https://www.velliot.com/contact-me daily 0.75 2023-06-13 https://www.velliot.com/home daily 1.0 2026-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/433220e6-2ed5-4cd5-95ad-fb77e5ff97a3/Screen+Shot+2022-05-20+at+11.03.01+AM.png Home - LIFE My Foundation Born to an American family with deep roots, Victoria Elliot is an inactive member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and a fourth-generation Pacific Northwesterner. Her life began in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where exploring forests of stately Douglas firs gave her the freedom to experience nature without distraction. With no TV and very little radio, she developed independence, imagination, and a strong spirit of adventure. When her family moved to town at the start of first grade, she became active in many school activities and quickly grew to love school for both the learning and the social connection it offered. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/de3756f1-67ff-4864-9583-9a2b40296a82/Screen+Shot+2022-05-20+at+11.05.22+AM.png Home - MIND My Work “Everything Comes Through Psychology” Victoria began studying psychology at a time when many leading universities were focused on B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism. Drawn instead to a deeper understanding of what makes people tick, she pursued clinical psychology, an approach less concerned with conditioned responses and more focused on the motivations of the unconscious mind. A guiding influence in her thinking is captured in Aldous Huxley’s reflection from The Doors of Perception on awareness of total reality and the challenge of remaining grounded while seeking enlightenment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/7ef2b37d-3461-40b4-84d7-914a94cbcffa/sfstate-sculpture-twilight-1920x800.jpg Home - EDUCATION Victoria studied at San Francisco State University, attending graduate school and completing her residency in rehabilitation counseling in 1970 with a specialization in mental health and mental illness. As part of her residency, she worked at Stanford Medical School’s teaching hospital with veterans of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, helping them remain engaged in the working world while managing their mental health. This work emphasized solving practical problems while facing one’s inner demons. In England, Victoria served as the live-in Director of a therapeutic community for mental patients, where the relationship between psychological issues and work was integral to treatment. A central philosophy of the program—captured in the phrase, “It doesn’t matter if you are a paranoid schizophrenic, it’s still your turn to clean the dishes”—illustrated the balance of responsibility, community, and respect. While in London, she studied privately with Mary Williams Stien, a prominent training analyst for the Tavistock Clinic and the Jung Institute. She also worked with Dr. Joe Burke of the Arbors Association and studied with Dr. Aaron Esterson, author of Sanity, Madness, & The Family, also of the Tavistock Clinic. Her further studies included psychodrama, psychosynthesis, and gestalt psychology at Quasitor Institute and the Institute of Psychosynthesis in London, as well as at Esalen Institute in California. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/88a84174-a5a7-4ead-9b1d-1b73072cd11a/fire+in+the+water+%281%29.jpg Home - The Early Years Victoria’s early professional work began as a Counselor at the Marin County Juvenile Detention Center, followed by a role as Director of Denbridge House in Chislehurst, Kent, at the age of twenty‑seven. Denbridge House was a residential community of ten men and ten women from mental hospitals in the greater London area, designed to help residents function in the world of work and everyday life Guided by a pragmatic treatment philosophy, the community emphasized accepting various levels of “craziness” within a cooperative living environment—summed up by the saying, “It doesn’t matter if you’re having hallucinations; it’s still your turn to do the dishes.” On her first day there, Victoria was called by the local police about the suicide of a popular community member, and she led the group through a difficult mourning process while maintaining cohesion. Over two years, the community experienced several dramatic events, including attempted murder by arson, but no successful suicides, as she developed procedures to support residents who were feeling suicidal Living with patients for two years taught Victoria far more than could be learned in a fifty‑minute session or on a traditional hospital ward. The experience shaped her into a highly practical psychologist, comfortable doing therapy anywhere and anytime, and it deeply influenced all of her subsequent work. In her life and career, everything ultimately comes through psychology. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/831f490d-bb9b-44ff-8010-93dbe06c8c30/Screen+Shot+2023-01-08+at+11.22.39+AM.png Home - Peak Performance Training Drawing on her training and experience as a business psychologist, Victoria matched individual talents with organizational cultures and challenges. She focused particularly on helping senior managers enhance their natural ability to sustain their highest levels of performance. Her past clients include Lawrence S. Rockefeller, Sanford Bernstein & Co., Peter Vinella Associates, Olin Corp., Champion International, Automatic Data Processing, the New York Academy of Art in New York City, and Lisson Gallery in London. In 1993, she became a practitioner of Peak Performance Behavior Analysis, a method that identifies the steps an executive follows when doing their best work. Similar to sports coaching, the technique clarifies how and under what conditions an individual’s behavior is most successful, informing planning, role assignment, and team‑building based on each person’s peak performance pattern. It is also an effective way to help a stalled executive get back on track or navigate being outpaced in their current environment. Waking Dream Therapy Victoria worked with two New York psychiatrists who practiced “Waking Dream Therapy” and traveled twice to Jerusalem to study with the originator of the technique, Kolette Alboulker‑Mucat. There she helped synthesize traditional Western psychological ideas and imagery with Eastern psychological thought https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354913-M6V4QRVAP03LLH09HPXB/SCAN0015.jpg Home - Cernay, France 1984 In 1984, Victoria was invited to serve as the photographer for a historic event in Cernay, France, and hosted a preparatory working meeting with astronaut Rusty Schweickart and James Hickman. On September 7, 1984, in a ninth‑century abbey near Paris, American, Soviet, and French astronauts gathered to finalize arrangements for the first Planetary Congress of Space Explorers. The meeting followed several years of private negotiation and informal, non‑governmental discussions. American astronauts in attendance included Donn Eisele (Apollo 7), Russell Schweickart (Apollo 9), and Dr. Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), with James L. Hickman coordinating the American team. Soviet commander Alexei Leonov later reflected that joint work fostered understanding, respect, cooperation, friendship, and peace—principles that remain central to Victoria’s view of global connection. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/e418c8c2-8e20-4cc5-93c8-cbcf4c74670a/Screen+Shot+2022-05-20+at+11.26.05+AM.jpg Home - The Overview Effect During the gathering, Edgar Mitchell illustrated the stakes of the discussion by dividing a blackboard with a horizontal line. In the lower half, he drew a mushroom cloud to represent the politics of fear and destruction; in the upper half, he sketched the whole Earth as seen from space, symbolizing a world without boundaries. He emphasized that the task ahead was to maintain the perspective gained from space travel—a perspective that underscores the interconnectedness of all life on Earth. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354930-SQ54XE1MGCG2OGI3BH14/victoria+wine+glass.jpg+%282%29.jpg Home - CONNECTIONS “I have often found myself in the position to connect two or more like‑minded people.” Throughout her career, Victoria has frequently found herself connecting like‑minded people in the hope that those relationships would become the foundation for meaningful work and big ideas. Hosting gatherings and playing matchmaker to people with shared values has become an unofficial vocation. She has helped forge connections involving John Denver, Brian Cassidy (MEP), Bear Grylls, Laurence S. Rockefeller, and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. Victoria also introduced Abel Aganbegyan, Chief Economic Advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, to numerous Wall Street CEOs and organized a gathering for Sir Anish Kapoor to meet the board members of Millennium Park before they approved his now‑iconic Cloud Gate sculpture (“The Bean”) in Chicago. Today, that work is one of the most recognizable pieces of public art in the United States. Driven by a passion for the arts, Victoria has consistently sought to surround herself with the world’s most creative minds and, while living in Chicago, hosted a party for artist Eric Fischl and his collectors from across the metro area From 1980 to 1990, she served on the Board of the Soviet American Exchange and Esalen Institute, where she hosted working meetings, welcome receptions, and debriefings for participants traveling between California and the former Soviet Union during a period when official diplomacy between the United States and the USSR was largely at a standstill. https://www.velliot.com/peak-performance-coaching daily 0.75 2022-12-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/05d3887f-378e-493d-9b95-6fbb60419a9a/article-0-0C310B9800000578-388_306x462.jpeg Peak Performance Coaching - Make it stand out Photo of Bear Grylls, (author of Facing Up) youngest climber of Mt. Everest. https://www.velliot.com/photography daily 0.75 2026-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354876-CBOIVMGVNZCNEOAYV9DR/IMG_1608.JPG Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354882-63JM1F5W7HV8FQZ4BVAM/IMG_1742.JPG Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354888-P997OAMRFNSP9QFRY59V/IMG_1741.JPG Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354894-06WN4CGSP044UVQY8F3C/IMG_3182.JPG Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354901-TOH10B366KDQD0MQUZ5B/SCAN0012.