Workshop Leaders

Elizabeth J. Spencer, MSW, LICSW is a clinical social worker practicing psychotherapy with individuals and couples in Natick, MA. She has a longstanding interest in the overlap of creative processes in psychotherapy and art making. She has given talks and workshops on this topic, including looking at art in museums to facilitate our openness to the unknown and new ideas.

Christine MacDonald, LCSW, is a psychoanalytically trained psychotherapist who specializes in trauma. She practiced in NYC for 25 years and currently lives and works in New England. Christine also holds an MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in playwriting/storytelling. Christine worked as a teacher of creative arts to special education students in the NYC public school system.

Leslie Smith is a clinical social worker and psychoanalyst in private practice in the DC area. She is on the faculty of ICP&P’s training programs. She also taught psychiatric residents at Walter Reed Medical Center. She grew up in a southern family of story tellers and has a particular interest in the healing power of telling one’s story.

Barbara Hamm is a clinical and community psychologist. For 30 + years she worked at the Victims of Violence Program at the Cambridge Health Alliance. Her new project, The Transformative Action Project, works with local artists offering workshops which reveal the resilience of the human spirit in the wake of trauma. Workshop members spark new ideas, relieving feelings of isolation, and offering new perspectives.

Lizbeth Moses, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist and a training and supervising analyst at the Contemporary Freudian Society (CFS) and the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis. She has a private practice of adolescent, adult, and couples’ psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in Bethesda, Maryland. Since 911 she has developed and implemented mental health programs at local elementary, middle and high schools. She is currently the co-chair of the CFS Community Psychoanalytic Task Force.

Susan March, Clinical social worker and modern psychoanalyst based in New York City. Working virtually since the pandemic. English literature major in college. Frequent haiku author.

Debra Vilinsky is a Psychiatrist/Psychoanalyst in Los Angeles and on faculty at the New Center for Psychoanalysis and UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine teaching medical, dentistry, and public health students using Reflective Writing. She volunteers with 826la in under-resourced schools using Reflective Writing to help students’ process their immigration, food and housing insecurity, and violence experiences. Her students have taught her about resilience.

Katherine Doyle is a social worker in private practice in the Washington DC area. She has worked with children, teens, and families as a school social worker for eighteen years. Katherine incorporates art and poetry as part of the therapy process with children of all ages and young adults. She has also provided therapy for adults in multiple inpatient and outpatient settings.

Tracey L. Hurd, PhD is a writer and licensed clinical psychologist. She sees children, adolescents, and adults in her private practice in Concord and Wellesley, MA. She is a candidate in psychoanalysis training at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. Tracey’s published work includes journal articles, a book (“Nurturing children & youth: A developmental guidebook”), and chapters in edited volumes. She has a particular interest in creative non-fiction.

Cathy Eisenhower is a child and adult psychotherapist in Washington, DC. She holds a Ph.D. in creative writing and is the author of three poetry collections--clearing without reversal, would with and, and distance decay--as well as a translator. Her poems have appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Fence Magazine, and others, and she is a former writing teacher and academic librarian. With her co-author, Dolsy Smith, she has published book chapters on critical pedagogy, an interest she carries into psychoanalysis.

Wendi R. Kaplan is a psychotherapist, a poetry therapist, a poet, a writer and a teacher. As the Poet Laureate of Alexandria, Virginia from 2016-2019, Wendi created a program called Building Bridges to bring diverse populations together to write, to listen to and learn from each other. Wendi facilitates creative experiences that illuminate awareness and strengthen connection.

Alison McCabe, MFT is a poet and psychoanalyst in private practice in Oakland, CA, treating individual adults, teens and couples. Her poetry has appeared in online journals, including: Really System, Literary Mamas, and Shrew, A Literary Zine—Issue 16. Alison also has extensive group therapy training and a particular interest in how writing and groups can provide a container for processing difficult experiences and feelings.

Lauren Mazow Boyle, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist with a private practice in Potomac, MD. She works with adults and adolescents in psychodynamic psychotherapy and poetry therapy. She is also a Teaching Artist with Arts for the Aging, where she brings poetry engagement groups to older adults and their care partners.

Patricia Harney, Ph.D. is a psychologist-psychoanalyst in Cambridge, MA. In addition to her private practice, she is Director of Psychology Internship Training at Cambridge Health Alliance, and an Assistant Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her writing on trauma, grief, loss and marginalization has appeared in academic and popular outlets including Psychology of Violence, Slate, and WBUR's Commonhealth Blog. Her blog on grief with Psychology Today is forthcoming. She's also an avid musician and plays violin with the Longwood Symphony.

Lauren Randel is a psychiatrist in private practice in Bethesda, Maryland. She briefly started her medical career in Obstetrics-Gynecology before switching to psychiatry. After her psychiatry residency, she completed the Greenwall Fellowship in Ethics and Health Care Policy, working on issues around the ethical delivery of medical care. She is interested in the intersection of the body and the psyche, and in women’s mental health across the lifespan.

Penny Rubinfine, DSW, is a clinical social worker and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in New York City. She has a particular interest in issues of loss and mourning and has published and presented on this topic. She is a graduate of the New Directions Writing Program and has participated in many writing workshops over the years as both student and teacher.

Suzanne Kooperman, MSW, is a Social Worker in private practice in Washington DC working with (young) adults. She has a special interest in life transitions. She is enrolled in the Psychotherapy Studies Program at the Washington Baltimore Psychoanalytic Center. Her love of poetry is a grounding force in turbulent times. Originally from the Netherlands, Suzanne has spent the past 20 plus years living, loving and working in the United States.

Linda Ennis, LICSW, is a seasoned psychotherapist, in Boston, MA, & has worked with children, adults & couples, in both clinic & private practice settings. She has completed a Certificate Program through the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis in the treatment of children & adolescents. She has also engaged in writing groups via the San Miguel Writers’ Conference, as well as the Port Townsend Writers’ Festival. Combining therapy with creative writing has long been her interest.

Katie Willard Virant, JD, LCSW, is a psychotherapist in St. Louis, Missouri.  She writes a monthly column for Psychology Today about living with chronic illness. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/chronically-me

Jayme Shorin, LICSW maintains a private practice of psychotherapy in Cambridge MA.  Jayme had been the Associate Clinical director of the Victims of Violence Program at the Cambridge Health Alliance at Harvard Medical School for 32 years She graduated from Smith SSW in 1988, and trained in sensorimotor psychotherapy and Internal Family Systems therapy.

Jamie Morin, PhD is a former corporate-operations executive and a current organizational psychologist, leadership coach, consultant, and teacher. She’s on the faculty of the Gestalt International Study Center where she teaches in the leadership and coach training programs. Jamie facilitates a writing group for students at the Asian University for Women and has experienced the power of reflection and writing in forging connections between people from different backgrounds.

Anne Golomb Hoffman, PhD, is interested in the therapeutic dimensions of narrative experience. Her essays on trauma, narrative, and embodiment have appeared in literary and psychoanalytic journals. She teaches literature at Fordham University, with research affiliations at the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and the Institute for Psychiatry: History, Policy, and the Arts at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Andrea Hansell studied creative writing at Princeton University and earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan. She was a practicing psychotherapist for many years with a focus on coping with trauma. She is now a consultant and scriptwriter for The Glowmedia Project’s mental health education films. Her memoir pieces and short stories have appeared in publications and anthologies including Lilith, Intima, Minerva Rising, and Lascaux Review.

Gail Boldt, Ph.D. is a Distinguished Professor of Eduction at Penn State University, where she prepares preservice teacher to teach literacy in elementary classrooms. She was a 3rd and 4th grade teacher for many years in California and Hawai’i and is also a licensed counselor, with a child psychotherapy practice. She is the Senior Editor of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, a journal published for teachers. The Occasional Papers: https://www.bankstreet.edu/research-publications-policy/occasional-paper-series/

Libby Bachhuber, LCSW provides psychoanalytic psychotherapy and supervision through her independent practice in Chicago, and serves as Clinical Associate Faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. Her work engages with the social, political, and spiritual concerns that run through patients’ lives, including issues involving gender, race, and climate. She has also provided participatory consultation in schools, nonprofits, and grassroots organizations.

Brian John Rink, MSW, is a psychotherapist specializing in work with the LGBTQIA+ as well as trauma. A survivor himself, Brian believes therapy is a healing process that allows one to reestablish connectedness with loved ones and one’s environment. Brian lives in the Greater Washington, DC area with his husband and their two dogs, Katydid and Phineas.

F. Diane Barth, LCSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. She works with individuals and couples (including adult parent/adult child couples) and runs private study and supervision groups. Her articles for therapists have been published in numerous professional journals. She has published three books, freelances for NBC Think, and writes a popular blog for Psychology Today.

Andrea Nicki, PhD, is a bioethicist and author of three poetry books on themes such as healing from trauma, isolation, and spirituality. Her poetry has appeared in the collection Stories of Illness and Healing and at www.poetryandcovid.com. She teaches courses in bioethics and narrative medicine and facilitates workshops in applied poetry in Vancouver, Canada. She is working on a multidisciplinary book, under contract with Roman and Littlefield Publishers.

Ilana Giannini is a television writer turned psychotherapist who works with trauma survivors, individually and in groups. She established Voices of Warriors, a trauma group therapy program at Wright Institute Los Angeles and consults with Women in Film, establishing groups for women subject to predators in the workplace. Ilana believes creative work, coupled with a supportive group process, are powerful antidotes to the isolation and shame attendant to trauma.

Susan Katz is a clinical social worker and hypnotherapist. She has worked with clients who have struggled with addiction, trauma, and illness, at times utilizing journal writing and vision boards to help clients express the unspeakable. Susan also writes short stories and graduated from the New Directions Writing Program. She was a Fiction Fellow at The Writers’ Institute, and a Contributor in Fiction at the Bread Loaf’s Writers’ Conference.