2023-2024

Francis Novak, Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Queering Up Psychoanalysis – An Integrative Model with the Power to Meet the Moment”
To be published in Psychoanalytic Inquiry

Dr Francis Novak’s doctoral project, soon to be published in a major psychoanalytic journal, is a significant contribution to the important project of melding psychoanalytic praxis with liberatory queer theorizing. His previous contributions to the professional literature include a commentary in Psychoanalytic Perspectives and subsequent contributions are eagerly awaited. Dr Novak earned professional degree in social work, and subsequently trained at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis. Maintaining a psychoanalytic practice in New York city, where he resides, he is also a classical musician and recording artist, with the distinguished role of principal clarinet with the Queer Urban Orchestra. He currently services on the faculty of the Institute for Expressive Analysis. His Faculty Mentor at the Parkmore Institute was Dr Kristin Long, and the Directors of our Institute join in congratulating Dr Novak on his excellent achievements.

Cynthia E. Garner, Doctor of Bodymind Healing

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Development of Comprehensive Mindfulness Training for School Leadership”

Dr Cynthia Garner’s doctoral project was the culmination of many years as a somatic psychotherapist developing programs for teaching secular mindfulness-based interventions. Her project focused on helping administrators and educators decrease anxiety and stress, as well as to impact their whole system of well-being. She piloted her program and evaluated its effectiveness with leadership at Adams State University, writing a report of her work as her doctoral project. Previously, Dr Garner studied counselling at Regis University and trained in group psychoeducation through the University of California at San Diego’s Medical School. Having earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College, she also has a background in anthropology and was a Fulbright Scholar. She is trained in Hakomi therapy and certified as a meditation teacher. Dr Garner is the author of Out of Grace: An Extraordinary Journey through Guatemala’s Haunted Highlands, and is about to publish her major book, Fierce Boundaries: Practical Skills and Somatic Exercises for Healing in a Traumatized World. The Parkmore Institute is pleased to award Dr Garner the Doctorate in Bodymind Healing and congratulates her, as well as her Faculty Mentor, Professor Reynold Ruslan Feldman, on her considerable accomplishments.

Sue Pam-Grant, Doctor of Psychosocial Intervention

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Why Do Moths Fly Like Crazy Fucks In The Night”
A ‘Performance Encounter’ presented in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and expected soon to be presented in New York

Dr Sue Pam-Grant is famous in South Africa and internationally for her socially cutting-edge work as an interdisciplinary artist, director and stage performer. She submitted this particular ‘performance encounter’ as her doctoral project and, in a unanimous decision by the Parkmore Institute’s Directors, she was awarded the Doctorate in Psychosocial Studies/Intervention. “Why do Moths fly like Crazy Fucks in the Night” is the creatively brilliant culmination of Dr Pam-Grant’s research over the past two years into the life of Louise Bourgeois (the 20 th Century’s most eminent French-American artist) as her doctoral project with the Parkmore Institute. This ‘performance encounter’ is a humanistically profound, emotionally moving, and psychoanalytically sophisticated portrayal of Bourgeois’ last days in New York City. Covering feminist and existential themes, it illuminates the relevance of critically incisive art for liberatory social change. The presentation draws upon ― and movingly exhibits ― Dr Pam-Grant’s eminent reputation as an interdisciplinary performer, her extraordinary sensitivity, and her hermeneutic acuity in rendering a provocatively powerful experience for the audience. The ‘performance encounter’ played to capacity audiences for a month in Cape Town and then in Johannesburg. In both venues it consistently received standing ovations. The Parkmore Institute’s Professor Darlene Miller strongly endorsed the award of the doctorate on the basis of this extraordinary work. The Parkmore Institute is honoured to welcome Dr Sue Pam-Grant as one of its distinguished Fellows.

2021-2022

Loray Daws, PhD (University of Pretoria), Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies (Parkmore Institute)

Professor of Psychosocial Intervention and Psychoanalytic Studies;
Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Michael Eigen: A Contemporary Introduction”
Published by Routledge

Dr Loray Daws is hereby awarded the degree of Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies for his internationally eminent and outstanding contributions to psychoanalytic theory and praxis. Dr Daws earned an M.A. Clin. Psych and PhD in Psychotherapy (Psychodynamic) before earning an M.Phil. degree in the philosophy and ethics of mental health. Since 1999, he has served as a psychotherapist, as well as holding multiple teaching appointments in major universities. He has become internationally known not only for his work with Rorschach methodology but also as Co-Director and Senior Faculty of the Masterson Institute for the Study of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. He currently resides on Vancouver Island in Canada, while still teaching and supervising in South Africa, the United States, Australia, and Turkey, as well as across Canada. He has held editorial positions with scientific journals such as the International Journal of Psychotherapy, Issues in Psychoanalytic Psychology, the South African Rorschach Journal, and Clinical Counselling and Contemporary Psychotherapy. He has also edited four books of psychoanalysis and existentialism. Dr Daws completed his psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Object Relations Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in New York. He is awarded his doctoral degree from the Parkmore Institute with specific reference to his recent book the work of Michael Eigen. His Faculty Mentor was Professor Jerry Gargiulo. The Institute welcomes Dr Daws as a Faculty Mentor

Deborah Dowd, Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Unfreezing of Time in the Haunted Hours.”
Published in Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 28, 69-77.

Over the past decade, Dr Dowd has enjoyed a distinguished career as a psychoanalyst devoted to not only to increasing the diversity of access to psychoanalytic training, but also to the healing of trauma. She served as Co-Chair of the Masschusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis’ Training Committee from 2012-2017, and then as that Institute’s President from 2017-2020. She has been deeply committed to addressing and resolving the barriers that obstruct the capacity of psychoanalysis to become a more racially and socioculturally inclusive discipline. Dr Dowd’s focus as a clinician has been on a relational approach to the healing of trauma, including complex attachments and dissociative defenses. She has presented papers, nationally and internationally, on trauma, grief, and the intermingling of fantasy and so-called ‘reality.’ Her 2016 paper, “States of Grace: A Relational Context for a Patient’s Coming into Being” (also published in Psychoanalytic Dialogues) is a prime example of her highly acclaimed work. The Parkmore Institute was delighted that Dr Dowd chose to join our ranks and awarded her the Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies degree. Her faculty mentor was Professor Jerry Gargiulo.

Lama Z. Khouri, Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “The Normative Unconscious of Nations: Critical Geopolitical and Psychoanalytic Perspectives on the U.N. Security Council’s Counterterrorism Strategy.”
Published in International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 16, 244-257.

Dr Khouri started her professional career working for the United Nations in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, where she was the sole desk officer for complex operations in Georgia and Haiti. Subsequently, she completed her master’s degree in social work and trained with the William Alanson White Institute for Psychoanalysis and at the Institute for Expressive Analysis. She has been highly acclaimed for her community work with Arab populations and is one of the co-founders of the Palestine Global Mental Health Network, which promotes the mental health, liberation, dignity, and social justice for all peoples. Since 2012, Dr Khouri has a distinguished record publishing on sociopolitical issues in journals such as Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, and Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. The Parkmore Institute is honoured to present her with the degree of Doctor in Psychoanalytic Studies. Her Institute’s faculty mento was Dr Jerry Gargiulo.

Alexandra Jean Melendez, Doctor of Human Sexuality

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “From ABCs to STDs ― Developing Sexual Wisdom in Early Education.”

Since graduating from the University of Kansas, Dr ‘Allie’ Melendez has devoted herself, as a teacher and consultant, to bringing age-appropriate sexuality education to primary schools. developed her own 10-week Kindergarten-6th Grade curriculum with the guidance and support of two well-known Los Angeles paediatricians, she has critiqued and rewritten 5th and 6th grade curricula for the Human Development program, used in schools across Los Angeles County. She is currently working on curricula for grades 7th through 12th. Dr Melendez is certified as a Diversity Professional/Advanced Practitioner and an Anti-Bias Best Practices Practitioner. She has been active in making progressive changes to curricula in Human Sexuality, Social Studies, Writer’s Workshop, Reader’s Workshop, Grammar, and even Mathematics. Dr Melendez sits on the Board of Silicon Beach as Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In addition to updating pre-existing curriculum, Allie is an Advanced Practitioner of Responsive Classroom’s Elementary Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum. She has experience leading Safe Zone Trainings to students, students’ parents, and fellow educators. Dr Melendez is an active member of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists. Her current research interests include covert racism in independent schools, advances in reproductive science, the importance of media representation, the mental and reproductive health of marginalized communities, and the interconnection of human sexuality and child development. Upon completion of her guidebook, From ABCs to STDs, the Parkmore Institute is pleased to award Allie the Doctor of Human Sexuality. Her faculty mentor was Professor Myrtle Means.

2020

Maci Daye, Doctor of Human Sexuality

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Passion and Presence: A Couple’s Guide to Awakening Intimacy and Mindful Sex.”
Book published by Shambhala (USA) and Random/Penguin (UK).

