VICTORIA ELLIOT
psychologist. business woman. artist.
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.
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.
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.
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.
From Psychology to Coaching
For 25 years, Victoria acted as a catalyst for change in both corporate and non‑profit environments, helping senior management realize their economic potential by developing and recruiting “rain makers” as well as creatives for new products and services.
She specialized in working with people at the far end of the bell curve—exceptionally brilliant and talented individuals with the unusual “border crosser” ability to thrive across multiple disciplines and geographic locations.
(Photograph: Victoria at the Wailing Wall with her prayer.)
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
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.
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.
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.
Leadership and Service Roles
Board Member, Esalen Institute
Esalen is a holistic retreat and educational institute, established in 1962 and regarded as a center of the Human Potential Movement, offering a non‑profit setting for exploration, transformation, and healing in Big Sur’s dramatic natural landscape.Board Member, Track II Diplomacy
Victoria has contributed to unofficial dialogue and relationship‑building efforts aimed at fostering understanding across national and political boundaries.Member, Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women, New York City
She has participated in civic work focused on the rights, representation, and wellbeing of women in New York.Board Member, Police Organization Providing Peer Assistance (POPPA)
She has supported initiatives that provide peer assistance and psychological support to members of law enforcement.
