Profile

Chris White, M.D., is a board-certified pediatrician, parent educator, and life coach. He is the creator and director of Essential Parenting, an organization that emphasizes the psycho-emotional development of children and their parents.  Visit him online at Essential Parenting. 
Over the past 15 years, Chris has committed himself to mindfulness practice, meditation, inquiry, and many other somatic practices. He says that it’s these practices—more than any textbook—that have taught him the most about human behavior and guide him in his work in supporting people to continue growing across their lifespan.
Chris holds a certificate from New Ventures West in San Francisco as an Integral Coach. He has studied with Dr. Gordon Neufeld in Vancouver and participates in an ongoing directed-study program at The Neufeld Institute. Chris is especially interested in the “neurobiology of maturation” and is actively exploring the work coming out of the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology spearheaded by Dr. Dan Siegel.
His work has been featured in the PBS series, This Emotional Life and Pathways to Family Wellness magazine. He has lectured at Santa Clara University on topics such as “Integral Psychology,” “The Arc of Human Development,” and “Loving Discipline,” and has led and participated in men’s groups in Marin County since 2002. Chris is also a student-practitioner of the Diamond Approach.
Chris’s life has been a love affair with the process of awakening, unfolding, and authentic expression, and this has led him to becoming a parenting educator and coach. His passion for babies and children stems from their capacity for spontaneous and unapologetic authenticity. Chris has attended thousands of births, including the home birth of his two sons, and is often moved to tears at this physical expression of the dynamic unfolding of life and the power that it brings into the room. He sincerely hopes that his parenting classes and coaching work can re-awaken a tiny fraction of the astonishment and mystery of that moment.
Chris is especially blessed to live in the cozy redwoods of Woodacre, California with the love of his life, Kari, and their beautiful two boys, Kai and Bodhi.