Active Pause

In this conversation (February 2014), Robin Kappy talks about seeing beauty in art, in the world at large, and in people.

Robin Kappy, LCSW is a certified Focusing Oriented Psychotherapist and supervisor. A skillful and empathic psychotherapist with years of professional experience, her specialties include the treatment of recent and early-childhood trauma, issues of creativity, depression, anxiety, relationships and sleep-related problems. She is a certified EMDR practitioner and faculty member and supervisor for the Focusing Oriented Relational Psychotherapy Program. She and Susan Rudnick, LCSW cofounded Flatiron Psychotherapy Associates and offer “Rest Well Tonight,” a focusing-oriented approach to assisting people who experience difficulties falling or staying asleep, or wake feeling un-rested. In addition to a passionate engagement with her work as a psychotherapist, Robin loves to draw and paint. Her drawings and paintings have appeared in a number of venues. She writes about the integration of psychotherapy, creativity and the topic of beauty on her blog: Stepping Through Beauty. See her website.

Published February 2014

In this conversation (February 2014), Susan Rudnick begins with a childhood memory of being exposed to nature, and how from then on, nature has sustained her, thinking that will be the topic. But then the conversation moves to the way she uses embodied presence to bring herself back into a memory, reflect, deepen understanding, connect it to the rich tapestry of her life, and perhaps express in writing. This is a specific use of the mindfulness that she tries to cultivate all the time.

Susan Rudnick LCSW has been in private practice for over thirty years in Manhattan and Westchester. Her special interests include questions of spiritual direction, infertility and adoption, and relationship intimacy issues. She trained analytically at the Karen Horney Institute. Twelve years ago she discovered and fell in love with Focusing. She is a certified Focusing Trainer, and has completed a Focusing based trauma program, led by Shirley Turcotte. She also is part of an ongoing Self Psychology study group. A Zen practitioner, and haiku poet, her chapter, “Coming Home to Wholeness,” appears in the book ”Into the Mountain Stream: Psychotherapy and Buddhist Experience,” ed. Paul Cooper. Susan teaches and supervises for the FORP (Focusing Oriented Relational Psychotherapy) program in New York and South Africa. See her website.

Published February 2014

In this conversation (February 2014), Susan Rudnick begins with a childhood memory of being exposed to nature, and how from then on, nature has sustained her, thinking that will be the topic. But then the conversation moves to the way she uses embodied presence to bring herself back into a memory, reflect, deepen understanding, connect it to the rich tapestry of her life, and perhaps express in writing. This is a specific use of the mindfulness that she tries to cultivate all the time.

Susan Rudnick LCSW has been in private practice for over thirty years in Manhattan and Westchester. Her special interests include questions of spiritual direction, infertility and adoption, and relationship intimacy issues. She trained analytically at the Karen Horney Institute. Twelve years ago she discovered and fell in love with Focusing. She is a certified Focusing Trainer, and has completed a Focusing based trauma program, led by Shirley Turcotte. She also is part of an ongoing Self Psychology study group. A Zen practitioner, and haiku poet, her chapter, “Coming Home to Wholeness,” appears in the book ”Into the Mountain Stream: Psychotherapy and Buddhist Experience,” ed. Paul Cooper. Susan teaches and supervises for the FORP (Focusing Oriented Relational Psychotherapy) program in New York and South Africa. See her website.

Published February 2014

In this conversation (January 2014), Pawan Bareja talks about the power of myth to inspire us.

Pawan Bareja has practiced Buddhist meditation since 2001. She is a Spirit Rock Ritual Minister and Community Dharma Leader. In her private practice as Trauma Resolution Practitioner, she works with a diverse population of clients and includes mindfulness meditation. As a senior assistant in Somatic Experiencing trainings, Pawan has offered personal sessions and case consults at all levels for the past 10 years. She now teaches mindfulness and trauma classes and daylongs in San Francisco and at Spirit Rock.

Published January 2014

In this conversation (January 2014), Pawan Bareja talks about the power of myth to inspire us.

