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A native of Geneva, Switzerland, Jean-Jacques Joris founded Twin Oaks Farm with his wife Isabelle, a center for equine-assisted psychotherapy, near Boulder, Colorado. Jean-Jacques holds a Law degree from Geneva University and an MA in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in Boulder. In offering mindfulness-based psychotherapy with horses to his clients, Jean-Jacques brings together his three lifelong passions: the human body-mind, contemplative practice, and the healing power of the human-horses relationship. For fifteen years, Jean-Jacques was a diplomat with the Swiss foreign service, and worked in conflict and post-conflict environments around the world, as well as in the field of war crimes and international justice, gaining first-hand experience of individual and collective trauma. Jean-Jacques speaks several languages and is currently learning the wordless language of his 13 equine co-therapists. See: TwinOaksFarm.com.

April 2012: See: Printable PDF transcript.

A native of Geneva, Switzerland, Jean-Jacques Joris founded Twin Oaks Farm with his wife Isabelle, a center for equine-assisted psychotherapy, near Boulder, Colorado. Jean-Jacques holds a Law degree from Geneva University and an MA in Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University in Boulder. In offering mindfulness-based psychotherapy with horses to his clients, Jean-Jacques brings together his three lifelong passions: the human body-mind, contemplative practice, and the healing power of the human-horses relationship. For fifteen years, Jean-Jacques was a diplomat with the Swiss foreign service, and worked in conflict and post-conflict environments around the world, as well as in the field of war crimes and international justice, gaining first-hand experience of individual and collective trauma. Jean-Jacques speaks several languages and is currently learning the wordless language of his 13 equine co-therapists. See: TwinOaksFarm.com.

April 2012: See: Printable PDF transcript.

Stephen J. Terrell, MS, LPC, RPT, SEP is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Austin, Texas.  He specializes in Developmental Trauma, Medical Trauma, and Attachment Disorders including Reactive Attachment Disorder.  Stephen is a single parent and knows firsthand the affects of trauma on the family system.  After adopting his son with Reactive Attachment Disorder, he felt overwhelmed with his experience and went searching for trauma/attachment treatments. He has completed the TST program with Kathy Kain and has incorporated the touch work as a crucial component in working with regulation and early developmental trauma because of the non-verbal approach. Stephen works both with the parent and child during sessions. Stephen is the founder of Austin Attachment and Counseling Center and is a Registered Play Therapist, certified in EMDR, and trained in working with First Responders. He is often called upon to speak at national and international conferences on children and trauma. See Website.

Published March 2012.

Stephen J. Terrell, MS, LPC, RPT, SEP is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Austin, Texas.  He specializes in Developmental Trauma, Medical Trauma, and Attachment Disorders including Reactive Attachment Disorder.  Stephen is a single parent and knows firsthand the affects of trauma on the family system.  After adopting his son with Reactive Attachment Disorder, he felt overwhelmed with his experience and went searching for trauma/attachment treatments. He has completed the TST program with Kathy Kain and has incorporated the touch work as a crucial component in working with regulation and early developmental trauma because of the non-verbal approach. Stephen works both with the parent and child during sessions. Stephen is the founder of Austin Attachment and Counseling Center and is a Registered Play Therapist, certified in EMDR, and trained in working with First Responders. He is often called upon to speak at national and international conferences on children and trauma. See Website.

Published March 2012.

In this conversation, Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi talk about their book, Love, Inshallah, in which 25 American Muslim writers talk about their experience of love.

Ayesha Mattu (left) is a writer and international development consultant. Her writing has appeared in CNN.com, The Huffington Post, the International Museum of Women, Religion Dispatches,  and the award-winning blog, Rickshaw Diaries. She was selected a Muslim Leader of Tomorrow by the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the ASMA Society in 2009. Ayesha is working on a memoir about losing faith and finding love from which The Opening is excerpted in Love, InshAllah. She lives with her husband and son in Northern California.

Nura Maznavi (right) is a civil rights attorney, writer, and Fulbright Scholar. She has worked with migrant workers in Sri Lanka, on behalf of prisoners in California, and with a national legal advocacy organization leading a program to end racial and religious profiling. Nura is working on a screenplay and several short stories. Nura’s third love—after food and traveling—is California, where she was raised and lives currently.

See their website.

Published March 2012

In this conversation, Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi talk about their book, Love, Inshallah, in which 25 American Muslim writers talk about their experience of love.

