Harvey Aronson, Ph.D., M.S.W.

A psychotherapist in private practice and a Buddhist meditation teacher, Dr. Aronson is co-founder and teacher-in-residence at the Dawn Mountain Tibetan Temple, Community Center and Research Institute in Houston, Texas. He is the author of Buddhist Practice on Western Ground (Shambhala 2005).

Sylvia Bercovici, Ph.D.

Sylvia Bercovici is a practitioner and Dharma Instructor in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, having studied with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and, currently, with Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche. She is also a psychotherapist in private practice with a particular interest in trauma and trauma-focused, body-based treatment modalities such as EMDR.

Sensei John Daishin Buksbazen, Psy.D., LMFT

Ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest in 1968, Sensei John Daishin Buksbazen is a Dharma successor of Roshi Egyoku Nakao in the White Plum lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi. He teaches at the Zen Center of Los Angeles and the Ocean Moon Sangha in Santa Monica, California. Dr. Buksbazen is the author of Zen Meditation in Plain English (Wisdom Publications, 2002) and To Forget the Self (Center Publications, 1977). He has co-edited On Zen Practice (Wisdom Publications, 2005) and Hazy Moon of Enlightenment (Wisdom Publications, 2007) with Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao. Dr. Buksbazen is also a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and is in private practice in Santa Monica, California.

Christopher Key Chapple

Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A specialist in the religions of India, he has published more than a dozen books, including Karma and Creativity and Yoga and the Luminous. Chris trained in the classical system of Yoga meditation at Yoga Anand Ashram in Amityville for twelve years. In 2002 he established the Yoga and Buddhist Studies programs for adult learners at LMU and in 2004 established the Hill Street Center for Yoga and Mediation in Santa Monica.

Larry Christensen, Ph.D., Psy.D.

Ordained as a Zen Buddhist Priest in 1974 with Maezumi Roshi, Dr. Christensen is Dharma Successor of Charlotte Joko Beck and a teacher in the Ordinary Mind Zen School. He is a Zen teacher at the Zen Center of Portland, Oregon. Dr. Christensen is also a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Portland, and Director and Faculty of the Northwest Center for Psychoanalysis.

Gaylon Ferguson, Ph.D.

Dr. Ferguson is a senior teacher (acharya) in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and received his initial meditative training from the Ven. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, beginning in 1973. He continues his study under the guidance of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Educated at Stanford University in cultural anthropology, Dr. Ferguson was a Fulbright Fellow in Nigeria in 1994 and is presently Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. His publications concerning meditation, liberation, and the politics of race, appear in Mindful Politics (Wisdom 2006) and Dharma, Color, and Culture (Parallax 2005). His book Natural Wakefulness: Discovering the Wisdom We Were Born With, will be published by Shambhala in April, 2009.

Trudy Goodman, EDM

Trudy Goodman is the founder of InsightLA, a non-profit organization for mindfulness training in Los Angeles. She has taught extensively in the fields of mindfulness and psychotherapy. Trudy was one of the first MBSR trainers in the country, working closely with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the UMass Medical School. Today, she teaches mindfulness and meditation at conferences and retreats nationwide. She co-founded the first Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy in Cambridge, MA.

Sensei Paul Genki Kahn

Sensei Paul Genki Kahn is a Dharma Successor of Roshi Bernie Glassman, Spiritual Director of the Zen Peacemakers and first successor of Taizan Maezumi, Roshi. Sensei Genki was ordained by Maezumi Roshi as a Novice Soto Zen Buddhist priest in 1975, and received Final Vows as a Priest from Roshi Dennis Genpo Merzel and Dharma Transmission from Roshi Bernie. Sensei Kahn began dedicated yoga and meditation practice in the 1960s. In 1970 he entered residential Zen training with Aitken Roshi in Hawaii. He transferred to the Zen Center of Los Angeles in 1972 to become a monk and priest under Maezumi Roshi, served as his personal attendant, and was the Director of Training there. In 1980 he came East with Glassman Roshi to establish what has become the Greyston Mandala. For the past 15 years Rev. Kahn has designed and administered mental health programs for disadvantaged people, all of which have included yoga and meditation. He serves on state and county mental health committees. He is Spiritual Director of High Mountain Crystal Lake Zen Community in Wyckoff, New Jersey, with affiliates in Morris County and Sussex County.

