Institute for Creative Mindfulness

Dr. Jamie Marich (she/they/we) began her career as a humanitarian aid worker in Bosnia-Hercegovina from 2000-2003, primarily teaching English and music. Jamie travels internationally teaching on topics related to trauma, EMDR therapy, expressive arts, mindfulness, and yoga, while maintaining a private practice and online education operations in her home base of Akron, OH. Marich is the founder of the Institute for Creative Mindfulness and the developer of the Dancing Mindfulness approach to expressive arts therapy. Marich is the author of EMDR Made Simple: 4 Approaches for Using EMDR with Every Client (2011), Trauma and the Twelve Steps: A Complete Guide for Recovery Enhancement (2012), Creative Mindfulness (2013), Trauma Made Simple: Competencies in Assessment, Treatment, and Working with Survivors, Dancing Mindfulness: A Creative Path to Healing and Transformation (2015), and Process Not Perfection: Expressive Arts Solutions for Trauma Recovery (2019). Marich co-authored EMDR Therapy & Mindfulness for Trauma-Focused Care along with colleague Dr. Stephen Dansiger in 2018, and their new book with Springer Publishing Healing Addiction with EMDR Therapy: A Trauma-Focused Guide released in 2021. North Atlantic Books published a revised and expanded edition of Trauma and the 12 Steps in the Summer of 2020, and they released The Healing Power of Jiu-Jitsu: A Guide to Transforming Trauma and Facilitating Recovery in 2022. Her latest release with North Atlantic Book, Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma-Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Life came out in January 2023. She has three more projects in the works with North Atlantic Books, including her personal memoir about surviving spiritual abuse called You Lied to Me About God, due out in Autumn 2024. The Huffington Post published her personal story of being out as a clinical professional with a dissociative disorder in May 2023. The New York Times featured Marich’s writing and work on Dancing Mindfulness in 2017 and 2020. NALGAP: The Association of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Addiction Professionals and Their Allies awarded Jamie with their esteemed President’s Award in 2015 for her work as an LGBT advocate. The EMDR International Association (EMDRIA) granted Jamie the 2019 Advocacy in EMDR Award for her using her public platform in media and in the addiction field to advance awareness about EMDR therapy and to reduce stigma around mental health. Jamie also sits on the editorial board of the EMDR Journal of Practice and Research, and she was the 2008 winner of the Poster Research Award at the EMDRIA Annual Conference.

Janja Lalich, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Sociology, is an international authority on cults and coercion. Researcher, author and educator, she specializes in analyses of recruitment, indoctrination, and coercive methods of influence and control. Dr. Lalich is the author and/or coauthor of six books, including the now classic, Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (3 rd ed.). Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults elucidates her groundbreaking framework and theory on why cult members do things that those on the outside cannot understand. Her research on children born/raised in a high-control group is the basis Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out and Starting Over. Her work has been translated into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Serbo- Croatian, Farsi, and Sinhala. In addition to working with survivors and families, she presents at domestic and international conferences and leads workshops for government agencies, international intelligence agencies, private companies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, as well as facilitating psychoeducational courses, workshops, and discussion groups for trauma survivors, families, and mental-health professionals. She has also served as an expert witness in civil and criminal legal cases. She has been featured in countless interviews (print, online, podcasts) and has appeared in numerous documentaries on cults and related subjects. Dr. Lalich is the Founder and CEO of the nonprofit, Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion ( www.lalichcenter.org ) and may be reached at [email protected].