Research
Current Projects
The SOMA Program
The SOMA Program (Somatic Orientation & Mindful Attunement) is a 16-week experiential training designed to cultivate embodied self-awareness and interoceptive skills in graduate counseling students. Grounded in somatic psychology, Gestalt theory, and counselor development research, the program integrates breathwork, mindful movement, reflective practice, and applied clinical skills. SOMA aims to strengthen counselors’ capacity for presence, attunement, and self-regulation—core competencies linked to ethical and effective counseling practice. Ongoing research evaluates the program’s impact through mixed-methods designs, including surveys, journaling, and focus groups.
The Development and Validation of the Counselor Embodied Self-Awareness Scale (CESAS)
The CESAS project focuses on developing and validating the first empirically grounded instrument to measure embodied self-awareness in counselors. Built from the Dynamic Self-Awareness Integration Process (DSAIP) model, the scale assesses interoceptive attunement, somatic regulation, reflective capacity, and embodied presence. This multi-phase project includes expert review, pilot testing, factor analysis, and longitudinal validation to ensure psychometric rigor. The CESAS aims to provide counselor educators and researchers with a reliable tool for assessing growth in embodied awareness across training contexts.
Substance Use Stigma in Counselor Education
This phenomenological study explores how counselor educators understand, experience, and address substance use stigma within their teaching. Through in-depth interviews and course material review, the project examines educators’ personal histories with substance use disorders, their attitudes and beliefs, and the challenges they face when teaching substance use content. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the study identifies strategies educators use to foster empathy, reduce stigma, and promote humanistic, nonjudgmental practice among counseling students. Findings will support curriculum development and faculty training initiatives aimed at strengthening substance use education in CACREP-accredited programs.
Past Projects
Counselor Self-Awareness Development in Counselor Education
This project examined how counselors-in-training develop embodied self-awareness during their graduate training. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, Dr. Rodriguez and lead researcher Lindsey Bell identified a developmental process through which students integrate bodily, emotional, and reflective dimensions of self-awareness. The study resulted in the publication of the Dynamic Self-Awareness Integration Process (DSAIP) Model, a framework describing how counselors move from cognitive understanding to embodied integration through relational support, experiential practice, and reflective meaning-making. The DSAIP Model now serves as a theoretical foundation for the SOMA Program and the CESAS instrument.
MTurk Study: Trauma, Interoception, and Substance Use
This national MTurk-based study examined how lifetime trauma exposure relates to substance use, mental health distress, and key regulatory mechanisms such as emotion regulation and interoceptive awareness. Participants completed validated measures assessing trauma history, substance use severity, PTSD symptoms, depression, anxiety, resilience, and body-based awareness. Structural equation modeling tested whether emotion regulation and interoceptive awareness mediate the relationship between trauma and substance use. Findings contribute to growing evidence that somatic awareness plays a meaningful role in addiction processes and relapse risk. This project resulted in a publication in the Journal of Addictions & Offender Counseling and informs future research on mind–body interventions for trauma-exposed populations.
Examining Trauma Prevalence and Exploring Interoception as a Mechanism for Emotion Regulation in MOUD
An NIH Diversity Supplement grant funds this project through the Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL) Initiative. This study seeks to provide training and mentorship to Dr. Monique Rodriguez to examine research questions specific to: a) the types of lifetime trauma exposure among men and women engaged in medication treatment for opioid use disorder and the association between types of trauma and symptomatic distress; and b) explore interoceptive awareness as a potential mediator of emotion regulation and mental health indicators. The results from this project will address gaps in knowledge in MOUD treatment research that is critical for consideration in opioid use disorder treatment and relapse prevention, with the goal of improving treatment efficacy and decreasing the public health burden of opioid use disorder.
Mitigating the Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences for Youth in Protective Services Through an Evidence-Informed Resilience Approach
This project has been developed by Dr. Melody Avila and Dr. Monique Rodriguez, and the partnership with the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (HSC) with the involvement of the Institute for Resilience, Health and Justice (IRHJ), the College of Nursing, the College of Education & Human Sciences, the Department of Family and Community Medicine, the division of Child Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and collaboration with the New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD). This project is a randomized control trial of the ADOBE Portal Project and focuses on Hispanic adolescent mental behavioral health (MBH), building on and enhancing IRHJ’s integrated, multidisciplinary, sustainable, whole-family approach by not only intensifying the incorporation of telehealth services into the model but also by expanding access to include all adolescents who have been referred to CYFD PS, regardless of whether or not they have a history of incarceration. The goal of this project is to enhance and expand the IRHJ model in a way that will address MBH needs and reduce health disparities for Hispanic adolescents.
