ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am a daughter of the psychological revolutions of the twentieth century. My mother was a psychologist, both my parents were psychoanalyzed, and I read Freud’s Introductory Lectures - especially those focused on dreams and errors...when I was eleven. That inheritance has influenced all my relationships as well as my multiple careers. When I entered Cornell, my plan was to become a psychiatrist...a plan which soon foundered, based on my clear preference for dance, art and language over science.

These interests led to my Junior Year Abroad in Paris, staying with a French family whose matriarch was an architecture critic for the journal Les Arts, thus providing me with an invitation to all the art openings in the city, including the first presentation of Picasso’s sculptures. Also my discovery of the drama school of Jean-Louis Barrault immediately seduced me away from the Sorbonne, so that I spent a year in the most avant-garde performing world of the era, including attendance at all the opening nights of the greatest performers and directors of the day. My leisure time was spent with artist friends...our entertainment was drawing each other and our surroundings. This year of immersion in the creative process culminated in meeting the young dancer, Merce Cunningham, who returned to New York at the same time that I did, so I became his first dance student, and eventually a member of his first dance company.

After receiving my degree from New York University, I launched my second career: teaching...first, in after-school programs in dance and theatre, then in a progressive private school, where I taught dance, drama and world literature, and gave emotional support to lots of young folks, both through teaching and conversation.

My third career came from a chance encounter at a party with a young man who was starting a newspaper that he was calling The Village Voice. I offered to write dance criticisms for his fledgeling enterprise, and he accepted with alacrity. That continued for about four years.

My fourth career also came about as a result of an encounter at a party in Philadelphia, where I was living with my husband and two small children, with regular visits from my husband’s two boys. A woman who was running innovative Learning Centers in the inner city schools was intrigued with the idea of having a “wandering troubadour” to sing in all the different classrooms with the children. Having inherited my grandmother’s Martin guitar and become an avid folksinger, I filled the bill, and spent three years singing with and composing songs for enthusiastic youth of all ages.

My fifth career emerged from our next move, to Amherst, MA, and the University of Massachusetts School of Education, where I became a doctoral student in Psychological Education, teaching courses in Personal Growth through Movement and, later, Values Clarification. With the acquisition of my ED.D., these courses became workshops, which I led throughout the United States and Canada for many years.

At the same time, my sixth career began, after I became part of an international peer counseling movement called Re-evaluation Counseling, first as a member, then as a teacher and finally as the area leader. From this training, I launched into my current psychotherapy practice, in 1978, with a two-year additional training in a certificate program of family therapy.

Finally, in 1986, my by then adult daughter and I led our first mother-daughter workshop, a resounding success, followed by many more. I also led several mother-son workshops with my step-son, as well as a number of creativity workshops for teachers with my artist husband. When my daughter became a mother herself, I led the mother/daughter workshops by myself, and have continued to do so, at Esalen Institute in California for five years, at Kirkridge Retreat Center, at Rowe Conference Center and at Omega Conference Center, among other places.

Over the years, I’ve had a number of articles published in professional magazines, about education theory, counseling theory and about the workshops I was leading. Most recently, I’ve produced and published a mother/daughter anthology, entitled Heart By Heart: Mothers and Daughters Listening to Each Other. It’s a book by and about mothers and daughters, writing about transformative moments in their relationship, at all ages and stages of their lives. I’ve written introductions to each chapter, explaining the relationship-enhancing concept which the chapter’s stories and poems exemplify. The stories and poems demonstrate the wisdom, strength and compassion of the women involved, and are poignant and informative. Reviews of and responses to the book have been very positive.

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