Guest Bios
Dr. Lissa Rankin
Lissa is a conventionally trained OB/GYN physician who gave up clinical practice in 2010 to teach and write full time.

She has published 7 books, including the New York Times bestseller Mind Over Medicine and her latest book, Sacred Medicine, which talks extensively about the spiritual bypassing tendencies in the world of New Age spirituality and energy healing, while ferreting out spiritual and trauma healing practices that actually help.

Lissa has starred in two National Public Television specials, her TEDx talks have been viewed over 5 million times, and she leads workshops, both online and at retreat centers like Esalen, 1440, Omega, and Kripalu.

Lissa lives bi-coastally, part time in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter Mira, her housemate April, and her puppy Gaia and part time in Boston with her partner Jeffrey Rediger

Lissa also founded the Whole Health Medicine Institute, where she and a team of luminary faculty train physicians and other health care providers about “Whole Health,” the “6 Steps to Healing Yourself,” and the importance of healing trauma as a necessary adjunct to any conventional medical treatment in patients with chronic or life-threatening illness.
Lissa has starred in two National Public Television specials, her TEDx talks have been viewed over 5 million times, and she leads workshops, both online and at retreat centers like Esalen, 1440, Omega, and Kripalu.

Her latest project is Heal At Last, a non-profit project committed to addressing the health equity issues around cutting edge trauma healing and trauma-informed medicine, which is often a luxury good not available to those who need it most. 
Lissa lives bi-coastally, part time in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter Mira, her housemate April, and her puppy Gaia and part time in Boston with her partner Jeffrey Rediger.
Shiloh Sophia
Shiloh Sophia lives life as a great adventure narrated by the creative fire of her Muse! She has dedicated her life to the belief that self-expression is a basic human right and shares her message with tens of thousands around the world through her paintings, poetry, and teachings. For the past 25 years, she has led a global movement of revolutionary education and art focused on healing and transformation called Intentional Creativity®. 

The legacy of her body of work gave rise to an innovative Museum which features shows for women virtually and on location, as well as education through Classes and Trainings for Intentional Creativity Teachers, Coaches, Guides, and Practitioners. Shiloh Sophia is the Curator and Co-founder of MUSEA : Center for Intentional Creativity®, with locations in Sonoma and around the world. Most mornings, she can be found having tea with her Muse, pouring over quantum physics, philosophy, and sacred texts in the Red Thread Cafe with her husband Jonathan. 

“I believe making art with intention combines the best of healing and recovery through science, embodiment, and mindfulness.” ~ Shiloh Sophia
Resmaa Menakem
Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, is a therapist with decades of experience currently in private practice in Minneapolis, MN, specializing in trauma, body-centered psychotherapy, and violence prevention. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil as an expert on conflict and violence. Menakem has studied with bestselling authors Dr. David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage) and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score). He also trained at Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.

Resmaa Menakem’s work centers on the idea that in order to abolish white body supremacy and the trauma from centuries of systemic racism, people must start within their body where the charge of trauma is typically held. He emphasized the power of pause in allowing the body to heal rather than constantly working through racial trauma verbally, which is a significant step in the maintenance of somatic wellness practices in daily life.

Resmaa is well-known for the bestselling My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies., which spent seven months on the New York Times list. Originally, he planned to write a sequel, but with the attempted coup In January 2021 and the disturbing extreme events that followed, Resmaa shifted gears to respond to this coming emergency. “It became clear that we Americans need a very different book in order to move through both the racial reckoning and the crisis of democracy we will almost certainly face in 2022 through 2025. The Quaking of America is that book.” 
Rachel Carlton Abrams 
Rachel Carlton Abrams graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University, received her MD from UC San Francisco and a Masters Degree in Holistic Health from UC Berkeley. She is Board Certified in Family Medicine and Integrative Medicine. In 2008 she opened the award-winning Santa Cruz Integrative Medicine Clinic. 

Dr. Abrams treats many of the world’s most influential people, from CEOs to billionaire entrepreneurs to Nobel Peace laureates. She has been voted “Best Doctor” in Santa Cruz County every year, from 2009-2020.

Dr. Rachel published Bodywise: Discovering Your Body’s Intelligence for Lifelong Health and Healing, in 2017 with Rodale Books. Her other books include the recently released, Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love and The Man’s Guide to Women (both with her husband and John and Julie Gottman), The Multi-Orgasmic Woman, The Multi-Orgasmic Couple, and the audiobook Taoist Sexual Secrets.

Dr. Rachel has taught innumerable classes and workshops and has been an expert consultant on holistic health for national magazines, radio and television for the last 20 years. You can see a sample of these at DoctorRachel.com.

Rachel loves the ocean and the redwoods and is addicted to beach volleyball. She is happily married and the mother of three fabulous young adults, now living on their own, but returning to play with her and her beloved husband Doug, in Santa Cruz, California.
Dr. Jeff Rediger
Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv, is a physician, best-selling author, and popular speaker with an interest in the intersection of science, spirituality, trauma healing, and social justice. He is a Harvard Medical School professor and the Medical Director at Harvard's psychiatric hospital McLean Southeast Hospital. A licensed physician and psychiatrist, he also has a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is known within the Harvard/ McLean community for his compassionate and non-pathologizing approach to treating mental illness in a trauma-informed, social justice- conscious way that acknowledges what is right about people, honoring the unique divinity of all humans from a humanistic and spiritual perspective. He adheres to the mantra developed by one of his former Harvard colleagues and co-founder of Partners In Health Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, who said, “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.” 

He also specializes in working with "health outliers," medical patients who have had better than expected outcomes from "incurable" or "terminal" illnesses, outcomes Dr. Rediger posits to be the result of their willingness to address the mental health conditions, identity issues, and nutritional deficiencies that predisposed them to nervous system dysregulation and immune system breakdown, putting them at higher risk of illness and contributing to their radical remission when treated. 

Dr. Rediger's decades long research with remarkable individuals who have recovered from incurable illnesses has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, and he has done a TEDx talk about the results of this research. He has been nominated for the National Bravewell Leadership Award, and has received numerous awards related to leadership and patient care. His best-selling book, Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life, is available in multiple languages.
Deran Young
Growing up with an incarcerated father and a mother who struggled with mental illness and substance abuse, Deran gained knowledge and experience of discrimination, poverty, and social services at a very early age. It was no shock that she later decided to pursue a career as a helping professional.

After obtaining her Bachelors degree in Social Psychology, Deran moved to pursue a Masters in Public Administration and Masters in Social Work. While obtaining her Masters in Social Work at the University of Texas, she was blessed with an amazing opportunity to visit Ghana West Africa twice, first as a graduate assistant and second during a final field placement/internship.

During her six month stay in Ghana, Deran created a Guidance & Counseling Center at a High School in a neighborhood that has been historically identified as a population of lower socioeconomic status. During her work there, she also created a scholarship program titled "Choices" and conducted a cuiltural identity field trip for students to learn about African and African American History first hand. Although the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade has significant roots in Ghana, most citizens are not afforded the privilege to visit these historical sites due to financial difficulties and hardships. During this trip, fifteen students were able to visit the Cape Coast Slave Castle and the One African History Museum. Her passion for culture and diversity lead her to further explore issues of social justice and social psychology. Her current professional areas of expertise include International Social Work, Gender Issues and Trauma/Anxiety Disorders.

Deran created Black Therapists Rock as she noticed a gap in mentorship, knowledge sharing and unity among helping professionals. She saw this as an opportunity to organize counseling professionals towards ACTION in decreasing the stigma and other barriers to psychological and social well being among African Americans and other vulnerable populations.

Deran currently works/resides in Washington, DC with her five year old son. She has now visited over 32 countries (including recent trips to Vietnam, China, Japan, Singapore, Dubai and Oman with her little Nomad Jr.).
Anasuya Godis
Anasuya Godis is a globetrotting Mystic Midwife, Spiritual Coach, Conscious Channel, Curator of Transformative Experiences, Writer, and Painter. As a Cultural Ambassador, she has developed empowerment programs for people to speak the unspeakable, love their broken selves and own their innate power by combining the power of storytelling, empathy and the creative arts/theater to teach the power of Words to heal and manifest desired shifts in being. Anasuya has empowered Women and young people through her programs all across New York City as a Teaching Artist uplifting youth-at-risk, homeless youth, survivors of sexual abuse and other traumas. 

Trained in the Stanislavsky Method of acting in Paris, France, Anasuya co-founded a theater company in Paris with friends to perform classical French theater in the Commedia dell’Arte style. Returning to New York City, she continued as an actress, playwright and as a spoken word artist, She founded “Divine Sistah,” a band that combined spoken words and song in a sultry, blues, funky kinda way. As a lover of words, she has edited and been published in several anthologies of poetry and essays.

Her longing to be a career diplomat to bring cultures and people together in peace, led Anasuya to study International Relations and Communication at Oberlin College. As required by the US State Department, she became bi-lingual in her favorite language, French, deepening her study of the language at the Sorbonne Université de Paris, in Paris, France. She has traveled to 22 countries and has lived in six countries outside of the United States. 

As an advocate for women’s leadership, Anasuya is also a Certified WomanSpeak Circle Leader, facilitating the unleashing of the brilliance of women’s voices as public speakers. This training expands Anasuya’s healing offering to women and children ready to liberate their voices stolen by trauma from rape, sex trafficking, sexual and physical abuse. As an Intentional Creativity Teacher in training, Anasuya creates and leads workshops and experiential programs that guide people into a Vision Quest into the heart of their Soul Work and their innate healing capacity using visual art, writing and sacred rituals.
Richard Schwartz, PhD
A prolific writer and co-author, with Michael Nichols, of Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods, the most widely used family therapy text in the United States, Dr. Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems in response to clients’ descriptions of experiencing various parts–many extreme–within themselves.

Richard Schwartz attended Purdue University, where he received a PhD in marriage and family therapy. He began his professional career as associate professor at the Institute for Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois. Later, Schwartz joined The Family Institute at Northwestern University as an associate professor.

Schwartz developed a therapeutic technique called Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) after working with a number of clients who claimed to recognize that they had several components, or parts, to themselves. Schwartz observed that his clients’ parts were often rebellious and troublesome when unattended to and more compliant and obedient to what Schwartz termed the larger self when they were acknowledged and their needs were addressed.
 
In 2000, Richard Schwartz founded The Center for Self Leadership in Oak Park, Illinois. Dr. Schwartz is a featured speaker for many national psychotherapy organizations and a fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
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