therapist

About Avinoam

Avinoam Lerner, Cancer Trauma & Recovery Specialist, Author, TEDx Speaker

Growing up in a war-torn part of the world, where loss and trauma are rampant, I remember this seminal moment, at the age of six, witnessing a woman I looked up to breaking down after learning her husband did not return from the war.

The look in her eyes, of fear and loss, burned into my brain with intensity. I wanted it to go away so badly! But, being so young, I couldn’t do anything; I felt powerless and helpless.

Many years later, I saw the very same look in someone else’s eyes, a cancer patient who came to me for a consultation seeking relief. At that moment, I was no longer that helpless child; I had the tools and the knowledge and could finally help.

That patient changed the direction of my practice and gave it a clear and defined focus – to help people facing cancer and trauma break through to recovery.

I am asked sometimes – how can you do it? How can you stay so present, focused, and content in the face of others’ fears, trauma, and grief? My answer is – it’s what I am here for. I can support people this way because that’s who I am.

As an army veteran, I know the value of discipline and pushing through. Cancer is a battlefield of a sort, which is why my approach is goal-oriented and result-driven. And yet, as a parent of two daughters, I’ve learned to be nurturing and grounded. That is what I offer those I work with, a safe and structured place for healing of both mind and body.

Professional Training

I earned my degree as a Holistic Therapist from the Reidman International College for Complementary and Integrative Medicine in Israel in 2000. I am certified as a Clinical Hypnotherapist by the National Guild of Hypnotists (NGH) and the National Federation of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NFNLP) in the USA.

About Mitchell

Mitchell Kossak, Ph.D., LMHC, REAT, has been a licensed mental health counselor, since 1994, and a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) since 2005. His clinical work combines expressive arts therapies with body-centered approaches with a variety of populations addressing concerns related to chronic pain, recovery from trauma, depression, anxiety, life transitions and relationship issues.

Dr. Kossak has trained in a variety of mind body modalities including Polarity Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, Deep Tissue Massage and Bioenergetics.  In Expressive Arts Therapies he has training in, music therapy, experimental theater, psychodrama, and authentic movement.  

He studied Sound Healing with pioneers in the field of sacred sound and transformation of consciousness, such as Dr. John Beaulieu author of Music and Sound in the Healing Arts and Silvia Nakkach director of the Vox Mundi Project.  

In addition to these trainings, he has studied and practiced contemplative based healing forms such as Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Vispassana meditation, and Iyengar yoga for over 30 years. He earned his doctorate from the Union Institute and University in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy and Transpersonal Psychology.  

He has written about and presented his research on rhythmic attunement, improvisation, psychospiritual and community based approaches to working with trauma and embodied states of consciousness at conferences nationally and internationally.

He is the Associate Editor of The Journal of Applied Arts and Health and Co-Chair of the Institute for Arts and Health at Lesley University where he has been a professor since 1999.  He is the author of Attunement in Expressive Arts Therapy: Toward an Understanding of Embodied Empathy – https://www.ccthomas.com/details.cfm?P_ISBN13=9780398081362.

About Samvedam

Samvedam Bettina Randles, Dipl. Psych. is a German Psychologist who graduated from Wilhelms-University in Muenster, Germany. In the US, she is licensed as a mental health counselor and as a bodyworker. After training in traditional Psychology, she spent several years in India studying and experiencing the Eastern approaches to inner growth and transformation.

Samvedam trained in Wilhelm Reich’s methods of body oriented Psychotherapy, combining breath work with deep tissue massage work (Postural Integration) and became certified by The National Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork. She co-founded the Center for Body Oriented Psychotherapy in Somerville, MA.

Samvedam worked as a trainer for the International Breath Institute, Colorado and eventually designed her own breath training, which she has been conducting over the last 8 years. She studied the systemic work of Bert Hellinger, Family Constellations, and is a graduate of the Hellinger Institute USA. She incorporates the constellation approach in her work with individuals, couples and groups. Samvedam is the founder of the Inner Arts Institute.

About Eric

Trained by Ida Rolf in 1974, and advanced training with the Rolf Institute in 2005. Certified member of the International Association of Structural Integrators. Cranio-sacral with John Upledger and with Edgar Miller. Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – Transcendental Meditation – in 1968, then Tibetan Buddhist meditation since 1974 with Chogyam Thrungpa and Dodrup Chen, Rinpoche. Gestalt training with Irving Polster at San Diego Center for Gestalt Therapy and subsequently with Isadore Fromm.

About Rolf Structural Integration, Cranio-sacral Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, & Meditation

Rolf Structural Integration improves the human body’s biomechanical competence in the gravity field by adjusting the elasticity of the myofascial network . This can be helpful in alleviating chronic musculoskeletal pains, and general somatic tension. It can also contribute to reductions in depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic distress.

Cranio-sacral therapy does the same for the bones and connective tissues of the skull and their relationship to the spine and sacrum.

Gestalt therapy provides an opportunity to explore how one’s perceptions and behavior limit the ability to have good social interactions.

Meditation training extends and deepens the long-term effects of those methods.