Debra Rosenman

Debra Rosenman published her multi-award winning book, The Chimpanzee Chronicles: Stories of Heartbreak and Hope from Behind the Bars, June 16, 2020. Her book has been praised by Jane Goodall as “an important book that will inspire all who read it to do their bit to improve the lives of the animals with whom we share, or should share, our planet.”
Debra is a writer, environmental educator, and a workshop facilitator who has worked as an advocate for captive chimpanzees for almost twenty years. Her advocacy includes developing children’s educational programming that fosters deep respect and empathy for nonhuman animals. Debra founded Voices for Wild Souls, a series of programs designed to help adults and children explore the blurred boundaries between human and nonhuman animals, the sacred relationships between humans and nature, lessons other species have to teach us and implications of our connections with them, individually and collectively.

As a Rubenfeld Synergy and Somatic Archaeology practitioner specializing in trauma, ecological grief, compassion fatigue, and companion animal loss, she helps clients unearth emotions associated with old belief systems, embedded negative somatic patterns, and intergenerational trauma. Debra developed a kincentric approach to working with grief that encompasses all of nature, including our own bodies and the body of the earth. She has practiced in both New York City and Santa Fe.

Debra is also a Wisdom Healing (Zhineng) Qigong teacher and visual artist. Earlier in her career, she founded a New York City–based event planning company that became well known nationwide for its culinary and theatrical events.

Debra lives in the high desert of New Mexico with her adopted elder dog, Freida Heart.