About Dr. Starr MacKinnon
Dr. MacKinnon specializes in mind-body-spirit holistic wellness. She has had a life-long fascination with spirituality, consciousness, and everything esoteric. In 2007, her awareness began to expand which eventually evolved into a Spiritual Awakening. After walking through the experience of spontaneously healing cancer in 2016, she felt compelled to move beyond traditional psychotherapy practices to provide support for the growing Awakening Community. It is her life's passion to help people integrate the ego to experience joy, inner peace, and clarity about the truth of their being. She is also passionate about psychedelic healing and research.
Dr. MacKinnon has extensive experience treating anxiety, depression, relational distress, addiction, grief, LGBTQ/gender identity issues, and psychophysiological manifestations of stress. She is especially interested in helping people to treat difficult symptoms effectively, and to identify what brings their life meaning. At Flourish, she offers individual and group therapy, seminars, community workshops, and online courses to facilitate symptom relief, increased insight, and lasting change. In 2024, Dr. MacKinnon became trained in Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) through Journey Clinical.
CLINICAL SPECIALTIES:
- Life Transformation
- Psychedelic Healing
- Pre and Post Ceremonial Preparation and Integration
- Spiritual & Intuitive Counseling, Law of Attraction, Metaphysics of Change
- Healing & Cancer Recovery
- Mindfulness & Self-Compassion Training
- Anxiety, Depression, Grief, Addiction, Life Transitions, and Interpersonal Distress
- Behavioral Medicine: Stress Management, Sleep, Weight & Wellness, Diabetes, Cardiac Health, & Chronic Pain
- Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback
- Motivational Interviewing (MI)
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Individual Counseling for Adolescents and Adults
CLINICAL TRAINING & EXPERIENCE:
Dr. MacKinnon received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) at Alliant International University, San Diego. She completed a one-year APA accredited internship at Central Washington University followed by a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at San Diego State University. She completed her predoctoral training at San Diego State University and the Center for Behavioral Sciences, Stress and Anxiety Clinic, which included a rotation in pediatrics.
During her doctoral training she specialized in heart rate variability (HRV) data collection, management, and analysis and pursued research involving integrative therapies, health and wellness, and psychophysiological mechanisms of change. In collaboration with HeartMath Research Institute, Dr. MacKinnon published a study on the cardiac regulation of vagal afferents (heart to brain connection) during emotion and diaphragmatic breathing such as that seen in yoga or meditation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23824262
Dr. MacKinnon’s early career focus was integrative medicine, research on alternative therapies, and program development. Working as a clinical psychologist for Kaiser Permanente, Dr. MacKinnon developed the Mind Over Cancer mindfulness-based cancer recovery program for the oncology department. She was also responsible for revising the weight and wellness curriculum for Kaiser Permanente Preventive Medicine.
In addition to her work as a clinician, Dr. MacKinnon has experience as an adjunct professor at Alliant International University and has been involved in research projects with Kaiser Permanente, Scripps Health, Veterans Medical Research Foundation, University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University. She currently runs two flourishing counseling practices in San Diego, California.