Advisory Board

SPI’s advisory board is made up of individuals that bring unique knowledge and skills which augment that of faculty and staff in order to more effectively guide the institute. The advisory board plays an important public relations role as well as providing SPI faculty and staff with a fresh perspective on topics and issues surrounding somatic psychotherapy. 

Advisory Board Members  |  Advisory Board Members Emeritus

Beatrice-Beebe-PhD

Beatrice Beebe

PhD

Beatrice Beebe, PhD, is Clinical Professor of Psychology (in Psychiatry), College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute. She directs a basic research lab on mother-infant communication. She is faculty at several psychoanalytic institutes, and she has a private practice for adults and mother-infant pairs. She is author or co-author of 6 books. The most recent is The mother-infant interaction picture book: Origins of attachment (Beebe, Cohen & Lachman, Norton, 2016). For a decade she directed a pro bono primary prevention project for mothers who were pregnant and widowed on 9-11 (Beebe, Cohen, Sossin, & Markese, Eds., Mothers, infants and young children of September 11, 2001: A primary prevention project, 2012). A documentary film about her research is available (website of the Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing [PEPweb], Mother-Infant Communication: The Research of Dr. Beatrice Beebe, by Karen Dougherty, 2016).

Meet Beatrice
Shelly P.-Harrell-PhD

Shelly P. Harrell

PhD

Shelly P. Harrell, PhD, is a licensed psychologist with areas of specialization in multicultural and community psychology. Her research interests include cultural dimensions of wellness and positive well-being, racism-related stress, resilience-oriented stress management interventions, culturally-diverse contemplative practices, humanistic-existential and integrative approaches to psychotherapy, and African American mental health. Her current research focuses on the development of stress management and strengths-based interventions with diverse populations in community and clinical settings. Dr. Harrell has published in the areas of racism and mental health, race and clinical supervision, cultural issues in positive psychology, interventions with African Americans, psychospiritual principles for working with African American women, and therapeutic journaling. She is a frequent presenter and invited speaker at national conferences and serves as a consultant to educational and community organizations on cultural diversity.
Dr. Harrell currently serves as a research coordinator for the PsyD program where she chairs dissertations, does clinical supervision, and teaches in the areas of psychotherapy skills, cultural diversity, and data analysis. Dr. Harrell maintains a small psychotherapy and consultation practice with a focus on couples and clients from diverse racial/ethnic groups.

Meet Shelly P.
Ruth-Lanius-MD, PhD

Ruth Lanius

MD, PhD

Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder research unit at the University of Western Ontario. She established the Traumatic Stress Service and the Traumatic Stress Service Workplace Program, services specializing in the treatment and research of PTSD and related comorbid disorders. She holds the Harris-Woodman Chair in Mind-Body Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario. Her research focuses on the neurobiology of PTSD and treatment outcomes, examining various pharmacological and psychotherapeutic methods. She has authored more than 100 published papers and chapters in the field of traumatic stress, and has recently published a book The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease with Eric Vermetten and Clare Pain. She regularly lectures on the topic of PTSD nationally and internationally.

Meet Ruth
Ellert-Nijenhuis-PhD

Ellert Nijenhuis

PhD

Ellert Nijenhuis, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and researcher. His PhD thesis Somatoform Dissociation: Phenomena, measurement, and theoretical issues is currently in reprint with W. W. Norton. For his scientific contributions to the field of trauma and in particular dissociative disorders, he was won numerous awards and honors, including the Morton Prince Award for Scientific Excellence and the Pierre Janet Writing Award. He works at the Outpatient Department of Psychiatry of Mental Health Care Drenthe, Assen, The Netherlands, where he engages in the diagnosis and treatment of severely traumatized patients, chairs the Trauma Committee, and conducts his original scientific research on the psychology and psychobiology of chronic traumatization and dissociation. He is the author of numerous papers on trauma and dissociation and co-author of The haunted self: structural dissociation and chronic traumatization.

