2023 Conference Speakers

Les Aria, PhD, a pain psychologist who has been practicing for the past 20 years and served as the Lead Pain Psychologist for large healthcare system in Northern California to help redesign the chronic pain workshop curriculum to incorporate modern pain science, mindfulness, and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT). He is currently the Chief Science Officer of Menda Health and teaches physicians, psychologists, and physical therapists around the world how to reverse persistent pain. Dr. Aria specializes in treating psychophysiological disorders/persistent pain. His passion for MindBody interventions promotes a unique style to help patients relate differently to their suffering, and thereby shifting them into pain recovery. Website: LesAriaPhD.com

Vanessa Blackstone, ACSW, citizen of Eastern Band of Cherokee Nation, is the Executive Director of the Pain Psychology Center and a clinical consultant at the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center. She earned her M.S. in Social Work from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. Following her own personal recovery from chronic pain, Vanessa began her career as a therapist in 2018. In addition to chronic pain treatment, she specializes in sex therapy, substance use and recovery, mindfulness-based relapse prevention, and works on film sets as an Onset Wellness Professional. Outside of her professional roles, Vanessa is a former foster youth who advocates for current and former foster youth by sharing her personal experiences in public speaking events. https://blackstonewellness.com

Mitch has been a part of hundreds of projects spanning all genres, formats, and styles. He was named one of the “Top 10 Documakers to Watch” by Variety Magazine. Recent credits include the Emmy award winning Anti-Human Trafficking Public Service Announcement Campaign (Producer/Director 2022), Silent Rose (Producer/Director – Topic Streaming 2020), Casting Jon Benet (Producer – Netflix – Sundance 2017), Speaking is Difficult (Cinematographer – Sundance 2016), Rolling Papers (Producer/Director – SXSW 2015), Being Evel (Line Producer – Sundance 2015) and Hanna Ranch (Producer/Director – NY Times Critics Pick 2014). Mitch holds a BFA in Film/Television with a minor in Political Science from the University of Colorado at Denver (where he currently sits on the advisory board and teaches as adjunct faculty).

Dr. Donnino is the founder/director of the Psychophysiologic Research Group. Dr. Donnino was the first in the country to complete a residency/fellowship program leading to board certification in internal medicine, emergency medicine, and critical care. He began his career as a biomedical physician-scientist with over 200 publications in areas such as metabolism and critical illness when he suddenly developed severe, persisting back pain. After months of unrelenting pain, he found the work of Dr. John Sarno and rapidly improved within weeks. Dr. Donnino was so inspired by his own experience and surprised by the lack of evidenced-based research in this area that he founded the Psychophysiologic Research Group and led one of the first randomized trials supporting the work of Dr. Sarno. He is now dedicated to pioneering ongoing research in this area with the overarching goal of bringing this work into mainstream medicine.

Sari Eitches, MD is a dual board certified internist and integrative physician. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, and SUNY Upstate Medical University. She completed her residency at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, NY and served as an attending internist at the University of Pennsylvania before returning to live and serve in her native Los Angeles. She is a former yoga teacher and a long-time vegan who is passionate about preventive health and optimum wellness through lifestyle. She sees patients in her private practice at Cedars Sinai and was named "number one Internist in Los Angeles" on yelp.

One of the first “gastropsychologists” in the US, Dr. Franklin is an experiential, somatically-oriented, mindfulness-based psychologist, specializing in the treatment of Psychophysiologic Disorders (PPD), especially digestive PPD. Dr. Franklin began her career on the heels of having suffered greatly herself from digestive PPD. A year of psychotherapy as a teenager kick-started her healing process and made her acutely aware of the powerful relationship between mind and body, and then over the course of graduate school, she recovered completely. For over two decades, Dr. Franklin has been providing psychotherapy, teletherapy, and consultation to individuals, couples, and families. She has taught Vipassana and mindfulness meditation, served as an associate editor for the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, given talks on the brain-gut connection and healing the gut, and started a website and YouTube channel to offer patients and health-care providers valuable information about how to promote healing. To learn more, visit DontHateYourGuts.com.

Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley have made 9 feature films together. Their first two films were fictional narratives with documentary elements. Their subsequent films have been documentaries that have relied on narrative film techniques. Before making films Michael was a musician who documented the underground during the early 90's. This led to the production of Hawley and Galinsky's first film "Half-Cocked". The film got raves in Variety and the LA Weekly and the pair took it on tour, showing it in bars, rock clubs and cinemas across America and Europe. Their follow up "Radiation", about a Spanish music promoter, premiered at Sundance in 1999. They moved on to docs and their first one, "Horns and Halos" premiered at Rotterdam in 2002 and was short listed for the Oscar. In 2017 they released "All The Rage", a documentary about Dr. John Sarno, and the pain epidemic (that is also a very personal film) and "Working In Protest", a film built from 30 years archives of documenting protest in the USA. They are currently working on a series about The Savannah Bananas, an innovative baseball team.

Dr. Guiffrida is Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, Professor in the Counseling and Human Development Program, and Director of the Advanced Certificate Program in Mind/Body Healing and Wellness at the University of Rochester, Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development. He is a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC), an Approved Clinical Supervisor (ACS), a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), and he has a private practice focused on healing chronic pain.

Dr. Hanscom practiced complex orthopedic spine surgery for 32 years. He quit his practice in Seattle, WA to present his insights into solving chronic pain, which evolved from his own 15-year battle with it. He eventually escaped from the ordeal and discovered that mental pain is the biggest issue. Anxiety is the pain. His book, Back in Control: A Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain systematically presents established treatments for chronic mental and physical pain, which the current medical establishment is overlooking. The self-directed action plan is available at TheDocJourney.com. It reflects the approaches of hundreds of patients who have escaped from chronic pain.

Dr. Huggins graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) with her bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She soon went on to receive both her Masters and Doctorate degrees in Clinical Psychology, with an emphasis in Health Psychology, from the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University in Los Angeles. She continued onto advanced training and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Health Psychology at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. After her fellowship, she accepted a position at the Bay Area Pain and Wellness Center, a functional restoration program (FRP) for chronic pain, where she furthered her training in the treatment of chronic pain. Being a Southern California native, she moved back to the area in 2012. At that time, she began working with Kaiser Permanente, where she worked as a pain psychologist in the pain management department from for 6 years until late 2018. Since that time, she has been in full-time private practice specializing in chronic pain and trauma.

Dr. Jackson is a faculty member in psychology at Smith College, and an advisor for the Five College Culture, Health, and Science Program. She directs the Society, Psychology, and Health Laboratory and researches, teaches, and mentors on how social, cultural, and physical environments are internalized and shape health. A critical health psychologist, the major focus of her scholarship is on contexts that shape behaviors and sub-clinical disease markers. Dr. Jackson’s doctoral training was joint in personality psychology and women’s studies (Michigan), and her post-doctoral training spanned social-personality psychology (Missouri), public health, and medicine, emphasizing the social epidemiology of lung disease (Harvard). Ongoing research interests are on psychological and physical correlates and consequences of social status. She and her collaborators study these processes typically with experimental methods using college samples, and observational methods using community samples. She has strong research, teaching, and applied interests in how these processes are linked to health disparities and prevention. In 2020, Jackson founded Resting to Rise, where she lectures and practices as a certified rest coach, focusing on supporting social change leaders to reframe rest as a fundamental fuel to individual and collective well-being.

Tim (producer/director) has helmed short narratives and a feature documentary, Classic (Producer/Director – AIFF 2020 Jury and Audience Award), and has produced for documentary series and films. In post, Tim has helped tell documentary stories spanning from e-sports (Artificial Gamer, 2021) to mass coral bleachings (Chasing Coral, 2017) and even daredevilry (Being Evel, 2015) and weed (Rolling Papers, 2015). Tim also keeps threatening to direct a narrative “this year” and, depending on when you read this, maybe that also will be true.

