Co-Founding Faculty

Concetta F. Alfano, Ph.D., LCSW is training and supervising anaylst at the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and a faculty member at the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles, CA. Dr. Alfano developed and co-teaches the Contemplative Relational Psychotherapy certificate program at CMP with Dr. Marjorie Schuman. She has taught seminars, and at conferences on the interplay of Buddhist psychology and psychotherapy. Focusing on the indwelling nature of a contemplative attitude and its transcendent function, she is the author of an article on Traversing the Caesura: Transcendent Attunement in Buddhist Meditation and Psychoanalysis (Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 2005). Prior to analytic  training she trained extensively in family systems therapy.

Since 1972, Concetta has practiced in the Vipassana, Tibetan and Zen traditions in both Asia and the United States. She is a member of the Zen Center of Los Angeles and is in private practice in Santa Monica, CA.

Trudy Goodman, Ed. M., has trained in both psychotherapy and meditation for 30 years. In 1995 she co-founded and is Guiding Teacher of the first Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Trudy currently teaches meditation with Jack Kornfield and other Vipassana (Insight Meditation) teachers. In addition to her work at C.M.P., she offers on-going classes and retreats through two other programs she founded in Los Angeles: InsightLA and Growing Spirit.

Marjorie Schuman, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Santa Monica, CA. She is a faculty member at the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. Dr. Schuman developed and co-teaches the Contemplative Relational Psychotherapy certificate program at CMP with Dr.Concetta Alfano. She has published original work on the integration of Buddhist psychology and psychotherapy, including eastern and western concepts of self and the evolution of subjectivity. Her background also includes postdoctoral study  in  the neuroscience of consciousness.

Marjorie has been practicing Vipassana meditation since 1974 and is affiliated with the Community Dharma Leaders program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California.