Meet Ellert
Clare-Pain-MD

Clare Pain

MD

Clare Pain, MD, FRCPC, Professor Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, Iniversity of Toronto, and senior advisor to the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration, she was awarded an honoray doctorate from Addis Ababa University in 2014 for her work to assist the development of psychiatry in Ethiopa. Her clinical focus is on the assessment and treatment of patients who continue to suffer the effects of trauma, including refugees. She works at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, and consults at the Canadian Centre for Victoms of Torture. She has lectured and taught on psychological trauma including trans-cultural aspects and global mental health. She has published a number of articles and three books, Trauma and the body, A sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy, with Pat Ogden and Kekuni Minton, 2006; The impact of early life traua on health and disease: The hidden epidemic, an edited book with Eric Vermetten and Ruth Lanius 2010; Psychotherapy Essentials to Go: Achieving Psychotherapy Effectiveness, 2015, Leszcz, M., Pain, C., Hunter, J., Maunder, R., & Ravitz, Vermetten and Ruth Lanius.

Meet Clare
Stephen-Porges-PhD

Stephen Porges

PhD

Stephen Porges, PhD, is a Distinguished University Scientist at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University Bloomington and Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Emeritus Professor of Human Development at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Meet Stephen
Allan-Schore-PhD

Allan Schore

PhD

Allan Schore, PhD, is on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He is author of four seminal volumes, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self, Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, and The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy, as well as numerous articles and chapters. His Regulation Theory, grounded in developmental neuroscience and developmental psychoanalysis, focuses on the origin, psychopathogenesis, and psychotherapeutic treatment of the early forming subjective implicit self. His contributions appear in multiple disciplines, including developmental neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, attachment theory, trauma studies, behavioral biology, clinical psychology, and clinical social work.

Meet Allan
Daniel J.-Siegel-MD

Daniel J. Siegel

MD

Daniel J. Siegel, MD, is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization, which offers online learning and in-person lectures that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. His psychotherapy practice includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. He serves as the Medical Director of the LifeSpan Learning Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Blue School in New York City, which has built its curriculum around Dr. Siegel’s Mindsight approach.

Meet Daniel J.
Martha-Stark-M.D.

Martha Stark

M.D.

Martha Stark, M.D., is a graduate of the Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, is a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst in private practice in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. Dr. Stark is on the faculty of both the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. She is also a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, has a teaching appointment at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and is on the faculty of the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is currently at work on her new book entitled, Relentless hope: The refusal to grieve.

Meet Martha
Kathy-Steele-MN, CS

Kathy Steele

MN, CS

Kathy Steele, MN, CS, is Co-founder and Clinical Director of Metropolitan Counseling Services and has a private practice in adult psychotherapy and with Metropolitan Psychotherapy Associates in Atlanta, Georgia. Her interests focus on dissociation and attachment, and in resolving impasses, and she lectures internationally, consults, and trains on topics related to complex trauma, dissociation, attachment, treatment planning, therapeutic impasse, and psychotherapy. She served helped developed treatment guidelines for Dissociative Disorders, and is currently on a joint task force that is developing treatment guidelines for Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. She has received a number of awards for her work and (co)authored numerous book chapters, journal articles, and two award winning books with her colleagues. She is a past President and Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, and served two terms on the Board of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Meet Kathy
Ed-Tronick-PhD

Ed Tronick

PhD

Ed Tronick, PhD, is a developmental and clinical psychologist. Dr. Tronick is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, is director of the Child Development Unit, a research associate in Newborn Medicine, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, an associate professor at both the Graduate School of Education and the School of Public Health at Harvard. He is a member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, a past member of the Boston Process of Change Group and a Founder and faculty member of the Touchpoints program. With Kristie Brandt, Dorothy Richardson, Marilyn Davillier he has created an Infant-Parent Mental Health Post Graduate Certificate Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He has developed the Newborn Behavioral Assessment Scale and the Touchpoints Project with T.B. Brazelton. Dr. Tronick developed the Still-face paradigm. With Barry Lester he developed the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Assessment Scale. He is currently working on developing norms for the neurobehavior of clinically health newborns and collaborating with Rosario Montirosso in Milan on a multi-NICU examination of developmental caretaking and its effects on preterm infants. A set of studies on social referencing and negative affect are in process. He continues to do research on the effects of maternal depression and other affective disorders on infant and child social emotional development. In one study he is collaborating with Robert Ammerman on seriously depressed group and the effects of multiple interventions and in a second study the effect of a developmental relation intervention for post partum depression.

Meet Ed
Bessel-van der Kolk-MD

Bessel van der Kolk

MD

Bessel van der Kolk, MD, has been active as a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress and related phenomena since the 1970s. His work integrates developmental, biological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment. His book Psychological trauma was the first integrative text on the subject and he and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development in traumatized children and adults, and the psychobiology of trauma. He was co-principal investigator of the DSM IV Field Trials for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His current research is on how trauma affects memory processes and brain imaging studies of PTSD. Dr. van der Kolk has held many prestigious positions in the past: President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and Medical Director of the Trauma Center at HRI Hospital in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has taught at universities and hospitals across the United States and around the world, including Europe, Africa, Russia, Australia, Israel, and China. His latest book, Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society, co-edited with Alexander McFarlane and Lars Weisaeth, explores what we have learned in the past twenty years of the re-discovery of the role of trauma in psychiatric illness.

Meet Bessel

Advisory Board Bios

Beatrice-Beebe-PhD

Beatrice Beebe

PhD

Beatrice Beebe, PhD, is Clinical Professor of Psychology (in Psychiatry), College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute. She directs a basic research lab on mother-infant communication. She is faculty at several psychoanalytic institutes, and she has a private practice for adults and mother-infant pairs. She is author or co-author of 6 books. The most recent is The mother-infant interaction picture book: Origins of attachment (Beebe, Cohen & Lachman, Norton, 2016). For a decade she directed a pro bono primary prevention project for mothers who were pregnant and widowed on 9-11 (Beebe, Cohen, Sossin, & Markese, Eds., Mothers, infants and young children of September 11, 2001: A primary prevention project, 2012). A documentary film about her research is available (website of the Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing [PEPweb], Mother-Infant Communication: The Research of Dr. Beatrice Beebe, by Karen Dougherty, 2016).

Meet Beatrice
Shelly P.-Harrell-PhD

Shelly P. Harrell

PhD

Shelly P. Harrell, PhD, is a licensed psychologist with areas of specialization in multicultural and community psychology. Her research interests include cultural dimensions of wellness and positive well-being, racism-related stress, resilience-oriented stress management interventions, culturally-diverse contemplative practices, humanistic-existential and integrative approaches to psychotherapy, and African American mental health. Her current research focuses on the development of stress management and strengths-based interventions with diverse populations in community and clinical settings. Dr. Harrell has published in the areas of racism and mental health, race and clinical supervision, cultural issues in positive psychology, interventions with African Americans, psychospiritual principles for working with African American women, and therapeutic journaling. She is a frequent presenter and invited speaker at national conferences and serves as a consultant to educational and community organizations on cultural diversity.
Dr. Harrell currently serves as a research coordinator for the PsyD program where she chairs dissertations, does clinical supervision, and teaches in the areas of psychotherapy skills, cultural diversity, and data analysis. Dr. Harrell maintains a small psychotherapy and consultation practice with a focus on couples and clients from diverse racial/ethnic groups.

Meet Shelly P.
Ruth-Lanius-MD, PhD

Ruth Lanius

MD, PhD

Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder research unit at the University of Western Ontario. She established the Traumatic Stress Service and the Traumatic Stress Service Workplace Program, services specializing in the treatment and research of PTSD and related comorbid disorders. She holds the Harris-Woodman Chair in Mind-Body Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Western Ontario. Her research focuses on the neurobiology of PTSD and treatment outcomes, examining various pharmacological and psychotherapeutic methods. She has authored more than 100 published papers and chapters in the field of traumatic stress, and has recently published a book The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease with Eric Vermetten and Clare Pain. She regularly lectures on the topic of PTSD nationally and internationally.

Meet Ruth
Ellert-Nijenhuis-PhD

Ellert Nijenhuis

PhD

Ellert Nijenhuis, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and researcher. His PhD thesis Somatoform Dissociation: Phenomena, measurement, and theoretical issues is currently in reprint with W. W. Norton. For his scientific contributions to the field of trauma and in particular dissociative disorders, he was won numerous awards and honors, including the Morton Prince Award for Scientific Excellence and the Pierre Janet Writing Award. He works at the Outpatient Department of Psychiatry of Mental Health Care Drenthe, Assen, The Netherlands, where he engages in the diagnosis and treatment of severely traumatized patients, chairs the Trauma Committee, and conducts his original scientific research on the psychology and psychobiology of chronic traumatization and dissociation. He is the author of numerous papers on trauma and dissociation and co-author of The haunted self: structural dissociation and chronic traumatization.

