Testimonials
Dear all,
Thanks for a fabulous webinar today. It really got me thinking more about the known/unknown legacies we are all carrying around within us and within the world and the centuries of all this, and how this will all play out for coming generations as we move through and beyond the effects and ramifications of the pandemic. Very inspiring and thought provoking presentations. Thanks Ilene and Devika.
With best wishes,
Vivien Marcow Speiser, PhD, BC-DMT, LMHC, NCC, REAT
Professor and Co-Director, The Institute for Arts and Health, The Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University
Dear Dr. Ilene A. Serlin,
It was very nice to meet you at the Existential Psychology Conference in Nanjing, China.
You are a magician in my mind and lead me to a new way of psychology. I believe that Whole-Person Therapy will be the trend of psychology, because I felt that people were cured not only by the effort on mind, but also on body and soul from your workshop. I can feel the power but can’t express it clearly by words. It’s marvelous.
Frankly speaking, I admired you so much. I hope I could be a counsellor like you one day. I never see you as an idol but a beacon. When I give up my dream to be a counsellor, I will recall you.
I much appreciated your lectures and the workshop and the private conversation. All of these make me feel and think a lot.
Thank you very much.
Best regards,
James Zheng
People’s Republic of China
I have genuine respect for her integrity in her approach to her work. She has initiative, curiosity, and a genuinely inquiring mind. Watching her work with people, I have seen an openness and sensitivity to the body and a deep compassion for the soul. At the same time she is able to hold the objective position necessary for the healing process.
Marion Woodman
Jungian analyst
Ilene Serlin participated in a week-end workshop in January, 1983, with a group of women both interacted and fully participated in a session involving ritual, symbols and movement at The Ojai Foundation. Her ability to initiate movement as well as assist in leading sections of the movement demonstrated her ability to use her creativity and originality in spontaneous movement as well as synthesize fields of information.
Joan Halifax
Director, The Ojai Foundation
Dr. Ilene Serlin worked as Assistant Director at the ‘Golden Door’ during the summer of 1984. She was especially active in planning our “Inner Door” program for meditation and relaxation. Her ideas of total health—physical, emotional, and psychological—helped clarify our own thinking. She was instrumental in seeing our exercise and healing programs not as isolated units, but as part of a holistic plan. Dr. Serlin’s use of imagery, knowledge of innovative techniques in psychology and stress management made a considerable contribution to our program.
Deborah Szekeley
Founder, Golden Door
Her interactions with the staff were marked by collaboration, cooperation, emotional accessibility and humor. I also found her to be a deeply spiritual woman who was able to touch our clients quietly, expressing to them the depths of her faith.
Rev. G. Martin Keller, O.S.A., PsyD
Director, House of Affirmation
I have been impressed by her display of warmth and compassion toward the residents at Quincy Adams. She has quickly formed trusting relationships with our residents and they appear receptive to her visits. She provides a very perceptive and objective analysis of the issues concerning frail elders. In addition to her genuine concern for our residents, she also exhibits understanding of staff frustrations and limitations.
Lauri Washek, LSW
Quincy Adams Nursing Home
Dear Ilene
We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your involvement in the virtual European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Conference 2021. We have received very positive feedback for the variety of the programme and the quality of presentations. Thank you very much for your fascinating and insightful masterclass, we really appreciate all your time and work to make this possible.
Thanks again and best wishes
Manik Djelantik, Marloes Eidhof, Anke de Haan, & Annett Lotzin
Co-chairs of the Virtual ESTSS Conference 2021
Love light and arts,
MA Clinical Psychology, MA Indian Folk Dance
Whole Person Healthcare is a glimpse into the future of healing. It is a magnificent effort, bringing together authorities who have made landmark contributions in fashioning a form of healthcare that honors all we are—body, mind, spirit.
This was one of the best roundtable discussions that focused on how important culture is in finding ways to heal from trauma. Thanks to Ilene and Devika for leading and challenging us.
Lenore Walker, PhD
Professor Emeritus, Nova Southeastern University. April 9, 2021
Oct 26, 2018,
Dear Ilene,
I love and appreciate all that you are and all that you do for humanity.
Much love,
Dr. Ani Kalayjian
Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress
Fellow of New York Academy of Medicine
Adj. Professor of Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University
President, Assoc for Trauma Outreach & Prevention
United Nations Representative
Miss Serlin has attended my courses on theory and method of Gestalt Therapy from 1975 to 1978. She was a very eager, interested and interesting participant. In the following years she also served on the faculty of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy. She is an inspiring and creative teacher.
Laura Perls, PhD
President, New York Gestalt Institute
Certified Psychologist #2308
I know Ilene Serlin’s work well since I personally attended her dance therapy group for many months in New York. I was impressed with her capacity to work with me, as well as with the others. Ilene Serlin combines a great many different conceptual approaches in herself, and since that time has learned more of them. She has a very sensitive bodily way of integrating and using them in responding to a person. She is quite unique and her integration of these many approaches is unique. She thinks articulately and likes to think.
Eugene Gendlin, PhD
Founder, Focusing Institute
On behalf of the Brockton Interfaith Clergy Association I wanted to send again our heartfelt thanks to you and your group for the dramatic and truly beautiful interpretative movement on the theme of “sowing and gathering.” I have talked with others and the consensus is affirmative with making space in our workshop for dance.
Rev. Lynn A. Roberson
President, Brockton Interfaith Clergy Association
I see in Ms. Serlin a highly sophisticated and creative individual, who integrates quite successfully her interests in dance, psychotherapy, psychology, the women’s movement and the social issues in general. I am very impressed with her success in utilizing her training in Gestalt therapy, in phenomenological psychology and in Jungian analysis, as well as her study of cultural and religious traditions—ranging from Jewish to Buddhist—within her clinical work as a movement therapist.
Dr. Emanuel Berman
Director of Training in Clinical Psychology
Chairman, Clinical Division
Israel Psychological Association
Ilene Serlin is a true seeker who will generate new knowledge about the human condition and explore the practical applications of this new understanding in the daily issues that confront her.
…I understood the importance of “listening, feeling, grounding and working with pure energy” and with less ego. Since then, Dr. Serlin has not only served as my role models but also helped my transition to womanhood. She is my mentor and one of the main supporters of my work as a supervisor. I am so grateful that our lives have crossed.
Now I feel the joy of witnessing more women getting in touch with their bodies, moving away from shame and moving towards what is more authentic and beautiful, beyond its form. Through the works I facilitate, I continue to learn.
Fulya Kurter
Founder of Beyaz Keci Expressive Arts Institute, Istanbul, PhD Candidate in Expressive Arts Therapy (European Graduate School), Certified Psychodramatist
Whole Person Healthcare is an extremely valuable new textbook on mind/body medicine. Its outstanding contributors provide an impressive collaboration among psychology, medicine, and pastoral counseling, and it offers an integrative foundation of theory, research, and clinical practice. Deeply humanistic at its core, it should be a required textbook in medical education.
Dear Ilene,
Hope you are well. I would like to say thank you once again for the beautiful experience. It has been an empowering learning for me and I’m sure also for the group. We had a difficult couple of weeks with the mineworkers trauma short after the training. It’s collective grief. The resources we found throughout the training with you and Marcia are really powerful and helpful. Thank you for being our mentors.
Wish you a lovely week.
Kindest,
Seda Guney
She writes clearly, and her original, reflective articles have been well received by other professionals. She is well grounded in existential, humanistic and Transpersonal psychology and is particularly gifted in integrating movement and body awareness with clinical practice.
Dr. Frances Vaughan
University of California Medical School
UC Irvine
Our choice of her was grounded partly on the fact that movement and dance provide truly universal, cross-cultural means of communication between people and even between social groups. Ilene showed real powerful examples of how the group can be created and handled by means of movement/dance; how these same means of non-verbal communication between the therapist and client, and between the group members can help people gain new understandings and to arrived to the desired personal changes; and how the images and symbols can be used to reflect, enhance and positively utilize psychic processes within the individual and group. What’s more, she showed a brilliant example of what a really humanistic therapist is.
Lev Minikes,
Director, Novosibirsk Training/Consulting Agency, Russia
Ms. Serlin has been deeply involved in Jewish communal interests especially within the Neo-Hassidic sector. Of special note is a class she has organized for Orthodox women on dance and movement, also reflecting her academic interests. One of the innovative purposes of this class is to ameliorate the traditionally poor body-image among this group of women. Ms. Serlin can be proud of her community involvement, which I feel sure will be of real benefit to others.
Barbara Myerhoff, PhD
UCLA Department of Anthropology
Have known Ilene for eight years, both as a student, and as a friend. She is an extraordinarily able young women, with a brilliant and enquiring mind. Ilene specializes in dance therapy, with an emphasis on Jewish ritual and dance. Her field of study best utilizes her fine understanding of symbolic forms, and of the relationship between psychology and art.
Rabbi Jack Bemporad
Kehilla Israel
