About
“Understand, feel, move forward.”
Knowing yourself better helps you understand what you are experiencing. Listening to your body helps you recognise your needs. Getting moving again helps you regain your ability to act.
Thérapie Intégrale
Understand, feel, move forward: Thérapie Intégrale was born from this balance.
Thérapie Intégrale was born from a simple conviction: body and mind do not work separately, they are deeply connected.
Through psychology, sport psychology, movement and body-based approaches, I offer support adapted to each person, their journey and their needs.
The aim is not to apply a single method, but to help you better understand what you are going through, reconnect with your resources and move towards a balance that feels like you.
Paloma Alonso
Live, simply live.
My path has been shaped by movement, sport, travel and the same curiosity: understanding human beings, their body, their mind and their ability to adapt and grow.
I am Paloma Alonso, a psychologist by training specialising in sport psychology, with a university Master’s degree in sport psychology and a Bachelor’s degree in psychology with a health specialisation (Spain). My degree is recognised in Switzerland by PsyCo. But my approach today has not been built through my studies alone. It is the result of more than twenty years of professional and personal experience across sport, the mountains, psychology, yoga, massage, travel and human encounters.
Experiences that, over time, came together naturally to give birth to Thérapie Intégrale.
Sport and the mountains
as a school of life
Sport has always played an essential role in my journey.
An athlete myself, I taught skiing for 17 years and obtained the Swiss Federal Diploma as a snowsports instructor. Throughout those years, I worked with children, teenagers and adults of different levels and nationalities.
Teaching skiing taught me far more than how to pass on a technique.
On the slopes, I saw how much self-confidence, motivation, concentration, fear and emotional management can influence the way we act. Two people with similar physical abilities can react in completely different ways to the same difficulty.
You then have to observe, understand, adapt, find the right words and sometimes take another path to help the person progress.
This experience played a big part in my interest in psychology and, later, in sport psychology and mental preparation.
Today, it also feeds my work with athletes on performance, motivation, confidence, pressure, injury and returning to sport.
Alongside skiing, I trained in socio-cultural facilitation. This training gave me valuable tools and resources to lead groups, organise activities and create spaces where everyone can find their place.
In particular, it led me to work at the Reka holiday village in Zinal as coordinator of children’s activities, an experience that strengthened my love of working with young people and as part of a team.
Living and working
around the world
Travel has profoundly shaped the way I understand and support others.
I did not only travel to discover other countries. I chose to live and work abroad, notably in the United States, New Zealand and Chile, fully immersing myself in the daily life and culture of each of these countries.
On top of these professional experiences came many personal journeys around the world.
Living in other cultures, working with people of very different nationalities and backgrounds, and learning to adapt to new ways of communicating, working and living have deeply enriched the way I see human beings.
Above all, these experiences taught me that there is no single way to live, to understand a difficulty or to find your balance again.
Each person has their own story, references, resources and pace.
This ability to adapt is now essential to the way I work.
From yoga and the body
to psychology
Along the way, I also sought to deepen my understanding of the body and movement.
I trained in yoga through a 300-hour Multistyle Yoga teacher training, complemented by a 200-hour training and by experience in therapeutic yoga in Rishikesh, India.
Practising and teaching yoga allowed me to explore breathing, body awareness, movement, concentration and the links between our physical and psychological state.
At the same time, I trained in therapeutic massage, developing another understanding of the body, tension, recovery and physical well-being.
Psychology then gave a scientific and theoretical framework to many of the observations I had made over all those years.
My studies in psychology, followed by my specialisation with a Master’s in sport psychology, allowed me to explore in depth the mechanisms linked to emotions, motivation, behaviour, self-confidence, stress, performance and processes of change.
From Yoga Meditation Therapy
to Thérapie Intégrale
In 2019, I founded Yoga Meditation Therapy with the wish to bring together different practices around well-being, the body and self-knowledge.
The project was already based on one essential idea: knowing yourself better in order to better understand your needs and adapt better to life’s different situations.
Over the years, my professional path has evolved.
Psychology gradually took centre stage. Sport psychology naturally joined my experience as an athlete and my many years of teaching. Work around rehabilitation, motivation and movement created a further link between my different skills.
Thérapie Intégrale is the natural continuation of this evolution.
Today it brings together everything I have learned along the way, while giving each discipline its rightful place.
Body and mind
deeply connected
Stress can show up in the body. An injury can affect an athlete’s confidence. A period of isolation can gradually reduce motivation and the desire to act. A personal difficulty can affect sleep, energy or our ability to look ahead.
Conversely, resuming an activity, regaining confidence in your body, moving or simply gradually rebuilding a rhythm can also contribute to psychological change.
This interaction lies at the heart of Thérapie Intégrale.
My background now gives me different entry points: psychology, sport psychology, movement, yoga and bodywork.
However, it is not about mixing everything together.
Each approach keeps its specific character, and each form of support is built around the person.
For some, the work will mainly take place through talking and understanding. For others, movement or physical activity may become resources. And in other situations, bodywork will meet a different need.
What matters most is finding what suits you.
Experience
that has become a way of supporting people
Today, the way I work is the result of all these experiences: 17 years of teaching skiing, the Swiss Federal Diploma, my path as an athlete, socio-cultural facilitation, psychology, the Master’s in sport psychology, more than 500 hours of yoga training, therapeutic massage, the mountains, the years spent living and working abroad and many journeys around the world.
But above all, it is the result of the people I have met along the way.
Working with athletes, children, teenagers and adults, supporting people from different cultures and working in very varied environments has taught me not to look for the same answer for everyone.
I work in French, Spanish and English, and I give an essential place to listening, adaptation and the person’s autonomy.
My aim is to offer professional, human support that helps you better understand what you are going through, reconnect with your resources and move forward at your own pace.
Thérapie Intégrale
in Sierre and the Val d’Anniviers
Today, I am developing Thérapie Intégrale in Valais around several areas that have grown out of my journey.
In Sierre, I mainly offer support in psychology, sport psychology, mental preparation, rehabilitation, motivation and getting moving again, as well as therapeutic massage.
In Vissoie, in the Val d’Anniviers, I continue my work around yoga and therapeutic massage.
Different approaches, but one philosophy: taking the whole person into account and offering support adapted to their needs.
Live, simply live.
Get to know yourself. Understand what you are going through. Listen to your body. Adapt when life changes. Reconnect with your resources and keep moving forward.
In the end, this is what all my experiences have taught me and what I wish to pass on today through Thérapie Intégrale.
Photos: Thomas Woodtli (CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons).