Speaking
A clinician who has spent a decade on camera. A communicator who has spent fifteen years in the clinical room.
Before Francesca Maximé was a somatic psychotherapist, she was a television news anchor and correspondent for PBS NewsHour, Bloomberg, NY1, NBC, and FOX — reporting live from 9/11, Occupy Wall Street, and international conflicts, and interviewing heads of state, cultural figures, and artists from Mike Bloomberg to Richard Gere to Alicia Keys.
That combination — broadcast presence and clinical depth — produces a speaker who is unusually equipped to hold complex, emotionally charged material in front of any audience. The work doesn't just inform the talks. It is the talks.
A clinician who has spent a decade on camera. A communicator who has spent fifteen years in the clinical room.
Before Francesca Maximé was a somatic psychotherapist, she was a television news anchor and correspondent for PBS NewsHour, Bloomberg, NY1, NBC, and FOX — reporting live from 9/11, Occupy Wall Street, and international conflicts, and interviewing heads of state, cultural figures, and artists from Mike Bloomberg to Richard Gere to Alicia Keys.
That combination — broadcast presence and clinical depth — produces a speaker who is unusually equipped to hold complex, emotionally charged material in front of any audience. The work doesn't just inform the talks. It is the talks.
What to Expect
What the room walks away with.
Audiences leave with more than information. They leave with a shift in how they understand what's happening in their relationships, their teams, and their own nervous systems.
- A working understanding of how somatic and relational patterns shape performance, decision-making, and the ability to lead under pressure
- Language for what's been difficult to name — in their partnerships, their teams, and themselves
- A different relationship to the idea of change — less willful, more embodied, more sustainable
- Direct experience of what it feels like to be in a room held by someone who has spent fifteen years doing this work at depth
Topics
Signature talks.
The Relational Roots of High Performance
How unaddressed relational and somatic patterns shape decision-making, leadership capacity, and the ability to sustain extraordinary output — and what it takes to address them without dismantling what's working.
Executive audiences · Leadership conferences · Founder communities
Trauma, the Body, and What Actually Heals
A clinically grounded, accessible introduction to somatic approaches to trauma — what the research shows, what talk therapy alone can't reach, and what the path toward actual healing looks like.
Healthcare · Mental health · General audiences
Race, Identity, and the Somatic Roots of Belonging
Drawing on her work in embodied anti-racism and her background as a Haitian-Dominican Italian-American practitioner — how racialized experience lives in the body, what it costs when that goes unaddressed, and what it takes to create environments where people can show up whole.
Organizational leadership · DEI contexts · Mental health communities
What the Research Actually Says About Relationships
What the field's most pioneering thinkers have discovered about what sustains relational connection under the pressures of high-achieving life. Drawing on conversations with Harville Hendrix, Helen LaKelly Hunt, Terry Real, and others.
Couples · Families · Organizations supporting them
Media
Available for print, digital, television, and radio as an expert voice on trauma, somatic healing, relationships, race and identity, and the mental health dimensions of high-achieving life. Comfortable on camera — having spent years as a working journalist — and able to translate clinical complexity into accessible, on-the-record commentary without losing the nuance.
TOPICS FOR MEDIA
Trauma and the body · Couples and relational dynamics · Race, identity, and belonging · Somatic healing · The neuroscience of relationships · High achievement and emotional cost · Mindfulness and nervous system regulation
A Featured Conversation
Notable Collaborations
Selected engagements include a guided audio experience created for MoMA's Artful Practices for Well-Being, a multi-sensory exploration of connectedness and healing through art.
Testimonials
"Francesca has an uncanny ability to create a grounded space where even a group of people who may not know each other somehow feel safe being vulnerable and authentic. She is able to listen deeply and weave together and crystallize the thoughts and reflections she hears into a coherent narrative that both makes us feel heard and understood, and also helps us to see the connections between us and bring us closer together. She is truly a gift."
⚠ Attribution to be confirmed
"The balance between preparation and spontaneous presence, evidence-based facts and intuitive understanding that you modeled, was a wonder to witness. And because of your methods, the trainees were able to take in complex information while simultaneously having a transformative personal experience. One of the trainees said after your final session 'I could sit and learn from her all day.'"
⚠ Attribution to be confirmed
A Good Fit If
This work is well-suited for:
- Conferences and summits focused on leadership, wellbeing, relational health, or organizational culture
- Corporate retreats and executive leadership programs seeking something more substantive than a keynote
- Mental health, social work, and clinical training programs looking for a practitioner who can hold clinical depth and lived experience simultaneously
- Media engagements seeking an expert voice on trauma, relationships, race and identity, or the emotional dimensions of high-achieving life
- Academic and institutional contexts where the intersection of somatics, neuroscience, and relational theory is the focus
Book Francesca
Inquire about a speaking engagement.
To discuss availability, topics, and fit for your event or organization, submit an inquiry below. Francesca speaks at conferences, corporate retreats, executive leadership programs, and select media engagements worldwide.