Mitchell Ginsberg, Ph.D., has worked in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and psycholinguistics since the 1960s, and has been a kalyana-mitta (meditation teacher) in the Thai-Burmese Theravada Buddhist tradition since 1975, having led residential meditation retreats in Great Britain, France, Norway, and the USA. Among his publications are Mind and Belief: Psychological Ascription and the Concept of Belief (1972), The Far Shore: Vipassana, The Practice of Insight (1980, 1996, 2001), and The Inner Palace: Mirrors of Psychospirituality in Divine and Sacred Wisdom Traditions (2002-2004, 2006: 4th Edition). He has taught at the University of Michigan (where he earned his Ph.D. in 1967), Yale University, the American Institute of Buddhist Studies, Antioch University, and elsewhere, in the departments of Philosophy, Far East Studies, Buddhist Studies, and Clinical and Counseling Psychology.
Dr. Ginsberg has been a licensed psychotherapist since 1981, where his approach is transpersonal and systemic, integrating Buddhist introspective psychology and Tantra with the confrontive-supportive, rational-intuitive approach of Maurizio Andolfi, on a background in the perspectives of Hellmuth Kaiser, Friedrich Nietzsche, R.D. Laing, Israel Charny, and traditional psychodynamics. His training includes work at the Connecticut Mental Health Center, the Connecticut Valley (State Psychiatric) Hospital, Yale University Psychology/Psychiatry training hospitals, Emanon in the NIMH-MRI Soteria Research Project, and at the Istituto di Terapia Familiare (in Rome, Italy).
He has held post-doctoral/visiting professor research positions in linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Buddhist Studies at the University of Texas, in Indic Studies at Yale University, and in Judaic and Middle East Studies at the University of California at San Diego.
Dr. Ginsberg and his wife since 1981, Françoise, co-lead workshops and private trainings in Compassionate Tantra, based on an integration of clear appreciation and understanding with respectful compassion, with roots in teachings from the Indic, Tibetan, and Chinese traditions.
He is moderator of the online discussion groups Insight Practice, Creative Solutions for Peace, and Nasrudin, and co-moderator of the group Chishtiyya. He also works with survivors of politically motivated torture from various countries around the world in their search for political asylum and physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being.
Dr. Ginsberg’s primary areas of academic interest are psychospirituality and psychotherapy, Buddhist psychology & meditation, the therapy of post-traumatic stress processes and the counseling of refugees (especially of survivors of torture), and philosophy of mind, tantra & consciousness. Check out www.geocities.com/jinavamsa to learn more about Dr. Ginsberg and his work.