Rev. Dr. Melinda Pillsbury Arnold is an interfaith minister, psychotherapist, choreographer, and change agent recognized for the lectures and workshops she has presented internationally for the past twenty-five years to promote wholeness and peace. Dr. Arnold specializes in Solution Focused therapy in healing trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the separations among individuals and nations that produce conflict and war. An acknowledged innovator in the treatment of trauma, Dr. Arnold and colleagues have introduced bills to the New Mexico state legislature advocating PTSD treatment programs for women veterans of the Iraq War and for first responders and their families. In her private practice, Dr. Arnold helps clients recover from trauma by recognizing and transforming ancestral patterns of violence that may be affecting them and others.
With a doctorate in ministry, as well as a master’s degree in transformational counseling and PH.D. studies in depth psychology, world religion, mythology, and cultural anthropology
She has studied with prominent scholars such as James Hillman, Joseph Campbell, Marija Gimbutas, Jean Houston, ecofeminist Susan Griffin, Matthew Fox, Andrew Harvey, Caroline Myss. Intensive travels throughout the Middle East inform both her humanitarian efforts and therapeutic practice. Dr. Melinda Arnold, known as Merlinda, served as The New Seminary’s American representative in Israel during the Antifadah of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Additionally, she has led women’s groups in Egypt, Greece, and Crete, as well as throughout Europe and the Americas, to explore ancient feminine mystery rites. Her art and dance workshop program, “The Mystery Quest,” uses as a therapeutic tool a replica of the Phaestos disk from Crete dating to 175O BCE. She has been a licensed psychotherapist but uses her Interfaith Minister credentials plus her 3-year Dr. of Divinity to run her own private practice in New Mexico.
Her sole proprietorship Sacred Way, blends contemporary psychology and ancient wisdom. Dr. Arnold produces projects such as “Breakthrough,” a multimedia dance and film celebration of nature’s grandeur and cyclical rhythms. Her video “Dancing on the Milky Way” was featured at the 2006 New Mexico Film Guild Festival.
She has been an improvisational dance instructor as well as produced healing dance workshops for PTSD and Trauma called The Dance of Ishtar and The Mystery Quest. She created her own healing modality from Egyptian manuscripts written by the renowned clairvoyant and mystic Omm Sety (which she has had in her possession for over 20 years) called the Ancestry SaRa Technique.
A descendant of prominent American colonial families, Dr. Arnold draws on a three-hundred-year family legacy of public service to fuel her extensive political and humanitarian involvement. She has served as New Mexico events director for the presidential campaigns of Dennis Kucinich and John Kerry, led a pro bono group for murder victims’ families opposing the death penalty, and participated in several international relief efforts, including the 2005 Tsunami Response. She also cofounded Unity in Action, a nonpartisan political organization committed to uncovering common core beliefs to foster connections among people with different political views.
Dr. Arnold’s multidisciplinary, holistic approach informs The Fertile Crescent, at once a reclamation of the feminine wisdom underlying the “cradle of civilization,” a lens onto the horror of the war-torn region today, and an invitation to embark on a collective path toward healing. If you would like to know more of her work, please go on The-Sacred-Way.com. She has also written an inspirational booklet called, “The Book of Grace, On the Missing Scroll of Light.” This book is a meditative jewel for our soul in these times.