Anne Klein, Ph.D.

Director and Buddhist Teacher at the Dawn Mountain Center of Houston, Texas, Dr. Klein is also Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Rice University. Her main practice and transmission lineages are through Ketsun Sangpo Rinpoche of Nepal and Adzom Paylo Rinpoche of Sichuan. Her writings include her book Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhism, Feminism and the Art of the Self (Beacon 1996).

Barry Magid, M.D.

Founder and Zen teacher of Ordinary Mind Zendo of New York City, Dr. Magid is also a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist in private practice in New York City. He received Dharma transmission from Charlotte Joko Beck in 1999 and is the author of Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide (Wisdom (2008); Ordinary Mind: Exploring the Common Ground of Zen & Psychoanalysis (Wisdom 2002) and editor of Freud’s Case Studies: Self Psychological Perspectives (Analytic Press 1993) and Father Louie: Photographs of Thomas Merton by Ralph Eugene Meatyard (Timken 1991).

Diane Martin, Ph.D.

Sojun Diane Martin started her training at the San Francisco Zen Center in 1970, where she studied with Shunryu Suzuki. She began studying with Katagiri Roshi in 1979 and was lay ordained by him in 1985. She was priest ordained by Yvonne Rand in 1995 and received Dharma transmission from Karen Sunna, Abbess of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, in 2001. Three of the four teachers on Diane's transmission committee are of the Suzuki lineage. Diane also holds a Doctorate degree in psychology and is a practicing psychoanalyst.

Wendy Egyoku Nakao

Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao is the Abbot and Head Teacher of the Zen Center of Los Angeles/Buddha Essence Temple. She was ordained as a Zen priest by the late Ven. Maezumi Roshi, with whom she practiced for seventeen years. She received Dharma Transmission and Inka from Roshi Bernie Glassman and is a co-founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order. Roshi’s interest is in the development of upayas for the application of the Buddhadharma, and especially in collective wisdom and leadership in organizational spirituality.

Lama Palden

The Resident Lama of Sukhasiddhi Foundation is Lama Palden Drolma, who completed the traditional Tibetan Buddhist three-year retreat under Kalu Rinpoche's guidance in 1985. In 1986 she became one of the first Western women to be authorized as a lama in the Vajrayana tradition. In addition to Kalu Rinpoche, she has studied with many of the great Tibetan masters from all lineages. Since 1986, Lama Palden's teachings have translated Vajrayana Buddhist principles and practices in ways that make them accessible to Westerners. She has a deep interest in fostering psycho-spiritual awareness within daily life. She also has a strong interest is in the profound therapeutic value of realizing shunyata and integrating that with the material in the psyche. She is a mother of two children.

Taihaku Gretchen Priest

A teacher in the Soto School of Zen Buddhism, Taihaku Gretchen Priest trained at Hokyo-ji Monastery in Japan and received Dharma transmission from Tanaka Shinkai Roshi. She resides and leads practice at Shao Shan Temple in Vermont.

Lobsang Rapgay, Ph.D.

Dr. Rapgay is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles. He was a clinical instructor in the Mind Body Medical Institute at the Harvard Medical School. He has had major research interests in psychotherapy for patients with life-threatening illnesses focusing on end stage of life issues and the role of meaning, psychotherapy and its application in a hospital setting, and psychotherapy and mind body medicine for medical illnesses. He has written several books on Tibetan healing, including Health for Life (Healing Series), May 1998.

Lewis Richmond

Lewis Richmond is a Dharma teacher in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. He is the founder of Vimala Sangha, a meditation group, and Provost of Shogaku Zen Institute, a Buddhist training seminary. He is the author of three books: Work as a Spiritual Practice; Healing Lazarus; and A Whole Life's Work. He lives in Mill Valley, CA.

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche is acknowledged as one of the foremost scholars and meditation masters of his generation in the Nyingma and Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He is known for his sharp intellect, humor, and the lucidity of his teaching style. Fluent in the English language and well-versed in Western culture and technology, Rinpoche is also an accomplished calligrapher, visual artist and poet.

Ron Sharrin, Ph.D.

