Heidi Schreiber-Pan, PhD, LCPC, NCC,

Anxiety & Nature Therapy

Heidi Schreiber-Pan, PhD, LCPC, NCC, is a psychotherapist, author, researcher, clinical director, and continuing education presenter specializing in anxiety, resilience, neuroscience-informed counseling, stress reduction, occupational burnout, positive psychology, and nature-informed mental health care. She is the founder and executive director of the Center for Nature Informed Therapy and serves as clinical director of Chesapeake Mental Health Collaborative in Maryland.

Her clinical and educational work examines how thoughts, emotions, learned behavior, nervous-system activation, relationships, personal meaning, and the natural environment interact to influence psychological well-being. She integrates established approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, mindfulness, existential psychotherapy, positive psychology, and spiritually integrated counseling with structured nature-informed interventions. Her goal is not to position nature as a replacement for psychotherapy or medical treatment, but to help clinicians use it carefully as one component of ethical, individualized care.

Dr. Schreiber-Pan is particularly known for translating anxiety neuroscience into language and interventions that clinicians can apply in practice. Her teaching helps professionals explain fear responses without shaming clients, connect psychoeducation with behavioral change, and select interventions that address both cognitive worry and physiological arousal. Her books extend this work to anxiety management, resilience, mindfulness, and the relationship between the natural world and psychological healing.

Professional Background

Dr. Schreiber-Pan earned an M.S. in Counseling Psychology from Loyola University Maryland in 2004 and a PhD in Counseling Education from the university in 2015. Her doctoral scholarship examined nature, resilience, spirituality, and psychological well-being. She later served as a faculty member and continues to be described by current professional profiles as affiliated with Loyola University Maryland. Loyola’s own profile of her work also documents her role in developing Chesapeake Mental Health Collaborative as a practice grounded in collaboration, continued learning, and whole-person care.

As founder and executive director of the Center for Nature Informed Therapy, Dr. Schreiber-Pan develops education and experiential programs at the intersection of nature and mental health. The organization provides professional development, mentorship, retreats, community initiatives, and training for clinicians and other helping professionals. Its stated mission is to promote mental health by restoring a healing relationship with the natural world, while its programming emphasizes accessibility, ethical integration, and practical application.

Dr. Schreiber-Pan also leads clinical work through Chesapeake Mental Health Collaborative. The practice integrates established psychological approaches with services that may include mindfulness, nature-informed therapy, art therapy, spiritually integrated care, anxiety treatment, grief support, and organizational wellness. Her current professional materials identify anxiety, stress, grief, positive psychology, nature-based therapy, and organizational well-being among her core areas of practice and education.

Her professional training addresses mental health clinicians as well as schools, workplaces, faith communities, and other organizations. She has developed programs on anxiety, resilience, emotional intelligence, neuroscience, occupational burnout, stress management, and organizational well-being. This range allows her to connect individual clinical care with the environmental and organizational conditions that influence mental health.

Her publications include books and workbooks written for clinicians, helping professionals, and general readers. Chesapeake Publication verifies Taming the Anxious Mind: A Guidebook to Relieve Stress & Anxiety, The Outside Within: Stories of Nature’s Role in Psychological Well-Being, and her newer professional guide, The Ground Beneath Our Work: Nature-Informed Therapy and Care for a World in Need. The latter was released on April 22, 2026, and presents a structured framework for integrating nature into therapy, healthcare, education, and other helping roles.

Areas of Expertise

Anxiety, Panic, and Chronic Worry. Anxiety treatment is a defining focus of Dr. Schreiber-Pan’s clinical education. She helps clinicians examine how threat detection, fear learning, avoidance, physical arousal, uncertainty, repetitive thinking, and interpretation of bodily sensations can reinforce one another. This multidimensional view can help therapists provide accurate psychoeducation while developing interventions suited to the client’s particular anxiety pattern. Clinical Events’ article Inside the Anxious Mind provides complementary discussion of neuroscience-informed anxiety assessment and treatment.

Neuroscience-Informed Counseling. Dr. Schreiber-Pan teaches clinicians to use brain science as a practical aid rather than as an oversimplified explanation for every symptom. Her programs explore how the amygdala, cortical processes, nervous-system activation, attention, learning, and regulation influence anxiety. Clinical Events’ guide to the amygdala and anxiety offers related information about fear responses, psychoeducation, grounding, mindfulness, and emotional regulation.

Nature-Informed Therapy. Dr. Schreiber-Pan’s work explores how nature can be integrated intentionally into mental health treatment and professional care. Possible practices include sensory awareness, outdoor mindfulness, therapeutic walking, grounding, metaphor, reflection, and structured contact with natural environments. Her framework emphasizes that nature-informed interventions should be adapted to the client’s needs, physical abilities, culture, environment, treatment goals, and informed consent.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness. Her approach combines CBT principles with mindfulness and whole-person regulation strategies. CBT can help clients identify patterns involving catastrophic interpretation, rumination, avoidance, reassurance seeking, and safety behaviors, while mindfulness can strengthen awareness of thoughts and sensations without immediate reaction. Clinicians expanding their anxiety-treatment knowledge can also review Clinical Events’ guide to anxiety disorders and exposure therapy.

Resilience and Positive Psychology. Dr. Schreiber-Pan’s research and teaching examine how hope, meaning, supportive relationships, gratitude, emotional intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and connection with nature may strengthen resilience. Her work does not treat resilience as an expectation that clients should simply tolerate adversity. Instead, it considers the personal, relational, environmental, and organizational resources that make recovery and adaptation more possible.

Occupational Burnout and Organizational Well-Being. Dr. Schreiber-Pan provides education for professionals and organizations addressing chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, workplace relationships, productivity, and structural well-being. Her perspective recognizes that burnout cannot always be resolved through individual self-care when workload, workplace culture, inequity, inadequate support, or unclear expectations remain unchanged. Clinical Events’ program on addressing clinician burnout offers related education on stress, compassion fatigue, resilience, and systemic influences on professional well-being.

Grief, Meaning, and Spiritually Integrated Care. Her clinical materials also identify grief, existential concerns, and spiritually integrated counseling among her areas of practice. These approaches can help clients explore loss, identity, values, purpose, and their relationship with the natural world. Spiritual themes are incorporated according to client preference rather than assumed to be appropriate for every person.

Professional Education and Consultation. Dr. Schreiber-Pan provides continuing education and consultation for clinicians, organizations, schools, and community groups. Her teaching connects research, accessible explanation, reflective exercises, and practical interventions, helping professionals translate concepts from anxiety neuroscience, CBT, mindfulness, resilience, and nature-informed therapy into thoughtful clinical applications.

Authored Publications

• Taming the Anxious Mind: A Guidebook to Relieve Stress & Anxiety
• The Outside Within: Stories of Nature’s Role in Psychological Well-Being
• Breaking the Anxiety Cycle: A Treatment Blueprint for Acute & Chronic Anxiety Relief
• The Ground Beneath Our Work: Nature-Informed Therapy and Care for a World in Need