Sana Rootwork is a living ecosystem of healing.

What looks like many kinds of work, therapy, supervision, teaching, partnership, is really one practice with deep roots: creating the conditions for people, and the systems that serve them, to move from surviving toward wholeness.

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ABOUT KATHERINE

“I believe that healing is not a luxury. It is a right, and building the conditions for it is the most important work I know how to do.”

I'm Katherine Tineo-Komatsu, a licensed clinical social worker, registered yoga teacher, EMDR-trained therapist, and Senior Lecturer at Columbia University School of Social Work. For more than a decade, I've worked at the intersection of trauma, healing-centered practice, and social justice, in hospitals, schools, community organizations, museums, and classrooms. My roots are Dominican. My training is rigorous. My approach is deeply human. Sana Rootwork is where all of that work now lives, and the throughline that connects it is simple: healing happens in relationship.

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THE PERSON BEHIND THE PRACTICE

Roots, Formation & How I Came to this Work

Where I come from

I grew up shaped by two worlds, the richness of Dominican culture and the complexity of navigating systems not built with people like me in mind. From early on, I understood something I would later find language for: that healing happens in relationship, and that the communities carrying the most pain often have the least access to care. My Dominican roots, the music, the food, the rituals, the way my people hold each other in hard times, have always been present in my work. Being bilingual, fully fluent in English and Spanish, is central to my practice. Language is not just communication. It is belonging.

My Formation

I studied at Brown University, where I began to develop a critical lens, an understanding of power, race, systems, and the structural forces that shape individual lives. From there I pursued graduate training in social work and have been building clinical depth ever since. Over the years I've trained in rigorous, meaningful modalities: EMDR therapy (EMDR-trained, certification in progress), Motivational Interviewing, Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, Historical Trauma through Level 6, Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, and eco-therapy. In 2016, I joined Columbia University School of Social Work as a Senior Lecturer, a role I hold with deep pride. Teaching the next generation of social workers is the same work, at a different scale.

How I work

My clinical practice is healing-centered, somatic, and rooted in social justice. I pay attention to the body, not just what a person thinks or says, but how they carry their experience. I hold the political and structural context of a person's life as clinically relevant. I work with EMDR for trauma processing, integrate yoga and somatic practices, bring harm reduction into everything, and offer eco-therapy, working in and with nature as a site of healing. I am not interested in healing that requires people to leave themselves at the door. The most powerful work happens when the whole person is welcome.

Teaching, training & speaking

Teaching has always been inseparable from my clinical work. At Columbia I teach Motivational Interviewing, Supervision and Staff Development, and Decolonizing Social Work Practice. Beyond the classroom I've trained more than 1,500 professionals across healthcare, education, the arts, and social services (including over 800 in the person-centered trauma-informed approach), for institutions including Mount Sinai, NewYork-Presbyterian, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Jamaica Hospital, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim. My keynote and workshop topics span trauma-conscious and healing-centered care, motivational interviewing, harm reduction, decolonizing practice, social-emotional learning, somatic wellness, and eco-therapy, delivered in person and virtually, in English and Spanish.

WHAT I BELIEVE

Four Ideas that Ground the Work

Healing is Political

You cannot separate a person's pain from the systems that shaped it.

The Body Holds the Story

Trauma lives in the nervous system, not just the narrative. Somatic approaches are essential.

Meet People Where they Are

Harm reduction is a fundamental stance of respect, for where someone is, not where we think they should be.

Nature is Medicine

The living world has always been a site of healing.

CREDENTIALS

Training & Recognition

LCSW — New York State

Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy

Senior Lecturer, Columbia University, since 2016

Historical Trauma, Levels 1–6

Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-200), incl. Yin Yoga

Eco-therapy practice & international conference presenter

EMDR-trained (EMDRIA-recognized; certification in progress)

NYC M/WBE certified

Motivational Interviewing trainer

Bilingual — English & Spanish

IN THEIR WORDS

"Katherine presented a difficult, delicate topic with remarkable knowledge, warmth, and empathy. She created a safe space to learn, reflect, and make connections both professionally and personally, and I left with strategies I could use to support others and to take better care of myself. Three hours genuinely well spent."

~PCTI Training Participant

IN THEIR WORDS

"This is invaluable information for the people and communities we serve. Katherine shares her expertise on an important subject with real care, and creates the kind of inclusive, welcoming learning space that opens people up. We would gladly bring her work to our teams again."

~PCTI Training Participant

IN THEIR WORDS

"I enjoyed and took a lot from the training. It made me realize I was a talker and not a listener. I am now listening to my patients and I have seen a positive change, and honestly, it has helped me on a personal level as well."

~Motivational Interviewing Training Participant

IN THEIR WORDS

"One of the best trainings I've been to in a long time. Katherine kept us engaged the entire time, even virtually, and created an environment where it felt safe to practice and make mistakes. Knowledgeable, compassionate, and genuinely enjoyable."

~Motivational Interviewing Training Participant