Pawan Bareja has practiced Buddhist meditation since 2001. She is a Spirit Rock Ritual Minister and Community Dharma Leader. In her private practice as Trauma Resolution Practitioner, she works with a diverse population of clients and includes mindfulness meditation. As a senior assistant in Somatic Experiencing trainings, Pawan has offered personal sessions and case consults at all levels for the past 10 years. She now teaches mindfulness and trauma classes and daylongs in San Francisco and at Spirit Rock.

Published January 2014

Dr Iain McGilchrist began his academic career as a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, teaching and writing about English literature.  In Against Criticism, he expressed his misgivings about the academic study of literature, especially its neglect of how individual, embodied beings encounter the unique, incarnate work of art. He studied philosophy, trained in medicine, and became a psychiatrist. He has since twice been re-elected to Fellowships at All Souls, has been a Research Fellow in Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins, and a Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem & Maudsley Hospital. He works privately as a psychiatrist in London.

His latest book, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, explores the different versions of the world which are made available to us by the cerebral hemispheres, and their influence on the history of ideas and of philosophy in the West.

Published: January 2014. See Printable PDF transcript.

Bruce Ecker, MA, LMFT, is co-director of the Coherence Psychology Institute, co-originator of Coherence Therapy, and coauthor of Unlocking the Emotional Brain: Eliminating Symptoms at Their Roots Using Memory Reconsolidation; Depth Oriented Brief Therapy: How To Be Brief When You Were Trained To Be Deep and Vice Versa; and the Coherence Therapy Practice Manual & Training Guide.

Clarifying how deep, transformational change takes place is the theme of Bruce Ecker’s clinical career, and he has contributed extensive innovations in concepts and methods of experiential psychotherapy. He has also driven the clinical field’s recognition of memory reconsolidation research and how this breakthrough in brain science translates into a new domain of therapeutic know-how, consistent effectiveness, and psychotherapy integration. He is a frequent presenter at conferences and workshops internationally, has taught in clinical graduate programs for many years, and is in private practice near San Francisco, California. See: CoherenceInstitute.org.

Published: November 2013. See printable PDF transcript.

Pawan Bareja has practiced Buddhist meditation since 2001. She is a Spirit Rock Ritual Minister and Community Dharma Leader. In her private practice as Trauma Resolution Practitioner, she works with a diverse population of clients and includes mindfulness meditation. As a senior assistant in Somatic Experiencing trainings, Pawan has offered personal sessions and case consults at all levels for the past 10 years. She now teaches mindfulness and trauma classes and daylongs in San Francisco and at Spirit Rock.

Published October 2013. See also conversation with Pawan Bareja about what sustains her.

Ruella Frank, Ph.D., is founder and director of the Center for Somatic Studies, faculty at the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy, adjunct faculty at Gestalt Associates for Psychotherapy and also teaches throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico and Canada. Ruella has authored chapters in various publications as well as the book Body of Awareness: A Somatic and Developmental Approach to Psychotherapy, in four languages (GestaltPress 2001), and co-authored the book The First Year and The Rest of Your Life: Movement, Development and Psychotherapeutic Change (Routledge Press 2010), in three languages. She also wrote and produced the video course Developmental Somatic Psychotherapy: An Introduction (2013). See: SomaticStudies.com.

Published: September 2013. See: Printable PDF transcript.

David Wallin, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Albany and Mill Valley, California.  A graduate of Harvard who received his doctorate from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, he has been practicing, teaching, and writing about psychotherapy for nearly three decades.  Attachment in Psychotherapy, his most recent book, is presently being translated into nine languages. He is also the co-author (with Stephen Goldbart) of Mapping the Terrain of the Heart: Passion, Tenderness, and the Capacity to Love.  A lively and engaging speaker who combines a scholarly perspective with unusual candor about his own experience as a therapist, he has lectured on attachment and psychotherapy in Australia, Europe, Canada, and throughout the United States. For further information, please visit AttachmentInPsychotherapy.com.

Published: July 2013. See: Printable PDF transcript.