About Tess Hunneybell
Tess Hunneybell is a British trauma psychotherapist with more than two decades of clinical practice supporting women living with the lasting effects of trauma, loss, and complex life experiences.
The work she does is demanding and deeply human. It asks for patience, steadiness, and the willingness to sit with people in places that many would rather turn away from. It is work Tess has chosen to dedicate her life to.
She is the founder and clinical director of Healing Trauma Retreats, small residential retreats for women held at San Flaviano, a restored monastery in the mountains of Umbria, Italy.
For the past fifteen years Tess has personally designed and led these retreats, creating a setting where serious therapeutic work can unfold alongside rest, nature, and the gentle rhythm of daily life.
Her approach is relational, thoughtful, and grounded — combining contemporary psychological understanding with body-based awareness and the practical wisdom that comes from many years walking alongside women through difficult chapters of their lives.
The retreats are intentionally small, limited to five women, allowing each person the time, care, and attention needed for the work to unfold at a human pace.
For many women, simply arriving at a place where they feel understood and safely held is the beginning of meaningful change.
Wider Work
Alongside her psychotherapy practice, Tess has spent much of her life working in communities and environments where care, education, and practical action are needed.
Her work has often taken her beyond traditional clinical settings and into places where social systems, policy decisions, and everyday human lives meet.
In the Caribbean she contributed to CALLS, an education centre offering marginalised adolescents a second chance at learning and stability — supporting young people who had been excluded from mainstream schooling to rebuild confidence and reconnect with education.
While living in Mexico, Tess also became a foster mother to seven children, an experience that profoundly shaped her understanding of attachment, resilience, and the importance of stable care in a young person’s life.
In the United Kingdom she has supported projects working with Ukrainian women and children displaced by war, including community initiatives created to acknowledge grief, loss, and the experience of forced migration.
Tess is also the founder of Every Kid Counts – Senegal, a volunteer initiative supporting children affected by forced street-begging systems in West Africa.
Earlier in her professional life, Tess designed and built the Manicou River eco-retreat in Dominica, an award-winning treehouse resort set within ten acres of tropical woodland and organic gardens.
Across these different chapters of her life, Tess’s work has been guided by the same principle: that meaningful change begins when compassion, clear thinking, and practical action come together.
Much of Tess’s life and work has been guided by a simple belief: that compassion, clear thinking, and practical action can create environments where people have the chance to heal, rebuild, and move forward.
Supporting children through the Every Kid Counts initiative in Senegal.