Ron Sharrin, Ph.D., has been practicing Buddhist meditation since 1969, when he began studying as a resident student with Taizan Maezumi at the Zen Center of Los Angeles. Since then he has studied Dzogchen with Tenzin Wangyal, Rinpoche and Ch'an with Steven Tainer. He is a clinical psychologist in private practice, as well as former Board Member and currently an Instructor for the Skillful Meditation Project. He also teaches courses on Buddhist psychology, meditation, and group and organizational dynamics. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA, and a past President of the Board of Directors of GREX, the West Coast affiliate of the AK Rice Institute. In addition to his practice as a clinical psychologist, he received an MA in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara in Buddhist Studies.

Jason Siff

Buddhist meditation teacher and founder of the Skillful Meditation Project, he lives in Idyllwild, California. Mr. Siff was a Theravadan Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka, 1987-1990. After leaving the monastic order, he returned to the States and studied psychology and marriage and family therapy. He now teaches meditation in a number of settings on both coasts and in Australia, and has written about "unlearning" meditation and the nature of the meditative process.

William Waldron, Ph.D.

William Waldron has been teaching courses on Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Study of Religion at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, since 1996, where he was Chair of the Department of Religion from 2004 to 2007. He received both his B.A. in South Asian Studies and Ph. D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin, after working extensively with native teachers and scholars in India, Nepal and Japan. His research focuses on Indian Buddhism in general and the Yogacara School in particular. He has published a monograph on the Yogacara notion of ‘store-house consciousness’ (alaya-vijñana).

Shinzen Young, Ph.D.

A Vipassana teacher who leads retreats in the mindfulness tradition throughout North America, Dr. Young has helped establish several centers and programs in insight meditation in the US and Canada. Having studied Asian languages while still a teenager in Los Angeles, he later enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin. Eventually he left his formal academic studies and went to Asia to pursue extensive training in each of three major Buddhist traditions: Vajrayana, Zen and Vipassana. Upon returning to the US, his interests shifted to the dialogue between Eastern internal science and Western technological science. In recognition of his original contributions to that dialogue, the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology awarded him an honorary doctorate. His audiotaped series, The Science of Enlightenment, is being published as a book with Sounds True. His other book, Break Through Pain (Sounds True 2005), is the product of his three decades of coaching people through a wide spectrum of chronic and acute pain challenges.

Concetta F. Alfano, Ph.D., LCSW

Concetta F. Alfano, Ph.D., LCSW is in private practice in Santa Monica and training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and faculty member of the New Center for Psychoanalysis, formerly The Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute, where she was Clinic Director for five years. Since 1972 she has practiced in the Vipassana and Zen traditions in both Asia and the United States. She is an active member of the Zen Center for Los Angeles where she formally received the Bodhisattva Precepts. Dr. Alfano is a co-founder of the Center For Mindfulness and Psychotherapy in Santa Monica, CA, where she co-developed an accredited certificate training program with in Contemplative Relational Psychotherapy, which weaves together Buddhist Psychology and practices and contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives. She and colleagues also offer a program in Contemplative Relational Psychotherapy: The Heart of Healing at the Maezumi Institute of the Zen Peacemakers Organization. Her publications include Traversing The Caesura: Transcendent Attunement in Buddhist Meditation and Psychoanalysis, which appeared in Contemporary Psychoanalysis, (April 2005).

Louis Breger, Ph.D.

Professor Breger’s career has followed two intertwined tracks. He has been both a practicing psychotherapist and psychoanalyst and a faculty member at several prestigious universities. He is currently professor of Psychoanalytic Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division of The California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, California. His research interests include: dreams, reformulations of psychoanalytic theory, work of personality development, and studies of the application of psychoanalysis to literature.

Paul C. Cooper, L.P., NCPsyA

Paul C. Cooper is Dean of Training, clinical supervisor, training analyst and faculty at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis; Faculty member and supervisor at the Institute for Expressive Analysis; Board of Directors and Chair of the Spirituality and the Psyche Committee for the International Federation for Psychoanalytic Education; Board of Directors and faculty member for the Association for Spirituality and Psychotherapy; Editorial Board for The Psychoanalytic Review; Author of numerous award-winning poems and articles including the 1996 Ernest Angel Award for his article Affects and Self States: A Case Study on the Integration of Buddhist Analytic Meditation and Psychoanalysis. He the author of The Zen Impulse and the Psychoanalytic Encounter (Routeledge, 2009). He edited Into the Mountain Stream: Psychotherapy and Buddhist Experience (2007, Jason Aronson) and co-edited Psychotherapy and Religion: Many Paths, One Journey (2005, Jason Aronson). Paul Cooper is a long-time Zen practitioner and a member of the Village Zendo in New York City. He maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Manhattan and Westchester, NY.

