Areas of expertise

Well-being

The central framework Dr. C created based on 20+ years of research, clinical, teaching, leadership and parenting experience is The Way to Well-being©. The framework describes the critical components of the journey toward well-being:
1. Radically accepting the whole true story of our lives and ourselves,
2. Cultivating relational safety©,
3. Embracing the embodied certainty of our intrinsic self-worth, and
4. Living into the freedom of a life where we express, connect, innovate, and savor with the 8 C’s*: calm, curiosity, clarity, confidence, compassion, courage, connection, and creativity.
See Dr. C’s full dissertation: The Way to Well-being
*The 8 C’s of the true Self are part of Dr. Richard C. Schwartz’ teaching and frameworks in Internal Family Systems (IFS). (See more about Dr. Schwartz and IFS.)
Read the article on The meaning and essence of child well-being according to child welfare professionals.
Co-authors: Julia Pryce & Gina Samuels
Listen to my conversation about the Way to Well-being© on the Illinois DCFS podcast.
Listen on Spotify.

Learn how foster freedom for yourself and others. If you do not feel free to enact the behaviors listed, take a look at how in touch you are with your whole, true story, whether their is safety in your relationships, and if you have embraced your self-worth. See fostering freedom infographic.
Dr. Colacchio created her very first conceptual framework in 2007 to describe the therapeutic process she was experiencing as a new clinician and also as a client.
This critical process these steps:
1. Develop skills and habits for self-awareness.
2. Cultivate understanding of why, how, where suffering came from and is reinforced.
3. Practice compassion for self and others.
4. Embrace the freedom from suffering and savor the awareness of a rich, full life of multi-dimensional experiences.
Without realizing it at the time, this was the start of a centering freedom as the aim of her work.
In an art-based collective auto-ethnography, my colleagues and I created and analyzed artwork as we uncovered how arts-based research (ABR) can offer a sense of deep authenticity, connection, and freedom.
Check out this article on Finding Freedom and Connection in Arts-Based Collaborative Autoethnography.
Co-authors: Darren Cosgrove and Dana Levin.

Relational safety© is a key ingredient of well-being. It describes the conditions of interpersonal relationships that allow a person to feel seen, respected, supported, important, loved and appreciated.
In this innovative podcast experience, co-hosts Dr. Colacchio and Nick Davis, start out as acquaintances. By creating relational safety© with and for one another, they explore various topics as they model how to forge a deeply open and respectful relationship.
Listen to the “All We Know is Where We Are” podcast on Spotify
Read about a pre-cursor to relational safety: Steadfast benevolence.
Co-authors: Julia Pryce, Johanna Barry, and Philip Young P. Hong
Coming soon in 2026.

The 7 Habits of Well-leadership© was developed to translate the comprehensive findings from my well-being research, teaching, clinical work, and leadership experience. The model (and accompanying skills and practices) represent the distillation of the central themes and lessons and apply those to leadership behaviors.
To ground our teaching and leadership in values, my colleagues and I created a holistic framework to guide work in pedagogy and beyond. Read the article on The Loyola Way.
Listen to a limited series podcast about values-based teaching and learning.
Co-hosted by Dr. Polina Pine.