Experienced as a Hakomi trainer and sexuality therapist, Maci Daye is internationally known for her teachings of the “Passion and Presence” program. Not only has she been a frequent presenter at international conferences, but she has led workshops and retreats on sexuality for couples, as well as courses for professionals, across the USA and in Europe, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia. Her visionary work with couples involves a focus on mindset rather than technique. It emphasizes the processes of dispensing with limited scripts and deconstructing the medicalization of sexual functions. In this way, she has helped innumerable couples and individuals to expand their erotic horizons, even while facing physical decline with aging and other challenges. Dr. Daye created this popular sexual healing and enrichment program for couples called Passion and Presence® to address low or discrepant desire, sexual over-familiarity, performance anxiety, erotic inhibition and shame, and sexual wounding and trauma. Her model is 1/5 mindfulness-centered and incorporates Hakomi, sex therapy, systems theory, neuroscience, trauma recovery, and the “whole person multimodal sex” methods. She is publishing details of this program and her work with it in the book that she has also submitted as her doctoral project; the introduction to this book is uploaded with this document (for reasons of copyright, the full book must be purchased and details are given herein). The Parkmore Institute is honored to award Maci Daye the degree of Doctor of Human Sexuality.

Kristin Long, Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Fractured Stories: Self Experiences of Third Culture Kids.”
Published in Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 19, 134-147.

A graduate of the Institute for Expressive Analysis, Kristin Long is a highly experienced psychoanalyst and drama therapist with a strong commitment to these methods. She has taught extensively in these areas, presenting at professional conferences and publishing on these topics. She has a particular interest and reputation for her work with the Deaf community and with LGBTQI youth, as well as expertise on the intergenerational transmission of trauma. For her Doctoral Project, Dr. Long submitted her paper titled, “Fractured Stories: Self-Experiences of Third Culture Kids,” which is published in a 2020 issue of the prestigious Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy. The Institute congratulates Dr. Long on her impressive professional accomplishments, her dedication and her commitment to the communities she serves. The Parkmore Institute is honoured to award her the degree of Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies.

Linda Siegel, Doctor of Psychosocial Studies

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Drawing Breath: Breathing into the Rhythm and Form of Art Therapy.”
Published in American Imago, 76(2), 251-267

Dr. Linda Siegel is internationally eminent as an Art Therapist, who has established programs and taught her skills not only as a tenured Professor and the prestigious Pratt Institute in New York, but also in the Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Having trained at the International Centre for Arts Psychotherapy Training and Research, as well as the Tavistock’s Centre for Couple Relations, she is a certified Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist with a speciality in parent‑infant and couple therapy. The paper she has submitted as her Doctoral Project, published in American Imago, is exemplary of the quality of her thinking and her skills at therapeutic intervention. Along with her Doctoral Project, Dr. Siegel is making available herein her excellent paper on “Going on Being through the Kinesthetic Senses of Art Therapy.” Her Faculty Mentor was Dr. Myrtle Means and the Parkmore Institute is honoured to award Dr. Siegel the degree of Doctor of Psychosocial Studies.

2019

Mark L. Ruffalo, Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “Understanding Schizophrenia: Towards a Unified Biological and Psychodynamic Approach.”
Published in the Journal of Psychoanalytic Social Work, 26, 18‑200

As is well known, the field of psychiatry has, in the past four decades, become increasingly biological in its theoretical and practical orientation. Many of us, who value psychodynamic and humanistic approaches to mental disturbances, have become dismayed by the ways in which neuroscience has become idealized often driven by the profitability of the psychopharmacological industry. All too often, it seems that the patient, as an existential and spiritual entity, has become overlooked in the course of these developments. In this context, it is refreshing that a dedicated mental health practitioner, with his skill and expertise as a psychotherapist, should bring his thinking to bear on the ways that biological and psychodynamic approaches could and indeed should be integrated in relation to a diagnosis that involves so much human suffering, namely schizophrenia. Dr. Ruffalo has committed himself, as an advocate for psychodynamic therapy, to the teaching and supervision of other professionals, notably trainees in psychiatry. His Doctoral Project, which is soon to be published in a PEP- Web journal, presents his thinking on this topic and is a significant contribution to the sizeable literature on schizophrenia. His paper is an important and very readable piece of work that will be of great interest to every mental health practitioner who sees patients diagnosed as schizophrenic. Dr. Ruffalo’s Faculty Mentor for this project was Dr. Jerry Piven, and the Board of Directors offers both of them its congratulations.