Dr. Kinderman is a Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of Wellness Outside the Box – Therapy Redefined; a practice that utilizes the Dual Therapist Model to treat children and adults struggling with chronic pain and mental illness. Early on, Dr. Kinderman found that employing the same textbook theories and techniques with every client was often ineffective and significantly limiting. This prompted her to explore creative and unique approaches to physical and emotional wellness that highlighted the warmth and support of human connection. Dr. Kinderman embraces a mind-body approach and often combines Pain Reprocessing Therapy and the more traditional therapies with music, movement, humor, animals, and nature to assist clients in building their strengths, achieving their goals, and living a content, pain-free life. To maintain her own balance and serenity, she enjoys hiking, rock climbing, dancing, and spending time with her husband, two sons, and therapy dog Zippy.

Daniel is a psychotherapist based in Portland, OR and the Executive Director of the Mind Body Therapy Center. He specializes in the treatment of chronic pain, anxiety (including OCD), depression, and sexuality. He earned both a master’s degree in Social Work and Public Administration from the University of Southern California. He was a founding member of the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles, and has been working in the chronic pain field for over a decade. He is currently a clinical supervisor at both the Mind Body Therapy Center and the Pain Psychology Center. He has worked with thousands of clients to overcome pain on 6 continents (still waiting on Antarctica). Outside of his therapy work, Daniel is a playwright and likes to exercise, play with his dog, and travel.

Arun is a co-founder of Menda Health, an online pain recovery platform for patients who have failed to respond to conventional treatment. Enrolled members have access to recovery groups, an integrative medical team, and mobile app of pain tools - all within the Menda platform. He is on a personal mission to scale mind-body treatments within healthcare after recovering from back pain. Previously, he co-started FillMyFork, a Food as Medicine product that was acquired by a Series B company Foodsmart.

Terri’s journey into pelvic health physical therapy began when experienced her own pelvic challenges during her first pregnancy over 25 years ago. At that time, there were very few pelvic health physical therapists, and the approach was primarily from a biomedical framework. Her curiosity and need for her own healing ignited the desire to specialize in pelvic health and integrate her experience in movement, manual therapy and Neuroscience. . She has certifications in the Feldenkrais method , manual lymphatic therapy, dry needling, pain reprocessing and pelvic rehabilitation. Terri works in an outpatient private practice setting and learns from her patients every day. She is also an associate faculty instructor at the University of Colorado Physical Therapy Program at the Anschutz Medical Campus. Recently she started working at Lin Health as a pain recovery coach.

Laurie (producer/director) is a neuroscience researcher turned filmmaker/podcaster, and was a co-author on the study featured in Pain Brain. She’s worked on a variety of films and podcasts, with roles spanning from production to post production. She was recently awarded the Creative Science Non-Fiction Accelerator Award from Sandbox Films & Gamechanger Films to develop a documentary on dream technology.

Dr. Dan Ratner is an internationally known leading expert in the mind body field, host of the Crushing Doubt podcast on Youtube and Spotify, and author of the book Crushing Doubt, which offers a way of thinking about pain and symptoms to bring relief. After his profound, life- changing experience resolving his own eight year bout with chronic back pain, he has cured hundreds of pain sufferers with his scientific and logical methods. He is the creator of the Three Columns System and uses Columns Work to teach people how to organize their mind body experience and alleviate both chronic and acute symptoms. His eight session seminars teach people everything they need to know about the mind body process to put their questions to rest and his membership groups allow ongoing, cost-effective access to him each week to work on understanding and alleviating symptoms. His book, seminars, and group membership sign ups are all available on his website, www.crushingdoubt.org.

Dan was raised in the diverse, educated, and dynamic town of Shaker Heights, Ohio, in a family with a deep expertise in psychological tradition. He completed his undergraduate work at Brown University, graduating Cum Laude, after which time he spent two years in Teach For America as a primary elementary school teacher in Compton, CA. He went on to receive his Masters’ and Doctorate in Psychology from Widener University and was a staff member and training director of Fordham University’s Counseling Center. Dan created and ran a full-time private practice, dating back to 2007, first in New York City, and now virtually from Cleveland, but now meets exclusively in his groups or for short term consultations to resolve symptoms and build recovery plans for sufferers.

