2011 Congress Faculty

Annie Murphy Paul is a magazine journalist and book author who writes about the biological and social sciences. Born in Philadelphia, she graduated from Yale University and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. A former senior editor at Psychology Today magazine, she was awarded the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism. She is author of several books, including the current bestseller, Origins: How the Nine Months before Birth Shape the Rest of our Lives.

Barbara Findeisen is a psychotherapist with over 28 years of experience. She founded Pocket Sanctuary and created and is Clinical Director of the STAR workshop, a profoundly transformative 10-day retreat designed to accelerate self-healing and personal growth. Ms. Findeisen is trained in a variety of experiential therapies, and is regarded as one of the world's leading experts in the field of Pre-and Perinatal psychology, the study of the psychological impact of birth. Barbara is a past-President of APPPAH and a founding member of the International Association for Regression Research and Therapies.

Becky Brittain-Hicks Ph.D. received her doctorate in prenatal and perinatal psychology from SBGI. She has been a presenter at former APPPAH conferences. As “The Mothering Coach”, she supports expecting and new parents and their babies. She has counseling and somatic private practice in St. Louis, MO. Becky is an adjunct professor at Washington University and is a loving and involved grandparent. Becky presents with her partner: Eric Von Schrader, an instructional designer and learning and communications professional with 25 years of experience. He is a committed grandparent who, with Becky, is co-writing a new book for grandparents.

Beverly Stokes, CMA, RSME is a Certified Movement Analyst and Registered Somatic Movement Educator. She is the Founder/Director of Amazing Babies Moving and President of Move Alive Media Inc. Amazing Babies Moving is a global interactive network that provides Parenting Through Movement Programs and Products for parents, educators and professionals who work with families.

Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., a pioneer in the new biology, is an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit. A cell biologist by training, Bruce was on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine and later performed groundbreaking stem cell research at Stanford University. He is the bestselling author of The Biology of Belief and the more recent Spontaneous Evolution, co-authored with Steve Bhaerman. Bruce received the 2009 prestigious Goi Peace Award (Japan) in honor of his scientific contribution to world harmony.

Caroline Peterson, DC, PhD, MPH, LDM, is a midwife, chiropractic physician, and medical anthropologist. Her clinical and research interests focus on mind/body medicine and how birth and the postpartum period influence, and are influenced by, family dynamics. Her clinical work explores a variety of interventions to nurture or heal those early relationship tendencies.

Carrie Contey PhD received her doctorate from Santa Barbara Graduate Institute in clinical psychology with a specialty in prenatal and perinatal psychology. Nationally recognized as an early parenting coach, consultant, speaker, and educator, her passion is transforming the way we think about babies, birth, and parenting. She is co-founder of the Slow Family Movement and co-author of CALMS: A Guide To Soothing Your Baby and What Babies Want: Five Simple Steps to Calming and Communicating with Your Baby.

Christof Plothe, D.O., BSc., OST, HONS, MRO, DPO, H, earned his DPO (Diploma of Pediatric Osteopathy) in 2005 and has maintained an osteopathic practice in Alzey Germany for 7 years. In 2010, he co-founded a clinic for environmental medicine in Brazil. He can be contacted at Bleichstrasse 21, 55232 Alzey, Germany, or via e-mail at plothe@yahoo.com. His website is www.osteopathische-medizin.net.

Dr Dennis Hertenstein has a cranial sacral and chiropractic practice in Santa Rosa, California and has 40 years experience in trauma resolution with all ages, integrating pre and perinatal psychology into his work. He specializes in the resolution of birth trauma with babies and children. He has been teaching board certified cranial sacral courses, sponsored by chiropractic colleges and organizations internationally (US, UK, France, Sweden, Norway) for 25 years. Dennis has also taught classes on birth trauma interventions to birthing professionals suitable for application immediately postpartum. www.CranialWorkshops.com

Eva Gundberg, MDF, was born in Sweden, and received her Gynecology and Obstetrics in Sweden and Switzerland. Now in Venezuela, she is president of the Association for Prenatal Education. She introduced vertical birth in Caracas, and is author of El Placer de Nacer (The Pleasure of Birth).

Gabor Mate, M.D. is the bestselling author of When the Body Says No and Scattered Minds, and co-author of Hold On To Your Kids. His by-line has often been seen in the Globe and Mail, for articles and commentary ranging from health to politics. He is a dynamic, effective, and inspiring speaker and seminar leader. He is presently staff physician at a clinic in Vancouver’s Downtown East side, where his patients are people with drug addictions, HIV, and related problems.

Gregg Lahood PhD is an independent anthropological researcher and transpersonal gestalt psychotherapist. His interests include the transpersonal, spiritual, evolutionary and perinatal dimensions of childbirth. He has interviewed over 100 women in Australia and New Zealand and written and about the unique woman centered participatory events that women can participate in during childbirth in dozen articles on childbirth and transperspersonal psychology. Gregg's work suggests that women's spiritual events in childbirth are a valid but overlooked dimension in childbirth and psychology. He has developed Birth Centered Healing which combats harmful technocratic ritual wounding at childbirth with a healing counter ritual.

Dr. Jeanne Ohm is a practicing DC in a family, wellness based practice since 1981, author of numerous papers on pregnancy, birth, children, and chiropractic, and executive editor of Pathways to Family Wellness Magazine, among other notable accomplishments. It is Dr. Ohm’s mission to provide Doctors of Chropractic with the skills and motivation to care for more pregnant mothers and children as well as to educate educating other practitioners with the information to support natural birthing in their practices.

Karen Melton practices Prenatal & Birth Therapy in N.California, both healing and preventing womb, birth and bonding trauma with unborn and born babies, kids, adults and parents. She also supports integration of stressful/traumatic birthing for mom and baby, and trauma prevention for consciousness seeking pre-pregnant and pregnant parents. Intensives, Classes, Talks, and Professional Supervision for therapists, healers and birthing professionals are also available. Karen frequently works with survival level prenatal imprints, loves her work, and is a mother, and a grandmother. She is available for a free initial half hour consult.

Kelduyn R Garland, PhD, is a body-mind psychotherapist, consultant, & educator, specializing in reproductive, pre & perinatal bonding-attachment issues, dynamics, and trauma, as well as geriatric mental health during the past 5 decades. Her work is in supporting people in BIRTHING IN, BIRTHING WITHIN, and BIRTHING OUT of their life.

Ludwig Janus, M.D. is a lecturer and psychoanalysis instructor at the Psychoanalytic Training Institute in Heidelberg, Germany. He is past-president of the International Society for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine (ISPPM) and current Co-editor of the International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology. He has published numerous articles and books on prenatal and perinatal psychology and on psychohistory, including The Enduring Effects of Prenatal Life.

Marcy Axness, Ph.D., is a leading authority in the fields of early human development, adoption, prenatal psychology, and interpersonal neurobiology. One of the world’s few experts in the primal issues in adoption, Dr. Axness teaches prenatal development at the graduate level and has a private practice counseling parents and “pre-parents.” For the past four years, Marcy has also been the Editor for APPPAH’s quarterly newsletter.

Marilyn Milos has been working tirelessly to end non-therapeutic circumcision for nearly 30 years. She is Founder and Executive Director of NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers); Coordinator of the International Symposium on Circumcision, Genital Integrity, and Human Rights; and co-editor of six books of symposia proceedings.

Marti Glenn, PhD, is founding President of Santa Barbara Graduate Institute which offers graduate degrees in Clinical Psychology, Somatic Psychology, and Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology. She has been a pioneering psychotherapist and educator for over 25 years integrating somatic principles, attachment, early development, and trauma.

Mia Kalef is a Chiropractor and Craniosacral Therapist, is founder of Emerging Families, a program of therapy, education, and research for the Pre and Perinatal Period. She works with families throughout the childbearing years to resolve the effects of Pre and Perinatal challenges and with adults retrospectively. She is the author of The Secret Life of Babies and lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Michael Trout earned a BA from Alma College, an MA from Central Michigan University, and did his specialized training in infant psychiatry at the Child Development Project, University of Michigan School of Medicine, under Prof. Selma Fraiberg. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters, and co-authored The Johnathon Letters and Baby Verses: The Narrative Poetry of Infant and Toddlers, as well as producing films on the unique perspective of babies.

A licensed psychotherapist in California and founding president of the Academy of California Adoption Professionals. She had a private practice specializing in the psychological aspects of infertility, IVF, adoption, and egg donorship and now works in adoption facilitation services. Her current passion is facilitating change in the political aspects of adoption practices and policies to make the baby the central figure.

Patricia Crittenden, Ph.D. is a developmental psychopathologist who developed the Dynamic-Maturational Model (DMM) of attachment and adaptation. She pioneered video-feedback intervention for maltreating mothers, designed and implemented a family support center for low income families, trained as both a behavioral and family systems therapist, became the Director of the Miami Child Protection Team. She has published more than 100 empirical papers and chapters, as well as several books.

Phyllis Klaus, MFT, LCSW, practices psychotherapy at the Milton Erickson Institute in Santa Rosa, and in Berkeley, CA. She has specialized in the perinatal period for 30 years. She consults nationally and internationally and is co-author of Bonding, Your Amazing Newborn, The Doula Book, and When Survivors Give Birth.