Meet Ellert
Clare-Pain-MD

Clare Pain

MD

Clare Pain, MD, FRCPC, Professor Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, Iniversity of Toronto, and senior advisor to the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration, she was awarded an honoray doctorate from Addis Ababa University in 2014 for her work to assist the development of psychiatry in Ethiopa. Her clinical focus is on the assessment and treatment of patients who continue to suffer the effects of trauma, including refugees. She works at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, and consults at the Canadian Centre for Victoms of Torture. She has lectured and taught on psychological trauma including trans-cultural aspects and global mental health. She has published a number of articles and three books, Trauma and the body, A sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy, with Pat Ogden and Kekuni Minton, 2006; The impact of early life traua on health and disease: The hidden epidemic, an edited book with Eric Vermetten and Ruth Lanius 2010; Psychotherapy Essentials to Go: Achieving Psychotherapy Effectiveness, 2015, Leszcz, M., Pain, C., Hunter, J., Maunder, R., & Ravitz, Vermetten and Ruth Lanius.

Meet Clare
Stephen-Porges-PhD

Stephen Porges

PhD

Stephen Porges, PhD, is a Distinguished University Scientist at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University Bloomington and Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Emeritus Professor of Human Development at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Meet Stephen
Allan-Schore-PhD

Allan Schore

PhD

Allan Schore, PhD, is on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He is author of four seminal volumes, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self, Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, and The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy, as well as numerous articles and chapters. His Regulation Theory, grounded in developmental neuroscience and developmental psychoanalysis, focuses on the origin, psychopathogenesis, and psychotherapeutic treatment of the early forming subjective implicit self. His contributions appear in multiple disciplines, including developmental neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, attachment theory, trauma studies, behavioral biology, clinical psychology, and clinical social work.

Meet Allan
Daniel J.-Siegel-MD

Daniel J. Siegel

MD

Daniel J. Siegel, MD, is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization, which offers online learning and in-person lectures that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. His psychotherapy practice includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. He serves as the Medical Director of the LifeSpan Learning Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Blue School in New York City, which has built its curriculum around Dr. Siegel’s Mindsight approach.

Meet Daniel J.
Martha-Stark-M.D.

Martha Stark

M.D.

Martha Stark, M.D., is a graduate of the Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, is a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst in private practice in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. Dr. Stark is on the faculty of both the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. She is also a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, has a teaching appointment at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, and is on the faculty of the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is currently at work on her new book entitled, Relentless hope: The refusal to grieve.

Meet Martha
Kathy-Steele-MN, CS

Kathy Steele

MN, CS

Kathy Steele, MN, CS, is Co-founder and Clinical Director of Metropolitan Counseling Services and has a private practice in adult psychotherapy and with Metropolitan Psychotherapy Associates in Atlanta, Georgia. Her interests focus on dissociation and attachment, and in resolving impasses, and she lectures internationally, consults, and trains on topics related to complex trauma, dissociation, attachment, treatment planning, therapeutic impasse, and psychotherapy. She served helped developed treatment guidelines for Dissociative Disorders, and is currently on a joint task force that is developing treatment guidelines for Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. She has received a number of awards for her work and (co)authored numerous book chapters, journal articles, and two award winning books with her colleagues. She is a past President and Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, and served two terms on the Board of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Meet Kathy
Ed-Tronick-PhD

Ed Tronick

PhD

Ed Tronick, PhD, is a developmental and clinical psychologist. Dr. Tronick is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, is director of the Child Development Unit, a research associate in Newborn Medicine, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, an associate professor at both the Graduate School of Education and the School of Public Health at Harvard. He is a member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, a past member of the Boston Process of Change Group and a Founder and faculty member of the Touchpoints program. With Kristie Brandt, Dorothy Richardson, Marilyn Davillier he has created an Infant-Parent Mental Health Post Graduate Certificate Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He has developed the Newborn Behavioral Assessment Scale and the Touchpoints Project with T.B. Brazelton. Dr. Tronick developed the Still-face paradigm. With Barry Lester he developed the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Assessment Scale. He is currently working on developing norms for the neurobehavior of clinically health newborns and collaborating with Rosario Montirosso in Milan on a multi-NICU examination of developmental caretaking and its effects on preterm infants. A set of studies on social referencing and negative affect are in process. He continues to do research on the effects of maternal depression and other affective disorders on infant and child social emotional development. In one study he is collaborating with Robert Ammerman on seriously depressed group and the effects of multiple interventions and in a second study the effect of a developmental relation intervention for post partum depression.

Meet Ed
Bessel-van der Kolk-MD

Bessel van der Kolk

MD

Bessel van der Kolk, MD, has been active as a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress and related phenomena since the 1970s. His work integrates developmental, biological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment. His book Psychological trauma was the first integrative text on the subject and he and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development in traumatized children and adults, and the psychobiology of trauma. He was co-principal investigator of the DSM IV Field Trials for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His current research is on how trauma affects memory processes and brain imaging studies of PTSD. Dr. van der Kolk has held many prestigious positions in the past: President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School, and Medical Director of the Trauma Center at HRI Hospital in Brookline, Massachusetts. He has taught at universities and hospitals across the United States and around the world, including Europe, Africa, Russia, Australia, Israel, and China. His latest book, Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society, co-edited with Alexander McFarlane and Lars Weisaeth, explores what we have learned in the past twenty years of the re-discovery of the role of trauma in psychiatric illness.

Meet Bessel

Advisory Board Members Emeritus

Philip-Bromberg-PhD

Philip Bromberg

PhD

Philip Bromberg, PhD, (b. 1931 - d. 2020) was an American Psychologist and Psychoanalyst involved in the training of mental health professionals throughout the United States. Dr. Bromberg was most widely known as the author of Standing in the Spaces: Essays on Clinical Process, Trauma, and Dissociation (1998) and Awakening the Dreamer: Clinical Journeys (2006). For over 30 years he wrote extensively concerning human mental development and the patient/therapist relationship, and presented an Interpersonal/Relational point of view that emphasizes self-organization, states of consciousness, dissociation, and multiple self-states. Dr. Bromberg was a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute, and a Clinical Professor of Psychology, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and ABPP Diplomate in Clinical Psychology. He was on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, and Psychoanalytic Inquiry.

Meet Philip
Emilie-Conrad-

Emilie Conrad

Emilie Conrad (b. June 14, 1934 – d. April 14, 2014), was the pioneer and founder of Continuum, a world-renowned self-discovery and movement method based on her insight that we can find within our bodies an expression of our profound rapport with our environment that is revealed and can be explored through movement. The principles of Conrad’s Continuum have been incorporated by an international audience of professionals into such fields as Rolfing, physical therapy, psychoneuroimmunology, craniosacral therapy, dance, yoga, therapeutic massage, and physical fitness.

Meet Emilie
Ron-Kurtz-

Ron Kurtz

Ron Kurtz (b. 1934 - d.2011), originated the Hakomi Method in the early 1970s. In 1977, he led the first training in the Hakomi Method. In 1981, along with Pat Ogden, Ph.D. and Dyrian Benz-Chartrand, Ph.D., he founded the Hakomi institute, which he led until 1992, when due to a fundamental disagreement about the method, he left to form Ron Kurtz Trainings and the Hakomi Educational Network. Kurtz’s work—especially the techniques, mindfulness, and principles he brought to psychotherapy-- are the basis of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. The Hakomi Educational Network seeks to preserve the teachings of Ron Kurtz by making primary resources available to all.

Meet Ron
Peter-Melchior-

Peter Melchior

Peter Melchior (b. July 28, 1931 – d. May 2, 2005) began studying under Ida P. Rolf in the 1960s after she treated him for the injuries of a car accident. So inspired by Rolf, he dedicated his life to teaching her work. Along with Emmett Hutchins, Melchior was one of the first two teachers of Structural Integration. Emmett Hutchins continues to teach at The Guild for Structural Integration: The Traditional School of Dr. Rolf’s Work which offers training in Structural Integration through a form called the “Recipe”, which upholds the tradition, foundation, and essence of Dr. Ida Rolf’s teachings.

Meet Peter
Marion-Solomon-PhD

Marion Solomon

PhD

Marion Solomon, PhD, is Director of Training, Lifespan Learning Institute; Lecturer at the David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at UCLA; and Senior Extension faculty at the Department of Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences at UCLA. She also has a private practice in West Los Angeles, specializing in treating relationship issues. Dr. Solomon has published several books and articles focused on clinical training. She is author of “Lean On Me: The Power of Positive Dependency In Intimate Relationships.” She is also Co-Author of Short Term Therapy for Long Term Change,” “Love and War in Intimate Relationships.” Co-Editor of “Countertransference in Couples’ Therapy”; “The Borderline Patient”; “Healing Trauma” and more.

Meet Marion

Advisory Board Bios

Philip-Bromberg-PhD

Philip Bromberg

PhD

Philip Bromberg, PhD, (b. 1931 - d. 2020) was an American Psychologist and Psychoanalyst involved in the training of mental health professionals throughout the United States. Dr. Bromberg was most widely known as the author of Standing in the Spaces: Essays on Clinical Process, Trauma, and Dissociation (1998) and Awakening the Dreamer: Clinical Journeys (2006). For over 30 years he wrote extensively concerning human mental development and the patient/therapist relationship, and presented an Interpersonal/Relational point of view that emphasizes self-organization, states of consciousness, dissociation, and multiple self-states. Dr. Bromberg was a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute, and a Clinical Professor of Psychology, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and ABPP Diplomate in Clinical Psychology. He was on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, and Psychoanalytic Inquiry.

Meet Philip
Emilie-Conrad-

Emilie Conrad

Emilie Conrad (b. June 14, 1934 – d. April 14, 2014), was the pioneer and founder of Continuum, a world-renowned self-discovery and movement method based on her insight that we can find within our bodies an expression of our profound rapport with our environment that is revealed and can be explored through movement. The principles of Conrad’s Continuum have been incorporated by an international audience of professionals into such fields as Rolfing, physical therapy, psychoneuroimmunology, craniosacral therapy, dance, yoga, therapeutic massage, and physical fitness.

Meet Emilie
Ron-Kurtz-

Ron Kurtz

Ron Kurtz (b. 1934 - d.2011), originated the Hakomi Method in the early 1970s. In 1977, he led the first training in the Hakomi Method. In 1981, along with Pat Ogden, Ph.D. and Dyrian Benz-Chartrand, Ph.D., he founded the Hakomi institute, which he led until 1992, when due to a fundamental disagreement about the method, he left to form Ron Kurtz Trainings and the Hakomi Educational Network. Kurtz’s work—especially the techniques, mindfulness, and principles he brought to psychotherapy-- are the basis of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. The Hakomi Educational Network seeks to preserve the teachings of Ron Kurtz by making primary resources available to all.

Meet Ron
Peter-Melchior-

Peter Melchior

Peter Melchior (b. July 28, 1931 – d. May 2, 2005) began studying under Ida P. Rolf in the 1960s after she treated him for the injuries of a car accident. So inspired by Rolf, he dedicated his life to teaching her work. Along with Emmett Hutchins, Melchior was one of the first two teachers of Structural Integration. Emmett Hutchins continues to teach at The Guild for Structural Integration: The Traditional School of Dr. Rolf’s Work which offers training in Structural Integration through a form called the “Recipe”, which upholds the tradition, foundation, and essence of Dr. Ida Rolf’s teachings.

Meet Peter
Marion-Solomon-PhD

Marion Solomon

PhD

Marion Solomon, PhD, is Director of Training, Lifespan Learning Institute; Lecturer at the David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at UCLA; and Senior Extension faculty at the Department of Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences at UCLA. She also has a private practice in West Los Angeles, specializing in treating relationship issues. Dr. Solomon has published several books and articles focused on clinical training. She is author of “Lean On Me: The Power of Positive Dependency In Intimate Relationships.” She is also Co-Author of Short Term Therapy for Long Term Change,” “Love and War in Intimate Relationships.” Co-Editor of “Countertransference in Couples’ Therapy”; “The Borderline Patient”; “Healing Trauma” and more.

Meet Marion