Halko Weiss, Doctor of Bodymind Healing

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “My Innovative Journey as a Therapist and Teacher of Mindfulness and Somatic Psychotherapy: The Development of the ‘HEART’ Approach to Human Relationships.”

It is an honour for the Parkmore Institute that Dr. Halko Weiss, one of the most internationally eminent teachers of body psychotherapy today, chose to seek recognition for his life’s work by submitting his Doctoral Project, which details his professional journey and his extensive, innovative and invaluable accomplishments in the field of mindfulness and body psychotherapy. Dr. Weiss came from the humanistic tradition of psychotherapy and was one of the first students of Ron Kurtz, the founder of the distinctive method of bodycentered psychotherapy that came to be known worldwide as Hakomi. Dr. Weiss’ contributions to this field have been nothing less that Herculean. Originally trained as a Clinical Psychologist, he has subsequently taught worldwide with many of his therapy students going on to become renowned teachers of body psychotherapy and mindfulness. Dr. Weiss has written extensively in German and English; for example, coediting not only the influential 2015 English edition of the Handbook of Body Psychotherapy and Somatic Psychology (North Atlantic Books), but also in the same year the seminal text, Hakomi MindfulnessCentered Somatic Psychotherapy: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice (Norton). He was cofounder of the Hakomi Institute in Colorado, and since then has gone on to develop the ‘HEART’ program. I can guarantee that those who read his Doctoral Project will find it an inspiring document as well as a provocative testimony to a great healer, who has devoted his life’s generosity to his craft.

2017-2018

M. Cedar Barstow, Doctor of Psychosocial Intervention

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “The Development and Implementation of the Concepts and Training Programs in Ethics and “Right Use of Power.”

The ethics of power and all the questions surrounding its use and misuse are topics of unparalleled importance in the struggle for social and personal change towards freedom and justice in today’s world. Since 1988, Dr. Barstow has devoted her energies to the study of ethics and in 2003 she decided to use her additional skills as a Hakomi psychotherapist to develop a program called “Right Use of Power.” She has refined and implemented this program over the past twelve years, publishing three books that present her approach: The Right Use of Power Training Manual (2003); The Right Use of Power: The Heart of Ethics (2005/2015); and with her husband, Dr. Reynold Feldman, Living in the Power Zone (2013). This program offers detailed procedures and processes by which the ethical issues of power in personal relationships may be examined and reconsidered. Dr. Barstow has taught this approach in over a dozen countries, often combining it with her teaching in body psychotherapy. Additionally, she has held Adjunct Faculty appointments at institutions such as Naropa University and she is widely sought as a consultant on ethical issues and grievance processes, serving on the ethics committees of several professional organizations. For her doctoral project with the Parkmore Institute, Dr. Barstow submitted a detailed report of work she has accomplished with the “Right Use of Power” program. Dr. Barstow’s doctoral mentor was Professor Greg Johanson.

Robert Irwin Wolf, Doctor of Psychoanalytic Studies

Fellow, The Parkmore Institute

Doctoral Project: “A Mind’s Eye View: Processing Psychoanalytic Treatment through Artwork.”
Published in Psychoanalytic Review 104(2), 203‑229.

In today’s world, ‘healing’ is all too frequently conceptualized reductively and behaviourally. It is considered in terms of symptom removal or increased adjustment to external conditions. Such conceptualizations produce clinical criteria such as adaptation and maturation, both of which suggest that healing must necessarily be assessed as a matter of the patient’s integration with his or her socio-political and cultural environment. The implication of these criteria easily bleeds into the tenet that healing entails certain sorts of ideological conformity to practices and structures that are external to the patient. In this context, the pioneering work of Dr. Wolf is greatly to be appreciated. In his doctoral project, he sets out to assess and process the course of psychoanalytic treatment not in terms of symptom remission or social conformity, but rather as the unleashing of the patient’s inner sources of creativity and self‑expression. This is not an entirely new idea and Dr. Wolf acknowledges the influence of Dr. Arthur Robbins’ important work on expressive therapy as well as Dr. Otto Kernberg’s earlier discussion of patients who need to be given avenues of nonverbal expression in the course of depth‑oriented treatments. However, to my knowledge, no one has tracked the psychoanalytic journey in terms of the patient’s unfolding creativity in the way that Dr. Wolf has achieved. This is a fascinating 4/5 piece of work and a published paper that should be read by every psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. Dr. Wolf’s doctoral mentor was Professor Jerry Gargiulo.