The ideas behind the work.
Corestead sits at the intersection of several fields: sociology, trauma-informed frameworks, nervous system regulation, embodied learning, strength training, and self-leadership.
Education & Teaching
Education
- University of MichiganB.A., Graduated with High Honors
- University of ChicagoM.A., Postgraduate Fellow, Human Rights Program
University Teaching
More than 20 years teaching sociology at the university level, across 13 institutions, including:
- West Coast University
- California State University, Los Angeles & Northridge
- California Lutheran University
- University of Arizona Global Campus
- Aurora University
- College of the Canyons
- Glendale Community College
- Ventura Community College District
The Gym as a Research Setting
Emily Frydrych uses the gym as a place where internal dynamics become observable. Under physical exertion, the parts of us that usually stay hidden — the critic, the rusher, the doubter — surface in real time.
Her research explores how strength training functions as an embodied metaphor for internal dynamics, drawing on Internal Family Systems theory.
Talks & Conferences
Find, Familiarize and Flex Your Communication Style
Annual Academic Conference, West Coast University and American Career College · September 20, 2024
Confronting Conflict with Clarity, Confidence and Compassion
Annual Academic Conference, West Coast University and American Career College · September 29, 2025
Accessing Selves, Weightlifting and Internal Family Systems
Week of Wellness Conference, West Coast University · December 3, 2025
Accessing Selves, Weightlifting and Internal Family Systems
LA Campus Presentation, West Coast University · February 27, 2026
The Power of Self: An Internal Family Systems Approach to Integration and Embodied Healing
Culture of Care Summit, University of Arizona Global · April 3, 2026
Accessing Selves, Weightlifting and Internal Family Systems
Week of Wellness Conference, West Coast University · May 13, 2026
On Returning to Yourself
An auto-ethnographic work drawn from one of life's messier middles. Using the Internal Family Systems framework, it explores what it actually feels like to be most authentically inside yourself, and what it feels like when you're not.
We all have parts that get loud and pull us away from our core. This book asks what those parts are, what the Self we return to looks like, and what the path back feels like from the inside.
Strength training, dancing, and movement are where these questions became impossible to ignore. The Corestead framework is one thread in something larger. At its center is the experience of core Self energy, what it feels like to live from that place, and what it takes to find your way back.
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