Dr. David Schechter graduated with a degree from Princeton University. While a medical student at NYU in the early 1980's, he was first exposed to a stress related disorder-- his own! After successful treatment as a patient of Dr. John Sarno, he performed a telephone follow up study, in Dr. Sarno’s office. After a residency in Family Medicine, he received a Certificate of Additional Qualifications in Sports Medicine. Dr. Schechter has been treating chronic pain and other functional disorders with a psycho-educational approach for over 27 years in private practice. He has a credential in Integrative Pain Management.

Dr. Schubiner is an internist and the director of the Mind Body Medicine Center at Ascension Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan and a Clinical Professor at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. He has authored more than 100 publications in scientific journals and books, and lectures regionally, nationally, and internationally. Dr. Schubiner is a senior teacher of mindfulness meditation and the author of three books: Unlearn Your Pain, Unlearn Your Anxiety and Depression, and Hidden From View, written with Dr. Allan Abbass. Dr. Schubiner lives in the Detroit area with his wife of thirty-seven years and has two adult children. Website: UnlearnYourPain.com.

Laura is a co-founder of Curable: an app designed to help people take control over chronic pain and symptoms. She is the voice behind Curable's beloved audio lessons and exercises, as well as the host of the popular podcast "Like Mind, Like Body." Laura is a content and marketing expert with a passion for making complex information digestible and accessible to the people who need it most. She is a veteran of Google and BuzzFeed with personal experience recovering from migraines, sciatica, and chronic knee pain.

Kartik is a co-founder of Menda Health, an online pain recovery platform for patients who have failed to respond to conventional treatment. Enrolled members have access to recovery groups, an integrative medical team, and mobile app of pain tools - all within the Menda platform. He is on a personal mission to scale mind-body treatments within healthcare after recovering from IBS. Previously, he co-started FillMyFork, a Food as Medicine product that was acquired by a Series B company Foodsmart.

Lisa Stracks co-founded Cormendi Health with Dr. Stracks and serves as its Executive Director, managing marketing, finance, and human resources. In a previous career, she was an editor, which reinforced her strong interest in education and excellence, and she uses that experience to continually refine Cormendi’s connection with all our stakeholders. She is committed to creating a place where both clients and staff are able to reach their full potential in life. Lisa enjoys spending time with her husband, Dr. Stracks, and their two teenagers. When not working, you can find her with a book in her hand, out walking, in the garden, or on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Christie (she/her) is the Executive Director of The Better Mind Center and a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of chronic pain, anxiety, and depression. Christie is also a recovered chronic pain patient herself. The healing process was so profoundly transformational for her quality of life that she has dedicated her career to supporting others through their recoveries. She lectures nationally on psychotherapeutic interventions to treat chronic pain and is committed to cross-disciplinary collaboration between mental health and physical medicine. Christie worked alongside Alan Gordon and Dr. Howard Schubiner to develop Pain Reprocessing Therapy.

Dr. Yanek is a nationally certified School Psychologist and co-founder of Wellness Outside the Box – Therapy Redefined; a practice that utilizes the Dual Therapist Model to treat children and adults struggling with chronic pain and mental illness. Dr. Yanek has always incorporated her passion for nature and adventure into her work. She often took walks outside with high school students to counsel and problem-solve and led mindfulness exercises with kindergarten students to help them find calm in their day. In addition to her certification as a school psychologist, Dr. Yanek has specialized training in adventure-based counseling and the technical skills to facilitate high and low ropes/adventure courses. She is also a RYT-200 yoga instructor. Her expertise in adventure, mindfulness, and nature-work enables her to successfully treat those who prefer non-traditional paths to wellness. In her free time, you can find Dr. Yanek traveling, enjoying the beach, practicing yoga, running, cycling or swimming. Ultimately though, she loves spending time with her family and friends!