Background

I’m a general adult psychiatrist with formal schooling in three health/wellness practice traditions (over time, in this order), with cross-cultural and broad personal and clinical experience:

  • Buddhist psychology
  • Contemporary allopathic medicine, psychiatry, and related psychologies (“Western”,”mainstream” [in the Global North..] approaches, though globalization makes these terms less and less correct)
  • Jungian/analytical psychology

    Past positions, healthcare provider licenses, formal schooling:

    I’ve worked in, founded, administered etc many various health-human services-wellness settings, with people across the lifespan and ethnicities. My clinical roles (unlicensed, then various counseling etc licenses, then as physician) have been many: nursing home orderly, pre-school assistant teacher, child/family counseling in-home and office, community clinics, substance abuse, jail, psychiatric and general hospitals, residential homes, adults in relationship (couples, and more), community health system planning/contracting/administration, etc.

    • Psychiatry resident/psychodynamic therapy fellow:
      • Harvard Medical School-Cambridge Health Alliance (HMS-CHA)
    • Analytic training candidate:
      • Boston Jung Institute
    • Medical intern:
      • Seattle Indian Health
    • Qualified Chemical Dependency Counselor:
      • Washington state
    • Licensed Mental Health Counselor:
      • Washington state
    • Mediation training/community mediator:
      • Center for Dispute Resolution/Boulder (CO) Community Mediation Service
    • Certified Addictions Counselor III (Senior Counselor):
      • Colorado
    • Massage Therapist:
      • Washington state
    • Doctor of Medicine:
      • University of Washington
    • International relations/security studies completion:
      • Harvard Extension School
    • Master of Arts: Psychology/Contemplative Psychotherapy:
      • Naropa Institute (now University)
    • Bachelor of Arts: Comparative History of Ideas:
      • University of Washington

    Invited presentations and community participation:

    A sampling

    Through interest in people, languages and the world, close family, friends and colleagues across ethnicities, I stumbled into cross-cultural wellness clinical work and advocacy, in the US and part of the Middle East. This includes some years of academic focus across Jewish-Islamic/Middle East, political, and International Relations/Security studies. In addition to working with patients, I focus on tie-building across challenging ethnic lines – in touch with all, while allocating most of my scarce teaching and advocacy time to communities with less current resources….