Ayesha Mattu (left) is a writer and international development consultant. Her writing has appeared in CNN.com, The Huffington Post, the International Museum of Women, Religion Dispatches,  and the award-winning blog, Rickshaw Diaries. She was selected a Muslim Leader of Tomorrow by the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the ASMA Society in 2009. Ayesha is working on a memoir about losing faith and finding love from which The Opening is excerpted in Love, InshAllah. She lives with her husband and son in Northern California.

Nura Maznavi (right) is a civil rights attorney, writer, and Fulbright Scholar. She has worked with migrant workers in Sri Lanka, on behalf of prisoners in California, and with a national legal advocacy organization leading a program to end racial and religious profiling. Nura is working on a screenplay and several short stories. Nura’s third love—after food and traveling—is California, where she was raised and lives currently.

See their website.

Published March 2012

In this conversation, Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi talk about their book, Love, Inshallah, in which 25 American Muslim writers talk about their experience of love.

Ayesha Mattu (left) is a writer and international development consultant. Her writing has appeared in CNN.com, The Huffington Post, the International Museum of Women, Religion Dispatches,  and the award-winning blog, Rickshaw Diaries. She was selected a Muslim Leader of Tomorrow by the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the ASMA Society in 2009. Ayesha is working on a memoir about losing faith and finding love from which The Opening is excerpted in Love, InshAllah. She lives with her husband and son in Northern California.

Nura Maznavi (right) is a civil rights attorney, writer, and Fulbright Scholar. She has worked with migrant workers in Sri Lanka, on behalf of prisoners in California, and with a national legal advocacy organization leading a program to end racial and religious profiling. Nura is working on a screenplay and several short stories. Nura’s third love—after food and traveling—is California, where she was raised and lives currently.

See their website.

Published March 2012

Albert Pesso, co-founder with his wife, Diane Boyden-Pesso, of PBSP, Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor and President of the Psychomotor Institute, Inc. was formerly Associate Professor and Director of the Dance Division at Emerson College, Supervisor of Psychomotor Therapy at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts and Consultant in Psychiatric Research at the Boston VA Hospital.  He has conducted training programs in PBSP in the US, Brazil, Israel and in many countries in Europe . He and his work with PBSP for the German GTZ Mission in The Democratic Republic of Congo have been featured in a documentary film, “State of Mind” distributed by Icarus Films.  He is the author of many books and articles on PBSP, and a frequent lecturer at universities, hospitals and clinics in the US and Europe. At present, he continues his intensive training schedule in Europe, and also leads programs and sees individuals in Boston, Massachusetts. Al is the recipient of the USABP’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award. See: PBSP.com.

March 2012. See: Printable PDF transcript. See also Part 1 of this conversation  and chapter about what sustains him.

Albert Pesso, co-founder with his wife, Diane Boyden-Pesso, of PBSP, Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor and President of the Psychomotor Institute, Inc. was formerly Associate Professor and Director of the Dance Division at Emerson College, Supervisor of Psychomotor Therapy at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts and Consultant in Psychiatric Research at the Boston VA Hospital.  He has conducted training programs in PBSP in the US, Brazil, Israel and in many countries in Europe . He and his work with PBSP for the German GTZ Mission in The Democratic Republic of Congo have been featured in a documentary film, “State of Mind” distributed by Icarus Films.  He is the author of many books and articles on PBSP, and a frequent lecturer at universities, hospitals and clinics in the US and Europe. At present, he continues his intensive training schedule in Europe, and also leads programs and sees individuals in Boston, Massachusetts. Al is the recipient of the USABP’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award. See: PBSP.com.

March 2012. See: Printable PDF transcript. See also Part 2 of the conversation with Al Pesso and chapter about what sustains him.

In this conversation (February 2012), Astrid Schillings talks about “The-Whole-Body-Focusing”, the place of grounded Being, Spirituality, Mindfulness, pathways of embodiment in her life.

Astrid Schillings’ bio: Focusing came into my life in 1981 when studying psychology. It resonated deeply with my wondering what it is to be human, why we are here. I have been exploring, teaching extensively on the interfaces of Sensitive Body-Awareness, Mindfulness, Meditative enquiry, Inner-Directed-Movement and Focusing. It took years to let it slowly carry forward in my heart into one taste of The-Whole-Body-Focusing. Thank you Kevin McEvenue for your warm support! I teach WBF/Focusing-Oriented-Therapy internationally in accredited trainings for counsellors/psychotherapists like in my Cologne-Centre and to everybody interested. I experience The-Whole-Body-Focusing as a way of embodied enquiry into living being, a dynamic being aware… person to person, person- environment, the more… every day. Therapy, trauma-healing are important applications. In the last 17 years I have been in ongoing conversation with Gene Gendlin on the human body as inter-active awareness.

Published February 2012