Raylene M. Phillips, MD, FAAP, IBCLC Loma Linda University Medical Center & Children’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology After raising three children as a stay-at-home mom, Dr. Phillips received an MA in Developmental Psychology and became NIDCAP certified as an Infant Developmental Specialist. With the goal of becoming a neonatologist, she attended medical school at University of California, Davis, and completed her pediatric residency and neonatology fellowship at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital in Loma Linda, CA, where she is currently living her dream as an attending neonatologist. Dr. Phillips is also an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Her primary areas of interest are maternal-infant attachment, breastfeeding education and support, and developmental protective care of premature infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Texas Austin and Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, is a medical anthropologist specializing in the anthropology of reproduction. An international speaker and researcher, she is author of over 80 articles and of Birth as an American Rite of Passage (1992, 2004) and lead editor of 10 collections, the latest of which is Birth Models That Work, which highlights optimal models of birth care around the world. Her current research project studies the paradigm shifts of holistic obstetricians in Brazil. Robbie serves as Editor for the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI): 10 Steps to Optimal Maternity Care (www.imbci.org), Board Member of the International MotherBaby Childbirth Organization (IMBCO), and Senior Advisor to the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction.  Her email is davis-floyd@mail.utexas.edu.

Rupert Linder, MD, practicing Obstetrician and Gynecologist in Birkenfeld, Germany. He also practices psychosomatics and psychotherapy and was President of The International Society of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine (ISPPM). In his European office for gynecology, obstetrics, and psychotherapy, he has developed a method that has resulted in significant reductions in the rate of premature births.

Sandy Morningstar has practiced Body Centered Therapy in her home state of Vermont for twenty years. She has an MA from St. Michael's College and interned in the Vermont State. She teaches an apprenticeship program in Vermont and has for many years assisted Douglas Brady at The Kripalu Yoga Center in Lenox, Mass. She has authored a book entitled Who is Born? Exploring the Birth Patterns that Shape Our Lives which is forthcoming.

Suzanne Arms has spent 40 years as a practical visionary, educating and advocating for a paradigm shift in how humans think about and the decisions we make about birthing babies and caring for the mother-baby pair from preconception on. An internationally renowned speaker, Arms is author-photojournalist of 7 groundbreaking books on pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, new parenting and adoption. Her book on birth, Immaculate Deception (1975 & 1997) challenged the entrenched system of modern hospital-based birth and was named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times. In the 1970s Arms co-founded one of the first modern birth centers and created and taught one the first course in the evolution of childbirth practices. Arms founded and directs the USA-based nonprofit/charity Birthing The Future(R), which has begun a global social media campaign called THE TIME IS NOW to focus attention on Birth and the Primal Period. Suzanne lives and works in Colorado.

Teresa is a Certified Nurse Midwife, Birth Intuitive™ and Intuitive Counselor has been immersed in the domain of women's health, birth and complementary healing since 1979. From 1996 she has integrated her mind, body and spirit knowledge and skills to create her unique and groundbreaking work as a Birth Intuitive™. Teresa has been a proud member of APPPAH since 1987 and has presented in several round tables and concurrent sessions.

Terry Monell specializes in the often overlooked area of traumatic pediatric medical intervention. As an advocate, researcher and writer she is helping to bring awareness to the PTSD that can result. Having spent the majority of her career in the art world as a private and corporate consultant, exhibiting artist, and presenter of art workshops facilitating subconscious exploration, she is currently studying at The Santa Barbara Graduate Institute to broaden her base for advocacy work. Her personal experience in this area brings a unique perspective to the reality of what it is to help an ill child while inadvertently creating long term psychological consequences.

Thomas R. Verny is a psychiatrist, writer, academic, founder of the Pre-and Perinatal Psychology association of North America (PPPANA, renamed APPPAH in 1995). In 1974 Dr. Verny wrote, Inside Groups, for McGraw Hill. The Secret Life of the Unborn Child (with John Kelly), Summit Books, 1981, followed this. The Secret Life of the Unborn Child has become an international bestseller published in 27 countries and has changed the pregnancy and childbirth experience for millions of mothers and fathers. In addition to seven books, Dr. Verny is the author or co-author of 46 scientific papers and articles. He currently practices psychiatry in Stratford, ON, Canada. In his spare time he writes short stories and poetry.

William R. Emerson, Ph.D., is a workshop leader, writer, lecturer, and pioneer in the field of pre and perinatal psychology. He is President of APPPAH, the US educational corporation representing professionals and individuals interested in pre- and perinatal psychology. He is among the first in the world to develop prenatal and perinatal treatment methods for infants and children, is a renowned expert in treatment methods for adults, and is recognized world-wide for his contributions. He is the author of 5 self-published books 15 published chapters and journal articles in the field of pre and perinatal psychology. He is also the writer and producer of four video programs. He holds graduate degrees from Vanderbilt and San Jose State Universities, graduating with honors. He has held university appointments as Honorary Faculty, Director of Clinical Training, International Lecturer, and Assistant Professor of Psychology. As an acknowledgment of his contributions to psychology, he received an honorary fellowship from the US National Science Foundation. Dr. Emerson practiced psychotherapy for 25 years, specializing in regression therapy, and lectured domestically and internationally on these topics. Dr. Emerson is retired from the practice of psychotherapy and is currently conducting training seminars, personal workshops, and finishing a book on trauma caused by the maternity care system (publication date is Aug. 2011), as well as conducting training programs in the U.S., Canada, and Europe