      • 2018 –   Harvard Medical School (HMS) Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Community Partnership Annual Muslim Affiliates Dinner – planner; some years:
        • Welcoming remarks
      • 1994 – (intermittent) Local general community-Native activities, Vashon Island, WA participant/leader:
        • Various: Community acknowledgements, elders’ ties, gravestone placement, etc.
      • 2020-2022 Massachusetts Psychiatric Society Anti-racism Committee, training planner, discussion leader:
        • Anti-Racism Conference Series, I-III: Transforming Psychiatric Practice and Ourselves, etc.
      • 2021 Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, webinar planner/panelist (with Drs Y. Abu Jamei, J. Humei and R. Chaudry):
        • Gaza Children’s Mental Health: Under Siege & Under the Bombs
      • 2020 Vashon-Maury Island (WA) Heritage Association/Puyallup Tribe of Indians Historic Preservation Department, webinar moderator:
        • History of Vashon’s First People and the Puyallup Tribe
      • 2020 Society for Culture and Social Guidance, Beirut, Lebanon, webinar panelist:
        • Coping with Psychological Problems: Pornography
      • 2020 American Muslim Health Professionals (AMHP) and Muslim American Society, webinar panelist:
        • A Multidisciplinary Forum on Mental Health & Physical Wellness in the COVID-19 Era
      • 2020 Scientists for Palestine, 3rd International meeting, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
        • Healing the Catastrophe and What Followed
      • 2019 AMHP:
        • 2019 Community Service Award recipient
      • 2019 7th International Mental Health Program and Human Rights Conference, Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), Gaza City, Palestine-Israel:
        • North American supports for Palestinian well-being;
      • and moderator, with E. Amed, MD, of health-social services leaders’ community discussion:
        • Opiate Treatment – Where does the Strip go from here?
      • 2018 US Institute of Peace, WA D.C., 10th annual US Muslim Mental Health Conference:
        • Gaza: Endless trauma, redux – on redux
      • 2018 49th Middle East Medical Assembly, American University of Beirut/repeat: United Nations Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA), Jordan Field health leadership team, Amman, Jordan:
        • Weaving the fabric of resilient Levantine wellness: Integrating strongest bio-,psycho-, and social threads
      • 2018 US Congressional briefing, planner/panelist, with Drs Abu Jamei’ (GCMHP), B. Barber, E. Campbell (UNRWA):
        • Mental Health in the Gaza Strip & Civil Society Response
      • 2018 Video bridge, ad hoc via Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), PsychoActive network, and GCMHP, Ramat HaSharon-Khan Yunis, Israel/Palestine, lead organizer:
        • Colleagues’ update on mental health conditions in the Gaza Strip
      • 2018 UNRWA* and GCMHP+ Gaza City, and Palestine Children’s Relief Fund# Deir al Beleh refugee camp training centers, Palestine/Israel, trainer:
        • Suicide assessment*+#, Opiate basics+#, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy+, Trauma recovery+, Social and case supports+, and Culturally-fitted chronic nightmare treatment#
      • 2017 Columbia University, 2nd annual “In Fluency” conference, “Psychology Beyond Borders” panelist:
        • Palestine
      • 2016 Boston University Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice program:
        • BIO/fundamentals-PSYCHO/awareness-SOCIAL/community: Cultural Formation of DSM categories
      • 2015 Red Crescent Society, Gaza City, Palestine/Israel, facilitator/staff trainer:
        • Mutual Support for Colleagues Who Survived the War
      • 2015 HMS, Family Medicine Interest Group/Longwood Muslims, with B. Ali MD:
        • Navigating Cultural Competences in a Diverse Healthcare Space
      • 2014 and also 2015 Harvard Arab Weekend:
        • Avincenna Healthcare and Science Networking Reception Featured Guest
      • 2014 University of Chicago, Students for Justice in Palestine, panelist:
        • The politics of Despair: Mental Health in Chicago and Palestine
      • 2014 Voice of America television, guest:
        • Talking Depression
      • 2014 Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, Islam and Psychology Discussion Group:
        • Families, Global South and North
      • 2014 United Nations Country Team Protection Cluster, Mental Health and Psycho-social Services working group, UNICEF, Gaza City, Palestine-Israel, trainer:
        • Chronic nightmare treatment: Best practices across cultural lines” and “Opiate basics and tramadol, with survey of Islamically-focused treatments globally
      • 2012-2013 Tufts University Chinese Student Preparation Program, series director:
        • Survey of Psychology
      • 2012 American Psychiatric Association, annual conference, seminar planner/lead presenter (with Drs R. Sprott, E. Sheff):
        • Polyamory/responsible non-monogamy, an emerging relationship/identity orientation: Research and clinical information
      • 2011-2012 American Psychiatric Association, Collaborating Investigator:
        • DSM5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) Trials in Routine Clinical Settings
      • 2011 Sino-American Basic Education Forum, Harvard Center for Governmental and International Studies, keynote speaker:
        • Stress, East and West: A Spectrum of Solutions
      • 2009-2015 HMS-Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) Psychiatry and Spirituality seminar:
        • Ethnic, sexuality and religious diversity topics
      • 2008 GCMHP/World Health Organization “Walls and Bridges” conference (Ramallah/Gaza City, Palestine-Israel) panel leader, and presenter:
        • Grieving the Catastrophe: Acknowledging and healing America’s Shadow in Palestine
      • 2008 HMS Meditation and Psychotherapy conference:
        • Meditation and psychosis
      • 2008-2021 HMS-CHA (2010- with internist B. Ali MD), seminar leader:
        • Decentering Ego: Buddhist and Jungian Clinical Applications, renamed: Clinician Self-Care: Ayurvedic, Buddhist and Jungian Approaches
      • 2006 Harvard University Mental Health Services, grand rounds presenter:
        • 50 Years of Buddhist influence in American mental health
      • 2001 American Association for Laboratory Animal Science:
        • Remembering the Animals: Memorial services for animals used in laboratory science
      • 1998 Archaeology/documentary project (1st First Nations [Puyallup Tribe of Indians] — university [U. of WA, Burke Museum] – general population school district [Vashon Island] contractual partnering), historian: