Carol Smith Ali
is a Certified Rubenfeld Synergist who has maintained a private practice in Asheville, North Carolina, since 1995. She completed the three-year Rubenfeld Synergy Post-graduate Training in 1997. Carol has also trained in Rogerian and Jungian therapy, Gestalt practice, and dreamwork. As a volunteer, she gives in-service trainings for hospice staff about the use of touch. Her hobbies include writing, music, modern dance, hiking, and pursuing her interest in holistic health.

Patti Allen
has a rich and varied background in the healing arts, education, management and public speaking. Certified as a Rubenfeld Synergist, Patti runs a private practice in Toronto, Canada, and serves on the teaching staff of the Rubenfeld Synergy Method Training Program — its twelfth training, (New York City 1994 – 1997) and its fifteenth (Toronto 1998 – 2002). Patti also facilitates dreamgroups, in which participants are assisted in understanding themselves through their dreams, both with and without the use of touch. Patti is cofounder, along with teacher, friend, colleague and “flying partner” Marjorie Paleshi, of Pathways to Healing, Inc.

Rose Andrzejeweski
has finally found her professional niche! Since completing the Rubenfeld Synergy Method Training Program she has been developing her private practice of Rubenfeld Synergy in Manhattan, where she especially enjoys working with clients who have difficulty finding their true vocation. Rose is also developing her cabaret act in Manhattan and will begin performing it in the fall of 1999.

Valerie Bain
is a registered nurse in London, Ontario (Canada), where she has maintained her independent practice, “Wellness Services,” for over ten years. She is certified in Rubenfeld Synergy, Reflexology, and Therapeutic Touch. A cancer survivor for over fourteen years despite two recurrences, Valerie counts among her clients many persons dealing with the physical, mental and emotional aspects of this disease. Valerie cosponsors two holistic health fairs in London annually and has brought to London speakers such as Ilana Rubenfeld and Drs. Bernie Siegel and Deepak Chopra, who have strongly influenced her own personal healing journey.

Gail Benton
has been practicing Rubenfeld Synergy in Tucson, Arizona, since her 1991 certification. Her areas of specialization include: recovery from physical and emotional trauma; the building of wellness and self-esteem; and transforming grief, loss, conflict, pain, and stress into joyful living. Gail has been a mental health practitioner for twenty-five years. She is currently incorporating Rubenfeld Synergy into her work with hospice patients and their families. Gail is a longtime student and teacher of yoga and is an avid swimmer. She has two daughters, aged sixteen and eleven.

Marita Bishop
began her quest for integrating body, mind, and soul at age thirty-six, when her esophagus “shut down.” After medical science relieved her acute symptoms, Marita began exploring the contributing emotional, mental, and spiritual blocks. As a massage practitioner, she already knew the healing power of touch. Now as a Rubenfeld Synergist practicing in Snohomish, Washington, Marita finds that “our bodies are windows through which we learn to see and accept ourselves. Our wounds become building blocks in our healing.” Marita’s experience as a teacher and as mother of five serves her well in facilitating others’ healing journeys.

Thomas Claire
was enjoying the fruits of a successful career in finance when, in his late thirties, he began a search for deeper values. After exploring various metaphysical traditions and a variety of bodywork and body – mind therapies, he left the financial world to build a professional practice in bodywork and to research and write Bodywork, a guide to sixteen major body – mind methods. He continues to explore his interest in the full spectrum of mind – body practices through teaching, writing, and facilitating personal transformation.

Sonja Contois
has been interested in philosophy, psychology, religion, and the spirit since her early teens. Those interests became passions, and at fifty-nine the passion remains. Because of Sonja’s life goals and strong belief in the spirit of community, she dedicates one-third of her practice in Asheville, North Carolina, to pro bono work with breast cancer patients. Describing her work Sonja has said, “I experience my practice in Rubenfeld Synergy Method as something between a ministry, applied philosophy, and chiropractic for the soul. I cannot imagine another professional endeavor that would bring forth so much of an understanding of life.”

Bernard Coyne
is a member of the Council of Master Synergists. He teaches the Workshop Group Leadership Training with Ilana Rubenfeld and gives workshop presentations nationally and internationally. He is the cofounder — with his wife Dorothy Ann — of Sunnyside, a learning center in the Irish Hills of Michigan near Ann Arbor. There he has his private practice in Rubenfeld Synergy and teaches “Your Creative Process.”

Patricia Ellen
practices Rubenfeld Synergy in Scarsdale and Nyack, New York. In addition she draws on her background as an Interfaith minister, hypnotherapist, breathworker, and even as a certified public accountant. Patricia believes that times of transition and loss present individuals with a unique opportunity to transform the “tomb of loss” into the “womb of new ways of being.” While integrating the pragmatic with the psychological and spiritual, she gently empowers her clients to create the lives, relationships, health, and financial well-being they desire. She says, “God danced the day you were born; now find your special dance. L’Chayim.”

Betty Esthelle
began her hands-on healing work in 1945, as a nurse. By 1977, when she began her training in the Rubenfeld Synergy Method, Betty’s focus had changed from traditional medicine to esoteric healing. Since 1979 she has maintained her home and private practice, “Body Enlightenment,” in San Francisco. The year 1984 was transformational — with Betty’s divorce, near-death, cancer, and spontaneous healing. Betty has taught at the Gestalt Institute in Germany every year since 1985. She now travels extensively to teach the professional training program she has developed.

Lydia Foerster
is an independent videomaker living in New York City. When she’s not traveling the world for corporate clients, Lydia teaches video production at New York University and produces her own documentaries. Of all the stories she has lensed, none have been as intense or dramatic as the tales told on a table at 115 Waverly Place in Greenwich Village. After a year of shooting Rubenfeld Synergy sessions, Lydia volunteered for a “hip release.” She promptly found her own Synergist, whom she has been seeing once a week ever since.

Suzanne Forman
is a Certified Rubenfeld Synergist practicing in Northampton, Massachusetts. She is licensed as a massage therapist and also brings to her Rubenfeld Synergy practice years of study in yoga, CranioSacral Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, and Body-Mind Centering. Suzanne lives with her husband, Steve Forman, also a Certified Rubenfeld Synergist, and their daughter. She is on the board of directors of the National Association of Rubenfeld Synergists and is the founder of a holistic group practice in Northampton.

Joy Gates
is a writer, artist, and eclectic adventurer in consciousness. She has lived in other countries, been married several times, raised three daughters, been a Tarot reader, astrologer and palmist, ranch caretaker, assistant manager of a health food store, and assistant director of an esoteric correspondence school. Her most grounded and practical work was accomplished on the bodywork table at Lalitha Devi’s Manhattan office, where she was a Rubenfeld Synergy client twice a month for almost three years.

Suzanne Gluck-Sosis
gives Rubenfeld Synergy much of the credit for her growth and transformation. Says Suzanne, “Previously a fearful and depressed widow with a deep sense of unworthiness, I have blossomed into a vibrant, energetic therapist, wife, and grandmother. This gentle, nonintrusive process created a safe place for exploring all facets of me — the light as well as the shadow — and to know that all of me is lovable.” Recently remarried after twenty-one years of widowhood, Suzanne has relocated to Greenfield, Massachusetts, to be near her children and grandchildren and to continue her practice of Rubenfeld Synergy.

Erica Goodstone
received her doctorate in human sexuality from New York University. On the faculty of the American Academy of Clinical Sexologists and a Professor of Health and Physical Education, she is also licensed as a mental health counselor, marriage counselor, and massage therapist and is certified as a Rubenfeld Synergist, Registered Polarity Practitioner, Oriental Bodywork Therapist, and Sex Counselor and Therapist. Dr. Goodstone divides her time between teaching, writing, and her private practice, which is basically Rubenfeld Synergy with a special focus on sexual and relationship issues.

Suzanne Selby Grenager
lives and writes on a central Pennsylvania farm. She is certified in both the Rubenfeld Synergy Method and Kripalu Yoga, and has shared yoga with thousands of people. As Kripalu’s longtime Mid-Atlantic Regional Leader, Sue supported group leaders in helping others grow through yoga and, in 1994, received Kripalu’s Global Service Award for exemplary leadership and service. A former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, Sue writes articles and is working on a book, Relax, Trust, Love: How To Be Powerfully Human and Like It, at Least Sometimes. She and her husband, Trond, have two grown children.

Millie Grenough
was in Ilana’s second Rubenfeld Synergy Training and is a member of the Council of Master Synergists. Her five years’ experience working with varied cultures in Latin America and Europe piqued her interest in the connections between body, mind and spirit. Millie has a Master of Arts degree in teaching, is a licensed clinical social worker, and is the author of Sing It! Learn English Through Song (McGraw-Hill). A professional singer, she has a special interest in helping people find their body – voice connection and in teaching stress management and self-care to business groups and individuals.

Margaret A. Healy
is a Certified Rubenfeld Synergist who came to train in the method after learning, from her experience with modern dance and choreography, the importance of listening to the body. She has eighteen years’ experience working with infants and young children, and is continually awed by their vitality and freedom of movement. Margaret hopes to practice Rubenfeld Synergy with children, helping them restore their innate love of their bodies by increasing their awareness of the external messages that have led to their unnatural and restrictive holding patterns. Margaret practices in Morristown, New Jersey, and New York City.

Estela M. Hernandez
is an educator and health care practitioner on a journey of exploration. Dedicated to serving humanity, she has been seeking a higher truth in the field of health care. Trained as a research nurse-biologist, she lives and works in Queens, New York, where she maintains a Rubenfeld Synergy practice and teaches human biology for the City University of New York. She is currently researching and developing for her college a curriculum in holistic health care. As a workshop leader she is dedicated to introducing the Rubenfeld Synergy Method to her students and the people in her community.

Mary Jane Hooper
practices at the Wellness Center in Fort Worth, Texas, a center dedicated to promoting health and preventing illness. Mary Jane has a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Texas Woman’s University and has trained in several integrative approaches to working with individuals, couples, and families. By encouraging her Rubenfeld Synergy clients to explore the wisdom of the body, Mary Jane finds that they are often able to free their perceptions, rewrite their life stories, and nurture forgotten strengths. Mary Jane enjoys life with her husband, Win, and their two cats and chihuahua puppy.

Mary Hopkins,
age forty-two, is a classically trained singer and professional musician living in New England. She performs in a range of musical genres and styles, and works as a choral conductor, voice teacher, composer, and arranger. Mary uses the insights gained through Rubenfeld Synergy along with extensive formal training in music to enrich all her musical endeavors. She particularly enjoys working with students who are striving to overcome obstacles to their singing and performing. Mary’s other interests include gardening, herbalism, and living thankfully.

Diane Junglas’s
desire to support and guide others in reaching their potential laid the foundation for her doctoral research exploring the integrative experience of Rubenfeld Synergy. As a clinician she nurtures others’ healing and growth through creatively blending her knowledge and skills in psychology, Rubenfeld Synergy, and Polarity Therapy. Diane has worked with adults, groups, and couples for twenty years. A cocreator of the Life Resonance Center, a healing and educational center in the metropolitan Detroit area, she teaches skills in the therapeutic use of the self to health care professionals and is available for presentations and consultations.

Peggy Kostyshyn
practices Rubenfeld Synergy in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She brings to this work thirty years of nursing experience, many years as an active hockey/ballet/scouting mom, and a lifetime of volunteer work starting in eighth grade, when she organized Thunder Bay’s first Alateen group. Says Peggy, “Everything I did before Rubenfeld Synergy was out of my need to correct feelings of inadequacy from my past. Now I do everything out of love of life. What I want to share with my clients is the happiness and joy that are waiting for us all.”

Greg Kowalski
lived and trained in Japan with Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, the current Grandmaster of the Ninja, and is one of the world’s seniormost instructors of Ninjutsu. In addition to his ninth-degree black belt in Ninjutsu, which he teaches throughout the country, Greg holds rank in several other martial arts. He maintains his school (New England Ninjutsu) and his Rubenfeld Synergy practice in Wallingford, Connecticut. A serious outdoorsman and camper, Greg has trained with Tom Brown in primitive living skills and nature awareness and is interested in Native American spirituality.

Margaret Cappi Lang
is director of the Prescott Center for the Arts in Healing and the Practice of Rubenfeld Synergy. She maintains her practice in Prescott and Phoenix, Arizona. She received a master’s degree from Pratt Institute (New York) in the expressive therapies and a doctorate in human development from Arizona State University. She is a certified supervisor for both art therapy and Rubenfeld Synergy and currently teaches art therapy at Prescott College. A practicing artist, Cappi also enjoys singing and dancing. Cappi’s fiancé, Bill, is building a studio in which Cappi hopes to establish a retreat space for the Center.

Annie McCaffry
has studied parapsychology for the past thirty-five years, focusing on inherited family patterns that result in disease. She is a practicing consultant and conference speaker. In 1993 her Journey to My Self was published by Element Books of Shaftesbury, England. Annie is at present engaged in a follow-up book on the power of light and sound in healing and a television series centered around some of the challenges facing us in the next century. She lives and maintains a practice in Ramsbury, Wiltshire, England.

Barbara McKenzie’s
introduction to the connection between body, mind, and spirit came through her twenty-year study and teaching of the philosophy and discipline of Hatha Yoga. Her health and sense of well-being improved with her practice of yoga and her studies of the principles of metaphysics. Her creative expression, in the form of writing poetry, increased along with her spiritual development. Barbara recognized Rubenfeld Synergy as her ultimate calling when she attended a workshop given by Ilana. Barbara is currently a second-year student in the four-year Rubenfeld Synergy Training Program.

Gay Marcontell
was an artist before training to be a Rubenfeld Synergist. She worked in mixed media — paint, pencil, clay, autumn leaves — anything, in short, she could get her hands on. She has a bachelor of fine arts degree with work in oils and printmaking. She has practiced and taught journaling and meditation for many years. To expand her skills as a Synergist, group leader, supervisor, and teacher of Rubenfeld Synergy Method, Gay is serving as a teaching intern with the current Rubenfeld Synergy training class.

P. Tanzy Maxfield
lives with her partner, Rolf Godon, Ph.D., on the Truckee River in Truckee, California, thirty miles west of Reno, Nevada. At their professional center, Water by the River, Rolf practices psychotherapy and Tanzy practices Rubenfeld Synergy and Hellerwork. Certified by Harville Hendrix, together they produce “Getting the Love You Want” couples’ workshops. Between them they have four marriages, four divorces, four children, and two grandchildren. In their fifteen years together, they have even survived the building of their house. Says Tanzy, “We practice in our lives and our relationship what we teach.”

Vicki Mechner
found Rubenfeld Synergy in the early nineties after an eighteen-month search for a body – mind method that would help her keep loved ones out of hospitals. Upon her certification as a Rubenfeld Synergist, she thought she had left behind previous careers in editing, educational design, matchmaking, and marketing — but everything she ever knew came in handy in producing Healing Journeys. Vicki practices Rubenfeld Synergy and Bowen Technique in Fairfax County, Virginia, and enjoys helping people to maximize their well-being and effectiveness. She and her husband of thirty-eight years have four grown children.

Bill Miller
first met Ilana Rubenfeld over twenty years ago, when he photographed her workshops. At the time, he was part of the spiritual community known as Pathwork. Bill has been a recognized Pathwork Helper (therapist) and group leader since 1985 and has trained in Core Energetics. While achieving success as a photographer, he realized that if money were not an issue, he would devote his life to working with people on a very deep psychological and physical level to foster transformation; he thus trained to become a Certified Rubenfeld Synergist. He now balances photography and Synergy.

Diane Montgomery-Logan
has been exploring the human psyche since 1986, when she decided to leave a career as a metalsmith to become a psychotherapist. Seven years later she saw Rubenfeld Synergy as the opportunity to again use her hands in creative work. Her passion is for the spiritual dimension of her practice, the opportunity to accompany clients in their search for themselves. She lives in Burlington, Vermont, where she loves to garden in the summer and dance the fox-trot the rest of the year. Diane chairs the Ethics Committee and serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Rubenfeld Synergists.

Meg Morris
practices Rubenfeld Synergy in Cincinnati, Ohio, where by day she is a technical sales professional in the telecommunications industry. She attributes her success in that industry to her ability to listen and hear her customers’ needs. Once less active, Meg now works out five days each week, plays volleyball frequently, coaches two girls’ volleyball teams, and has recently begun long-distance bicycling. Meg attributes her high energy and good humor to lots of personal work and the loving influences of her boyfriend, Paul, and their blended family of five dogs, one cat, and fifteen tanks of freshwater fish.

Renate M. Novak
was born to a single mother in Germany in 1950. Renate moved to the United States in 1970 just after graduating from a two-and-a-half-year full-time training at a holistic health school. Since then, she has been working as a massage therapist. Her primary focus since 1991 has been as the owner and codirector of Health Choices, a holistic massage therapy school near Princeton, New Jersey. Most of Renate’s personal healing work has been accomplished through body-centered psychotherapies, including Rubenfeld Synergy.

Bineke Oort
is a Rubenfeld Synergist and a Licensed Family Therapist. Having been sensitized to the effects of trauma through her own experiences, Bineke has a particular affinity for clients recovering from trauma. Bineke is also a storyteller specializing in sacred stories. She currently serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Rubenfeld Synergists. Bineke and her husband, Abraham, who practice Mindful Meditation as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, realize more and more that paradise can be found here on Earth. Bineke has a master’s degree in social work and a private practice in Rubenfeld Synergy.

Jeanne Reock
is a Certified Rubenfeld Synergist practicing in the Princeton, New Jersey, area since 1991. She is president of both the National Association of Rubenfeld Synergists and the Holistic Health Association of the Princeton Area (HHAPA). After a long career working to influence state policy regarding public education, Jeanne takes great pleasure in helping people grow into their true essence, person by person. Her approach to therapy is simply a further reflection of her passion for educating the “whole person — body, mind, and soul” in a way that honors each individual’s unique being.