Michele Daniel, Ph.D.

Michele Daniel, Ph.D., is a Jungian Analyst on the training faculty and President of the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles. She is also on the faculty of the graduate programs in Consciousness Studies and Transformational Psychology at the University of Philosophical Research. Michele is a long-term Buddhist practitioner and holds an additional graduate degree in Buddhist Studies. She offers public lectures and workshops at the Institute that focus on the interface between Jung's psychology and Buddhist teachings and practices.

Paul Fulton, Ed.D.

Paul is the President and a founding member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. A student of Buddhist psychology for over 38 years, he received tokudo initiation in Zen Buddhism in 1972 and studied the integration of psychotherapy in his college (with dual majors in Asia Studies and Psychology) and graduate school careers. He is currently Director of Mental Health for Tufts Health Plan. Paul is a clinical psychologist, having done his doctoral work in culture and personality with a dissertation on the nature of self among American Buddhist practitioners. Paul is currently course director for a year long Certificate Program in Mindfulness and Psychotherapy in Cambridge, MA, and is on the board of directors at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. He is in private psychotherapy practice in Newton, Massachusetts, co-edited and co-authored Mindfulness Psychotherapy (Guilford, 2005), and contributed chapters to a number of other recent books.

Michael Lewis, Ph.D.

Michael Lewis is University Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, and Director of the Institute for the Study of Child Development at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School - University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He is also Professor of Psychology, Education, and Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers University and serves on the Executive Committee of the Cognitive Science Center. Michael has authored the book Shame: The Exposed Self. His research has focused on normal and deviant emotional and intellectual development.

Gaea Logan, MA, LPC-S

Gaea Logan is a licensed professional counselor and clinical supervisor in private practice in Austin, Texas. She has been active in the dialogue between Buddhist psychology, contemplative practice, and analytic psychotherapy for over thirty years. Gaea has presented nationally and internationally on healing trauma and has trained post-graduate therapists and lay counselors on issues associated with PTSD and secondary PTSD. She currently serves as the Educational Task Force Leader for Psychology Beyond Borders, an international non-profit organization, exploring and providing evidence-based research on best practices for treatment, prevention, and public policy initiatives related to catastrophic trauma. She is the co-editor of the poetry anthology Still Echoes in The Voice, by the Austin Group Psychotherapy Association.

Deborah Anna Luepnitz, Ph.D.

Dr. Deborah Anna Luepnitz practices psychoanalysis in Philadelphia, and is on the clinical faculty of the Dept of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. Four years ago, she started a project called I.F.A. (Insight for All), which connects formerly homeless adults with psychoanalysts in the community willing to work pro bono. Her most recent book, Schopenhauer’s Porcupines: Intimacy and Its Dilemmas (2002), is a collection of case stories illustrating how she works with patients.

Melvin E. Miller, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology, Director of Psychological Services, and Director of Doctoral Training at Norwich University, among Dr. Miller’s publications are two books co-edited with Susanne Cook-Greuter entitled Transcendence and Mature Thought in Adulthood and Creativity, Spirituality, and Transcendence. He also co-edited a book with Alan N. West, Spirituality, Ethics, and Relationship, and more recently with Polly Young-Eisendrath, The Psychology of Mature Spirituality. Dr. Miller has lectured and published extensively on the interface of spirituality and human development with psychotherapy, and especially on Buddhism and psychotherapy. He has a private practice in Montpelier, Vermont.

Raul Moncayo, Ph.D.

Raul Moncayo was born and raised in Chile and received psychoanalytic training in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He obtained a Ph.D. in social-clinical psychology from the Wright Institute in the tradition of the Frankfurt school of critical theory. Dr. Moncayo completed analytic training in the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis and is a licensed Psychologist in California. He is a supervising analyst of the Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis and the Training Director of Mission Mental Health, San Francisco. Dr. Moncayo has had a continuous and intensive practice of Zen at the Berkeley Zen Center since 1978 where he is a priest and practice leader. He also leads a weekly public meditation group as treatment for people with psychiatric disorders. Dr. Moncayo has published the following writings on Buddhism: The Partial Object, the Ideal Ego, the Ego Ideal, and the Empty Subject, in The Psychoanalytic Review; Love, Transference, and the Emptiness of the Agalma, in the Journal of Lacanian Studies; Psychoanalysis and Postmodern Spirituality, in Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society; and True Subject is No-Subject: Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism, in Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought.

