Grace Alvarez Sesma

Cultural Practitioner, Curandera, Ceremonialist

[courses/subjects] Integrative Mental Health & Addiction 

Grace Alvarez Sesma is a cultural practitioner of Mexican Traditional Healing (Curanderismo), a ceremonialist, and activist. In addition to her Curanderismo healing practice, she is a facilitator for San Diego State University’s Academy for Professional Excellence School of Social Work Tribal Star program. She serves as Elder-in-Residence annually at the First Nations Iskotew and Kumik teaching lodges in Canada. Grace is a 1993 Fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute, a collaborative project with the Center for Creative Leadership and Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. As a cultural educator, she works with Chicano/Latinx/Indigenous mental health therapists and other healthcare providers to promote understanding of Mexican and Indigenous culture-specific interventions and to encourage mutually respectful collaboration. She is a member of the Kanap Kuahan Coalition, advisor to the House of the Moon (Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women), and serves on the Consciousness & Healing Initiative (CHI) Practitioners Council.