, and you meet people in your own way.

Over lunch. On a walk. Sitting in the garden. During the week, relationships form naturally, at a pace that feels right for you.

Everyone here is an adult. You decide who you speak to, how much you share, and what feels comfortable.

For many women arriving with an already activated nervous system, this matters.

You are not asked to override your instincts.
You are not asked to perform connection.
You are not asked to be open before you are ready.

And because of that, connection tends to happen more easily.

The Retreat Family

Most women arrive alone. They drive up through the hills, or are collected from the station, and walk through the door of San Flaviano not quite knowing what to expect.

Within a few hours, they have usually stopped worrying.

There are only five of you. The house is calm. There is food on the table and a genuine welcome — not a programme itinerary, not a name badge, just a cup of something warm and a chance to breathe. People arrive tired, sometimes nervous, occasionally convinced they have made a terrible mistake. They settle in quickly. This is what San Flaviano does.

“When I first arrived, sitting in the car with three women I didn’t know, I couldn’t help but think: what have I done. Looking back now, I smile at that moment — because what awaited me was one of the most meaningful and life-changing experiences I’ve ever had.” — Mireille, Switzerland

Women come from different countries, different lives, different histories. And yet, very quickly, what becomes more apparent is not the difference but the familiarity. Something shared. Something recognised. The particular relief of being in a room where you do not have to explain yourself from the beginning.

Every woman who enquires speaks with me directly before booking. I want to understand what she is carrying — and to be honest about whether this is the right moment, and the right fit. The five women who come together each week are not random. They are brought together with care.

And something in that works.

Across more than 150 retreats, it has worked every time.

There is real clinical work during the week. There is also time that is simply yours — coffee in the garden with nothing to do, walks in the Umbrian hills, long unhurried lunches, early nights in a quiet room. The week breathes. Nobody is chasing you.

What nobody quite predicts is the other women.

By the end of the week, something has usually happened between the five of you that is hard to name and easy to feel. Women who arrived as strangers leave knowing each other properly — not the version people usually show the world, but the one underneath. The one that was there all along.

The friendships made here do not end at the gate.

Women who met at San Flaviano meet again in London, Dublin, Sydney, Berlin — not because anyone organised it, but because something real happened between them. Something that turned out to matter.

The Team

Tess Hunneybell — Trauma psychotherapist, retreat founder, and your primary guide throughout the week. Twenty years of clinical practice. Lives at San Flaviano. Onsite from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave.

Eszter — Somatic therapist and yoga teacher. Eszter brings a quiet, steady presence to the body-based work — nervous system awareness, breath-led movement, and the kind of grounded practice that helps things settle without force.

Viktoria — Senior yoga teacher. Viktoria’s sessions are gentle, invitational, and beautifully held. You will never feel pushed. You will always feel supported.

Burnout

More women now arrive describing burnout than anything else.

They are functioning. Working. Managing. From the outside, things often look intact. But internally, something feels worn down — a constant level of pressure, a loss of energy, a sense of being stretched too thin for too long.

Burnout is often treated as something that can be fixed with rest. Rest helps. But in many cases, it doesn’t touch what is underneath.

When I speak to women about burnout, I often start with a simple statement.

You only have to do enough to get the job done.

Some women feel immediate relief when they hear that. Others feel uncomfortable, even resistant. It can sound like lowering standards, not caring, not doing things properly.

That reaction is important.

Because for many women, enough has never felt like enough.

This is rarely about work. It is usually something much older — a pattern formed early, where more was required, or where approval depended on doing more, being more, holding more.

Over time, that becomes internal.

No matter how much is done, the system doesn’t register completion. There is no clear endpoint. No sense of being finished.

This is what sits underneath burnout.

At this retreat, we don’t treat burnout as something to manage. We work with what is driving it.

The aim is not to make you do less. It is to allow your system to recognise when something is complete — to feel, at a body level, that enough has been done.

When that shifts, the pressure begins to ease.

Read more about how we can stop and help heal burnout

How the Retreat Is Held

This is not a schedule of sessions you attend and then step away from. It is a continuous therapeutic environment — a full week in which the work unfolds through relationship, presence, and careful attention to what is actually needed, rather than what is planned in advance.

I am onsite throughout the entire week. Not only in one-to-one sessions, but across the day — available, in conversation, and attentive to what is emerging. That continuity is part of what allows the work to go further than it otherwise could.

The week includes:

— One-to-one therapeutic sessions with me, woven through the week
— Small group teaching and workshops, where things often become clear in a different way
— Somatic therapy with Eszter — nervous system awareness, breath-led movement, body-based        work
— Yoga with Viktoria — gentle, grounding, and never performative
— Guided meditation and regulation practices
— Time outdoors in the Umbrian landscape — space, air, and the particular quiet of these hills
— An afternoon at Triponzo Thermal Spa, included for direct bookings
— Three freshly prepared Italian meals each day

— Massage and reflexology — available to book during the week (additional cost)

The group never exceeds five women. That is not a selling point. It is a clinical decision.

On Travelling Right Now

“Several women have written to ask whether now is a good time to travel. My honest answer: for many of them, the distance from the news has been part of the medicine.”
— Tess Hunneybell

San Flaviano sits in one of the quietest corners of central Italy — mountain air, birdsong, and a pace genuinely different from the world outside. The monastery has been a place of sanctuary for centuries. That quality doesn’t change with the news cycle.

If you’re uncertain about travelling right now, please reach out. I’m happy to talk it through.

Morning at San Flaviano in the Umbrian hills.
A quiet place where small groups of women come for deep therapeutic work, rest, and careful support.

Prefer to speak before booking? You can talk it through with Tess.

By booking you agree to our Terms & Conditions.

Triponzo Thermal Spa — included with every direct booking

Day two. Before the deeper work begins, there is this.

A half day in the Valnerina valley, in warm mineral pools built over ancient Roman foundations, with mountains above you and nothing required of you. No history to explain. No story to tell. Just five women getting to know each other outside of all of that — in the water, in the sun, in conversation.

By the time you return to San Flaviano, you know each other. Not your stories — each other. It changes what becomes possible over the days that follow.

Complimentary spa pass included · €52 value · Direct bookings only

Optional treatments 

Additional bodywork is available to book during the week:

Full body massage · 75 min · €90 · Aerial Thai Massage · 75 min · €90 · Reflexology · 60 min · €70

Sessions are bookable on arrival.

“I left the retreat feeling energised, confident, and filled with a renewed sense of hope.” Sue T, UK

The view from the dining table overlooking the ever-changing hues of the Sibillini Mountain Range.