Healing Trauma Retreats for Women
Over 1,200 women have taken part in this carefully held retreat, offering supportive guidance and genuine time to rest in a peaceful mountain setting.
Max 5 women · Led by trauma psychotherapist Tess Hunneybell. 15+ years’ experience
For many, life continues on the surface while something underneath is asking for time and attention.
What This Retreat Is
This is a carefully held retreat for women who feel ready to spend some time with what has been carried for a long while — experiences of loss, strain, or patterns that no longer feel supportive.
The retreat is designed and led by Tess Hunneybell and takes place at San Flaviano, her monastery home in the Umbrian hills of Italy.
The structure has grown over many years of retreat work and through supporting more than 1,200 women in this small-group format. The week unfolds gradually, allowing insight to deepen and for change to settle at a pace that feels steady and manageable.
Alongside one-to-one sessions, the days include gentle shared learning, time outdoors, simple movement, and the natural rhythm of daily life together. A small, experienced team supports the retreat throughout the week, offering continuity, care, and a calm, consistent presence.
The retreat offers space, steadiness, and time away from usual demands — creating the conditions for reflection, rest, and meaningful change to take root in a grounded, human way.
The days are held so you can step out of effort and turn your attention inward. Practical needs, including optional therapeutic massage, are quietly taken care of.
Everything around you is arranged with care, so you can settle, rest, and reconnect with yourself.
There is room for focused work, rest, time outdoors, shared meals, and moments of ease and enjoyment.
Whatever the magic formula is, it works. This retreat is one of the best things I’ve ever done. Sally, UK.
Who This Retreat Is For
This retreat is open to women from around the world who feel drawn to deeper self-understanding, healing from past experience, or who are simply in need of meaningful rest and a chance to reset.
Women arrive at many different stages of life. Over the years, guests have ranged from young adulthood through to later life — including an 18-year-old who attended with her mother, and an 87-year-old who came on her own. What connects people here is not age or background, but a shared curiosity about themselves and a readiness to engage with the work.
Participants are asked to be able to share space with others, take responsibility for themselves, and respect both personal and shared boundaries. Within this setting, the work is held with care, discretion, and professional attention.
How the Retreat Is Held
The retreat is held within a clear and steady framework that allows the work to unfold with care, attention, and a sense of ease.
Days follow a natural rhythm rather than a fixed timetable, blending one-to-one therapy sessions, small group workshops, somatic healing, gentle yoga and dedicated time with the retreat workbook, alongside opportunities to rest, move gently, and spend time in the surrounding landscape. There is also space during the week to visit the local thermal spa, offering a different kind of settling for the body and nervous system.
The small group size supports privacy, depth, and individual attention, so each woman can remain connected to her own experience. Choice and responsiveness shape how the week unfolds, within a structure that feels supportive and consistent, allowing guests to relax into the rhythm of the retreat and feel well held throughout.
I felt so gently held throughout the week. The balance of support, space, and time to rest was exactly what I needed.
Mirelle, Switzerland
Why No Group Sharing
This retreat is designed to be discreet and private.
Personal work is held individually, with space for one-to-one therapeutic attention where experiences can be explored with care, attunement, and appropriate pacing. This allows each person’s process to unfold in a way that feels contained and respectful.
Within the group, there is no expectation to share personal history or speak about private experiences. Shared time is used for learning, orientation, reflection, and being together, without pressure to disclose or explain yourself.
By honouring privacy and individual boundaries, the retreat creates an environment where people can remain connected to themselves and to others, while allowing the work to stay focused, thoughtful, and well held throughout the week.
The Therapeutic Team
The retreat is supported by a small, experienced team who work closely together throughout the week, helping to create a steady rhythm and an atmosphere of attentive, thoughtful care as the days unfold.
Tess has been hosting these retreats for over 15 years, shaping the format through long experience and ongoing work with women in this setting. This is the fourth season working alongside Eszter and Viktoria, whose presence and continuity bring a familiar, trusted feel to the week.
Together, the team offers a calm, consistent environment so that guests feel supported, at ease, and able to settle into the rhythm of the retreat.
“This is a place where you are supported with kindness and care, and free to focus on yourself.”
— Tess Hunneybell
You’re very welcome to send a confidential message and I’ll reply personally.
Clinical Experience
This retreat is curated and held by Tess Hunneybell, a British psychotherapist known for her calm, attentive, and deeply human way of working.
With over two decades of experience, her approach brings together contemporary psychological understanding, body-based practice, and many years of holding small-group retreats for women in this setting. The work is relational, focused, and steady, allowing meaningful shifts to take place without pressure or urgency.
The week is held with care, discretion, and depth, creating a setting where guests can feel supported, understood, and able to engage with what matters to them while they are here.
For those who wish, optional online sessions are available before or after the retreat, offering space to prepare or to continue integrating what has already taken place. If it would be helpful to talk things through beforehand, you’re very welcome to arrange a short, informal call with me to ask questions and get a sense of whether this feels like the right next step for you.
Booking Direct
Guests who book their retreat directly through this website receive a VIP pass to Triponzo Thermal Spa as a gift.
Set in the Umbrian countryside, Triponzo is a beautiful thermal spa known for its natural sulphur pools, warm water, and quiet, restorative atmosphere. During the week, there is time to spend a half day there — soaking in the sun, unwinding in the pools, and enjoying relaxed, easy time together. There’s space for conversation, laughter, and simple enjoyment, alongside rest and restoration.
The pass is offered as a small gesture of appreciation for booking directly, and as an extension of the retreat’s emphasis on rest, integration, and simple enjoyment.
An Invitation
If something here feels like it’s speaking to you, you’re welcome to get in touch.
We can have a short, relaxed conversation — a chance to ask questions, hear a little more about the retreat, and sense whether it feels right for you. There’s no pressure to decide anything. Just a conversation, when the timing feels right.
With care,
Tess
Press & Recognition
Tess Hunneybell and the retreat’s approach have been featured in Condé Nast Traveller and other leading publications, in the context of trauma-informed, place-based healing for women.
The coverage reflects recognition of the work’s clinical grounding, small-group structure, and emphasis on safety, containment, and depth.