Rubin R. Naiman, Ph.D.

Dr. Naiman is clinical assistant professor of medicine and the sleep specialist at the University of Arizona's Center for Integrative Medicine, directed by Dr. Andrew Weil. He is also director of Circadian Health Associates and Integrative Wellness Consultant for Origins Natural Resources. For more than a decade Dr. Naiman served as the sleep and dream specialist at Canyon Ranch and Miraval Resorts. Dr. Naiman’s approach to sleep and dreams integrates conventional scientific and medical perspectives with traditional spiritual views, including Buddhist philosophy. Dr. Naiman is the author of a number of groundbreaking works on sleep, including Healing Night, The Sleep Advisor, and, with Dr. Andrew Weil, Healthy Sleep.

J. Gordon Nelson, Ph.D.

Beginning with the 1960's interest in the human potential movement, existential psychology, and inner exploration of the psyche, Dr. Nelson became a clinician at a very early age. He soon discovered C. G. Jung, yoga, meditation, and the practicalities of merging spiritual life with biological adaptation in the complex culture of today. He practices Jungian analysis, teaches at the Jung Institute in Los Angeles, works in his garden, and enjoys his wife and children. His main interests are in the deep inner workings of the psyche, especially where the archetypal world or energies are engaged, and the ethical decisions and actions that result from these encounters. He writes and teaches with these thoughts in mind.

V. Walter Odajnyk, Ph.D.

Dr. Odajnyk is a core faculty member of the Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA. He is also a Jungian analyst, member of the C. G. Jung Studies Center of Southern California, and the author of Gathering the Light: A Psychology of Meditation (Shambhala, 1993).

Stuart D. Perlman, Ph.D.

Dr. Perlman is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in West Los Angeles, and a training and supervising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. Dr. Perlman received his first Ph.D. from UCLA in Clinical Psychology and his second Ph.D. from the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute, and has been a faculty member at both. He has published numerous articles in psychology and psychoanalytic journals on topics such as: trauma, sexual abuse, sexual satisfaction in couples, counter transference, and supervision. His book, The Therapist’s Emotional Survival: Dealing With The Pain Of Exploring Trauma, was a Psychotherapy Book Club Main Selection.

Paulene Popek, Ph.D.

Dr. Popek is a psychologist and psychoanalyst. She completed her psychoanalytic training at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in 1999. She has served as President and Co-President of NCP for the past three years. She is a founding member and Co-Director of the Reflective Parenting Program. She has been active in building community programs for many years and is a member of both the Center for Parenting Studies at NCP and THRIVE Infant Family Program.

Philip A. Ringstrom, Ph.D., Psy.D.

Dr. Ringstrom is a graduate of and current faculty member at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. He has taught for over a decade in the graduate departments at UCLA, USC, and Loyola Marymount. He is widely published in the areas of psychoanalysis, self psychology, and couples therapy. Dr. Ringstrom is a publication’s reviewer for Psychoanalytic Dialogues and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Cynthia Rubin Brown, Psy.D, MFT

Dr. Rubin Brown is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with a private practice in Santa Monica, CA. She also was a member of the multidisciplinary treatment staff at the Bridges to Recovery residential facility in Pacific Palisades, CA. She has an expertise in complex trauma and co-morbid mental disorders. Her work also involves consultation and psychotherapy with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered population. Dr. Rubin Brown is a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (ICP) in Los Angeles. She is also a member of the Diversity Committee at the ICP. Dr. Rubin Brown has practiced various forms of meditation since 1973. She has practiced the Dharma and Vipassana meditation since 2002. She also teaches meditation practice.

Jeffrey Rubin, Ph.D.

In private practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in New York City and Bedford Hills, New York, Dr. Rubin is a Dharma Holder in the White Plum Sangha and Red Thread Zen Circle, the creator of meditative psychotherapy and the author of Psychotherapy and Buddhism: A Psychoanalysis for Our Time and The Good Life, as well as a number of seminal articles on the integration of the psychoanalytic and Buddhist traditions. He is a training and supervising analyst at the Westchester Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.

Jeremy D. Safran, Ph.D.

Dr. Safran is Professor and Director of Clinical Psychology at the New School for Social Research. Dr. Safran also is a faculty member at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and a Senior Research Scientist at Beth Israel Medical Center. He is President of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, and an Associate Editor for the journal, Psychoanalytic Dialogues. He has published several books including Emotion in Psychotherapy; Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance; Interpersonal Process in Cognitive Therapy; and Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An Unfolding Dialogue.

Grace Schireson, Ph.D.

A Zen Buddhist priest who received Dharma transmission in the Suzuki-roshi lineage, Dr. Schireson is the Founder and Zen teacher at Empty Nest Zendo in North Forks, California. A psychologist, she specializes in family work and groups for women. She is concerned about the ways that Zen practice may unintentionally strengthen women’s defensive needs to hide and please in order to adapt their spiritual practices to a patriarchal model. She is finishing a book to be published by Wisdom: Zen’s Female Ancestors: Teachings on Sex, Work and Family.

Marjorie Schuman, Ph.D.

Dr. Schuman is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Santa Monica, CA. She is a faculty member at the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. Dr. Schuman developed and co-teaches the Contemplative Relational Psychotherapy certificate program at CMP with Dr. Concetta Alfano. She has published original work on the integration of Buddhist psychology and psychotherapy, including eastern and western concepts of self and the evolution of subjectivity. Her background also includes postdoctoral study in the neuroscience of consciousness. Marjorie has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1974 and is affiliated with the Community Dharma Leaders program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California.

Frank Summers, Ph.D.

A Training and Supervising Analyst at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, Dr. Summers is the author of three books, a best-selling textbook, Object Relations Theories and Psychopathology: A Comprehensive Text, and two clinical monographs explicating his theory of psychoanalytic therapy, Transcending The Self: An Object Relations Model of Psychoanalytic Therapy and Self Creation: Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Art of the Possible. In addition, he has published widely in psychoanalytic journals on these topics as well as the application of psychoanalytic therapy to character disorders. Dr. Summers is a Diplomat in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology, an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern Medical School, and holds faculty appointments at The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, the Minnesota Institute of Psychoanalysis, The Wisconsin Institute for Psychoanalysis, and The Tampa Bay Psychoanalytic Institute. A member of the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Psychology, Dr. Summers has won numerous teaching awards, including the Distinguished Educator Award of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Education and the Hans Strupp Award. Dr. Summers maintains a private practice in Chicago, Illinois.

Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D.

Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D., Psychologist, Jungian Psychoanalyst, author, Clinical Supervisor and Consultant in Leadership Development, Norwich University, Northfield, Vermont; Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont; and in private practice outside Montpelier in central Vermont. She is chairperson of the non-profit, “Enlightening Conversations: Buddhism and Psychoanalysis Meeting in Person” that hosts conferences in cities around the USA. She has published many chapters and articles, as well as fourteen books that have been translated into more than twenty languages. Her most recent books are The Self-Esteem Trap: Raising Confident and Compassionate Kids in an Age of Self-Importance (Little, Brown: 2008) and The Cambridge Companion to Jung: New and Revised, of which she is co-editor with Terence Dawson (Cambridge University Press: 2008).

Nancy Vanderheide

blah

Linda Modaro

Linda has been studying various types of meditation since 1987, starting her studies with Qi Gong and Tai Chi. In 1989 she moved to Santa Monica to pursue a Master's Degree in Acupuncture and Herbology and to study Taoism at Yo San University. She also began teaching Qi Gong and in 1995 produced a series of videos for the general public, Discovering Chi: Energy Exercises for the Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced practitioner. Throughout that time, her emphasis in practice was movement meditation for the purpose of fostering health and well-being in oneself and for the benefit of others.

After attending Vipassana retreats, she became more curious about early Buddhist philosophy and meditation not previously emphasized in her practice and study of Eastern thought. She began a sitting meditation practice with Jason Siff in July of 2000 and entered Skillful Meditation Project teacher training in 2003 for more intensive study and training.

Currently she leads Recollective Awareness meditation sitting groups and workshops in Santa Monica California, leads retreats with members of the Skillful Meditation Project Teaching Sangha and has been working closely with individual students. She continues to work part-time as an Acupuncturist, and serves as President for the Skillful Meditation Project Board of Directors.