Toni Luisa Rivera,
a Certified Rubenfeld Synergist and doctor of chiropractic, practices full-time in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Toni is also on the staff of the Rubenfeld Synergy Training. Her hobbies range from riding horseback to riding the waves of the ocean when she visits her native island of Puerto Rico.

Gisèle Robert
is a registered nurse who trained in Gestalt Therapy, Therapeutic Touch, visualization, and Jungian dream analysis before entering the Rubenfeld Synergy Training Program. Gisèle has earned a degree in psychosociology and master’s degrees in personal communication and psychology. She has founded an association of nurses offering alternative care in Québec and has taught at universities and trained many caretakers in hospice care. Currently on the board of directors of the Québec Gestalt Association, she offers workshops on self-care and on dream body-mapping. Gisèle’s private practice as a Rubenfeld Synergist is in Montréal.

Ilana Rubenfeld
is a world-recognized pioneer in integrating psychotherapy, intuition, and bodywork. She developed the Rubenfeld Synergy Method in the 1960s, after a debilitating back spasm redirected her life journey away from music and conducting toward healing and teaching. Ilana has been a frequent presenter at conferences around the world and is in demand as a keynote speaker and workshop leader —not only for the wisdom she imparts, but also because of her talents as a humorist and. A faculty member of the Omega and Esalen Institutes and the New York Open Center, Ilana has received the Association of Humanistic Psychology’s Pathfinder Award for outstanding and innovative contributions to the field of humanistic psychology. Her book The Listening Hand is scheduled for publication by Bantam Books in the fall of 2000.

Mike Schlesinger
is a licensed psychologist who lives near Philadelphia in Ambler, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Forest Hills, New York, went to Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, and received a doctorate in psychoeducational processes from Temple University. In his private practice Dr. Schlesinger sees individuals, couples, and families. As word of body-oriented psychotherapy continues to spread, more and more of his clients are choosing to use the Rubenfeld Synergy Method instead of traditional psychotherapy. Mike and his wife, also a psychotherapist, enjoy skiing, biking, and traveling with their teenage son and daughter.

Carol Seewald
is a body-centered practitioner and Certified Rubenfeld Synergist. Carol worked as a counselor and administrator for La Leche League Canada for fifteen years, as a speech and language pathologist for fourteen, and a Therapeutic Touch practitioner for thirteen. Her personal roles as partner with her husband of twenty-eight years and mother of three have provided fertile ground for learning to live in peaceful, passionate, and safe community in this swiftly changing world. Currently she has a private practice in London, Ontario.

Julia Smith
was inspired to write when, after her first week of Rubenfeld Synergy Training, her dead marriage came back to life. Now a happy stay-at-home mum to her four-year-old daughter, Nancy, Julia spends her “free” time skiing, running, hiking, and training in Rubenfeld Synergy — preparing for certification in the year 2000. Julia writes: “I always sensed that there was more to people than the verbal rationalizations they put forth in the world. I also realized that there was more to me than what I put forth to myself and others.”

Linda Stoffel
brings to her work as a Rubenfeld Synergist and massage therapy practitioner knowledge acquired through a lifetime of travel, work, and play. In her work as a somatic educator, she draws upon her career as office manager and secretary and her more recent vocation as a wall-hanging designer, and also incorporates her gifts as folk singer-guitarist, landscape gardener, weaver, and outdoorswoman. Since her certification in 1994, Ms. Stoffel has practiced Rubenfeld Synergy — first in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, and now in Dora, Missouri, where she provides a holistic healing experience.

Linda Thomas
has been a practicing therapist for eighteen years, helping families heal and helping individuals find their home in their hearts. She has worked extensively with families and individuals experiencing severe crises and despair. She seeks to create a balance in her work by bringing her belief in love, humor, and basic human goodness into her sessions. Rubenfeld Synergy has been her model for attaining this harmony, following an education and training in philosophy, ethics, clinical social work, and archetypal psychology. She was the first Ethics Committee Chair of the National Association of Rubenfeld Synergists. She practices in Wickford and Newport, Rhode Island.

Donna L. Ulanowski,
a licensed clinical professional counselor and Certified Rubenfeld Synergist, established the Personal Growth Centre in Olympia Fields, Illinois. In addition to practicing Rubenfeld Synergy there, she conducts workshops and in-service training programs in team-building, communication, stress management, enhancing creativity and productivity in the workplace, the mind – body connection, and self-care for the caregiver. Donna loves canoeing and kayaking and has taught tai chi for several years. Donna is a teaching intern in the current Rubenfeld Synergy Training class.

Dan Wilder
works with wood, but is a water person at heart. Dan loves photography and making videos on his computer. When not at work or teaching his hobby skills to others, he enjoys swimming and spending time with his family.