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354907-IEXODO9I72KGR4PTUXMU/SCAN0011.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354913-M6V4QRVAP03LLH09HPXB/SCAN0015.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354918-8GV2RYA2ULTKFQG82PYX/img241+%282%29.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354930-SQ54XE1MGCG2OGI3BH14/victoria+wine+glass.jpg+%282%29.jpg Photography https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120354924-O9ZQUKZ2JUEAQ4Y5M6PV/fire+in+the+water+%282%29.jpg Photography https://www.velliot.com/expertise daily 0.75 2023-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120360510-1UY2HNCLPHCWVKLD82N2/shutterstock_678279070.jpg Expertise - Recruiting Victoria has recruited in the fields of biotechnology, medicine, and art, including 20 years in financial services on Wall Street and in London. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120360517-PGHSVGPSPFN1DR6JEAIP/shutterstock_660594670.jpg Expertise - Peak Performance Coaching Victoria specializes in Peak Performance Coaching. PPC is a method for demonstrating to clients how, and under what unique conditions, one achieves the greatest success; once peak performance conditions are identified, success can be replicated in many different scenarios. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120360523-85VWNSRJAFQ7XC5UT9JW/shutterstock_619716611.jpg Expertise - Team Building Victoria expertly assists with challenges in team building. Role assignments appropriate to the designated strengths of its individual members are identified and supported by frameworks for organized team behavior. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120360530-H0SAR140TNSQUBYRQC9C/shutterstock_1511348126.jpg Expertise - Conflict Managment Conflict managment is achieved through individual consultation coupled with group remodeling using pragmatic psychotherapeutic techniques. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120360540-G97LY248VOEPN4VSTOTR/Screen+Shot+2021-03-08+at+1.10.25+PM.png Expertise - Transitional Psychotherapy Victoria Elliots work is grounded in Transitional Psychotherapy. Working through individual consultation, coupled with group remodeling, TP is a hands-on appproach utilizing pragmatic psychotherapeutic techniques. https://www.velliot.com/transitional-psychotherapy daily 0.75 2026-04-01 https://www.velliot.com/team-building daily 0.75 2026-04-01 https://www.velliot.com/conflict-management daily 0.75 2026-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/aad22834-2af8-43f9-befa-fdc559f669b3/hand.gif Conflict Management - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.velliot.com/exploring-space daily 0.75 2026-04-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120364512-P18O220N4S8U0OWR0EPK/unsplash-image-dBaz0xhCkPY.jpg Exploring Space - The Story From 1980 to 1990, Victoria Elliot served on the Board of the Soviet American Exchange and the Board of Esalen Institute. During this period, when official diplomacy between the United States and the former Soviet Union was largely at a standstill, she hosted working meetings, welcome parties, and debriefings for many of those traveling between California and the USSR. Living in a large two‑bedroom, two‑bathroom apartment in Manhattan, Victoria often offered her home as a base for Director Jim Hickman and as a guest space for visiting participants in the exchange. One of the first Soviet visitors to stay in her apartment at the request of Dulce Murphy was Paul Posner, brother of well‑known Soviet newsman Vladimir Posner. Victoria first met Paul the morning after his arrival, finding him in her small dining area. She has often described him as a figure from central casting in a B‑movie with an anti‑communist theme. He immediately declared that both the author of Gorky Park and the publisher of Playboy magazine should be shot, to which Victoria responded, in her role as a welcoming hostess, with calm remarks about the importance of a free press as a keystone of American democracy. Over time, as Paul attended more events, his stance softened and he developed a greater appreciation for American freedoms—precisely the kind of shift these citizen exchanges were designed to encourage. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120364516-7TE62UUVLY9XSTJN7HK3/SCAN0043.JPG Exploring Space - Development Over the years, Victoria hosted discussions and planning sessions around a series of remarkable events, including the first satellite exchanges between Russians and Americans and preparations for John Denver’s first concert in the Soviet Union. She also organized a party for Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze on his first trip to the United States, borrowing a friend’s large Park Avenue apartment because she felt her own home was not grand enough to host a foreign minister. Her many gatherings for visiting Soviets became a familiar part of her life; her future husband jokingly referred to these occasions as “Commies for dinner,” yet he always made a point of attending. When Jim Hickman later stepped down as Director to pursue other paths, the Board appointed Jim Garrison as his successor. Hickman remained involved behind the scenes, helping Garrison navigate the organization’s extensive network of relationships and its creative history. Together with Victoria, Garrison organized the visit of Abel Aganbegyan, Mikhail Gorbachev’s chief economic advisor. Victoria called her friend John Swing, Executive Vice President of the Council on Foreign Relations, to ask whether the Council would be interested in meeting Aganbegyan. Swing immediately agreed, providing office space and arranging for Aganbegyan to address Council members. Victoria also contacted a client from her executive search practice, the Vice Chairman of Smith Barney, to ask if the firm would host a lunch and tour of the New York Stock Exchange for Aganbegyan. Smith Barney organized the lunch, which was attended by many CEOs of major Wall Street firms, and Victoria joined the event. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/8040911e-1922-4e7e-9a79-18447f95234a/SCAN0012.jpg Exploring Space - Later On… The Wall Street leaders were stunned by Aganbegyan’s frank description of the Soviet Union’s financial difficulties and the impending revolution underway under Gorbachev’s leadership. Victoria and Jim accompanied Aganbegyan onto the floor of the stock exchange, where he witnessed the sophisticated electronic and computer systems that powered American markets. For him, the contrast with his own office—equipped with old‑fashioned file cabinets and a rotary telephone, and likely without a computer—was striking Although Victoria did not host it, she also attended a party for Boris Yeltsin organized by Jim Garrison and the Soviet American Exchange. The event took place at the home of Bob Swartz, former publisher of New York Magazine and founder of the School for Entrepreneurs. Her souvenir from the Yeltsin trip was a T‑shirt reading, “I survived Boris Yeltsin’s visit,” with a list of several cities printed beneath. Near the end of her involvement with the Soviet American Exchange in 1990, Garrison—who had arranged Gorbachev’s visit to the United States—invited Victoria and her husband to a small private meeting of eight people with Gorbachev before he addressed a larger gathering of about 200 guests at the Waldorf Astoria. Victoria remembers being starstruck by his charisma and humor, qualities that were rarely visible in his formal public speeches. Not long afterward, she resigned from both the Esalen Institute and the Soviet American Exchange. She left the Esalen board because her consulting and recruiting work in Europe required extensive travel, and she could no longer justify the additional 3,000‑mile journeys to Big Sur, California. She stepped down from the Soviet American Exchange because she sensed it was the end of an empire—even if the full extent and implications of that ending were not yet clear. https://www.velliot.com/recruiting daily 0.75 2026-04-01 https://www.velliot.com/home-1 daily 0.75 2022-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120350575-ZPLP5SC17MAWJP3WDX1K/img241%2B%25281%2529.jpg Home (Copy) - Welcome to My Website My name is Victoria Elliot and I am a life-long psychologist. I studied clinical psychology at San Francisco State University in the 1960s, a time when almost all major universities were teaching behaviorism, thanks to BF Skinner at Harvard. Teaching a pigeon to play ping-pong was not my interest; rather, I wanted to know what makes people tick on a deeper level. Clinical psychology was more concerned with the unconscious mind and motivations rather than the behavioral concept of everything being a conditioned response. LSD was still legal until 1968, and nearly all psychology departments were studying its effects. I took LSD twice under control circumstances to understand the issues of Huxley's "the doors of perception". I stayed at San Francisco State University for graduate school in rehabilitation counseling specializing in mental health and mental illness. I spent a year completing the Stanford University residency at the Palo Alto VA. The psychology on this ward was for veterans of World War I, II, Korea, and Vietnam who ran a business to keep the men involved in the work world as they dealt with various mental health issues. Solving practical problems while facing one's demons went hand-in-hand. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120350579-AN4N94SR2HAIRY1M73B1/shutterstock_1474457480.jpg Home (Copy) - The Early Years My first professional job at 27, was as Director of Dembridge House, in Chiselhurst, Kent. It was a community that consisted of 10 men and 10 women from mental hospitals in the greater London area. There was a staff of four and two to three Anglican or Catholic nuns and priests in training for psychological problems they faced in their parishes. The house was large enough for 28 people in an upscale neighborhood. The purpose of the community and my work was to get people back functioning in the real world of work and life. The pragmatic philosophy was to deal with various levels of craziness while running a cooperative group living situation. "It doesn't matter if you're having hallucinations; it's still your turn to do the dishes. " On the first day of my job, I was introducing myself to the community's residence as their new Director. We got a call from the local police department to say they had found the dead body of the most popular girl from the community who had killed herself using one of the drugs she was prescribed. Given that there were several suicidal people in the community, it was imperative to hold literally and figuratively everyone together to go through the beginning of a morning process. Over two years, there were many dramatic events but no successful suicides as I developed a procedure to stop them.The last weekend of my work, an ex-resident broke into the house during the night and set up a system on the first floor to blow up the house and kill everyone. It was my first real introduction to evil. In the end, the perpetrator was sent to a hospital for the criminally insane for three years. The two years doing this work were extraordinarily eventful, and I learned a lot more living with everyone together than one would do in a 50 minute hour situation or on the ward of a mental hospital. I also learned the distinction between class and culture with residents from England, Scotland, Wales, and the US. Seeing all of these aspects operational in real-time was better than any book on the subject. It made me very practical. I'm comfortable with doing therapy on the run or quietly in the corner talking with someone. It has influenced all of the future at work I've done." https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120350585-BMK6QQ1VH6B1UQVJ4152/shutterstock_1779418361.jpg Home (Copy) - Parties with a Purpose Over the course of my career, I have often found myself in the position to connect two or more like-minded people in the hope that someday those connections may prove to be the bedrock upon which great things would be built. It has therefore become an unofficial occupation of mine to play matchmaker and to bring together people of similar beliefs so that they can better learn from one another. Among those whom I have assisted in making such connections are: Brian Cassidy (MEP) Bear Grills John Denver Laurence S. Rockefeller Foreign Minister Shevardnadze Association of Space Exploration https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120350590-BZR6NKG8R4JAA5VXDIDT/SCAN0015.jpg Home (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120350593-5IKFNYC9326RM8C4BFDP/IMG_1608.JPG Home (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120350596-LWAWZD5ONK1ECCF2CIU8/img241+%281%29.jpg Home (Copy) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120350600-5WV222WEXI1FOFC8NUZY/SCAN0043.JPG Home (Copy) - Business Clients/ Career Consulting Victoria has 25 years of experience as a catalyst for change in both the corporate and non-profit worlds. She helped Senior management and their organizations achieve their economical potential by developing and recruiting "Rain Makers", and those who created new products and services. She specialized in people at the far end of the bell curve; the exceptionally brilliant and the exceptionally talented people with the unusually developed skill of the "border crosser". "Border crossers" are people who have the psychological and cultural flexibility to thrive in multiple situations whether those be countries or disciplines. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6138ebdec4883575bf2e159e/1631120350604-HH2D7MYIBT7O0IULA0EZ/shutterstock_141527470.jpg Home (Copy) - Real Estate Victoria Elliot is what one might describe as the modern Renaissance woman. Though she is now partially retired, Victoria has had a colorful life career in both the for-profit and nonprofit worlds. Victoria has a lifelong interest in real estate, having purchased, renovated, and sold many of her own properties in Connecticut, New York City, and upstate New York. She has been practicing real estate professionally for years. She is particularly knowledgeable about the eastern part of Litchfield County, which consists of Litchfield, Morris, Goshen, Norfolk, Colebrook, and Harwinton. In 2006 she recorded the highest sale on Woodridge Lake in Goshen at $2,450,000. Currently, she works for Sotheby's International Realty in Washington Depot and Lakeville, Connecticut. This website is intended to serve as an informational memorial to Victoria’s life and accomplishments. Please enjoy and feel free to reach out with any questions.