Whole Body Mental Health Radio

Since his graduation from law school, Mr. Katner started his own law firm and was director of the Trial Advocacy program at Tulane. In private practice, he worked as an indigent defender, and has handled general civil and criminal cases including several death penalty cases. He is currently on the Board of the National Association of Counsel for Children, and on the Board of the Children's Bureau; he has served on the Board of Directors of the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation, and the Jefferson Parish Juvenile Services Advisory Board. He is the faculty founder of the Tulane University Vietnamese Association, of Tulane's Collegiate Organization for AIDS Prevention, and Tulane's student chapter of the National Association of Counsel for Children. He has served as legal advisor to the Louisiana Children's Code Project and Covenant House in New Orleans. He sits as an ad hoc judge in Orleans Parish Juvenile Court. He is director of the Juvenile Law Clinic, and he has taught Trial Advocacy, Legal Profession

Daniel Tapia is a life-long resident of Uptown New Orleans. When he was 11 he started working to support himself and his family, and like many others in his community, selling drugs was one of the few opportunities he had to make money. In 2005 he was wrongfully convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life without the possiblity of parole. Prior to his transfer to a state correctional facility he survived Hurricaine Katrina and the subsequent flooding while in the custody of Orleans Parish Prison. As is the case for many people in prison serving life without parole sentences Daniel did not have access to educational programming, but he never gave up. Finally the opportunity presented itself and he began studying business management through independent and long distance studies at Louisiana State University where he maintained a 3.0 grade point average. He also completed a certification program through Penn Foster Career School for automobile repair. After years of appeals, Daniel was finally offere

The Honorable Calvin Johnson, retired Chief Judge of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court established the first Mental Health Treatment Court in the State of Louisiana in 2002. By 2005, this Special Court was selected as one of four demonstration courts in the Country. Prior to establishing the first Mental Health Treatment Court, Judge Johnson served as Drug Court Judge from 1994 until 2002. Judge Johnson received his undergraduate degree from Southern University in Baton Rouge in 1969, served four years in the United Stated Air Force, and then received his Jurisdoctorate from Loyola Law School in 1978. He was Professor of Law at Loyola Law School for nine years and Judge of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court for seventeen years. He has received many awards in recognition of his commitment to working with individuals involved in the criminal justice system through every aspect of their recovery, including job readiness, housing stability, and community service projects. He is the recipient of t

Carol Miles MSW, LCSW is a clinical social worker specializing in individual and family psychotherapy, and maintains a private practice in Covington and New Orleans, LA. With over 30 years experience as a clinician, and a graduate of LSU School of Social Work specializing in clinical social work, she is currently serving as private practitioner working with a broad spectrum of clients. Among her areas of expertise are working with clients who have eating disorders and trauma. Carol often has presented at state wide conferences and to general audiences on topics ranging from eating disorders, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills , Training (DBT Skills), assertiveness, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EDMR) and developing a private practice. Carol is a certified EMDR therapist, an EMDRIA Approved Consultant and EMDRIA Approved Basic Trainer. She also is also an adjunct professor at the Tulane School of Social Work, teaching cinical social work to the next generation of social workers. Carol is a prac

Jenni has been involved in the field of Early Childhood Education and Development from many angles. Beginning in the classroom as a preschool teacher, Jenni moved into advocacy work as a Parent Counselor at Child Care Resources of Agenda For Children helping parents find quality child care and training teachers of young children through the Positive Steps program. Jenni has also served on the Board of the Greater New Orleans Association for the Education of Young Children and was on the Anti-Bias Education Leadership Project team. After starting a family and a return to the classroom, Jenni joined the staff at the Parenting Center. As a Parent Educator, Jenni talks to parents about issues such as early learning, development, setting limits, aggression, separation, dealing with divorce, and more. Jenni has two children, Reina, 20, and Haley, 18.

Janell Kalifey is a licensed clinical social worker with 20 years of experience in the mental health field. Her clients are mainly adults and young adults with depression, anxiety, addictions, grief/loss, sexuality issues, relationship problems and stress. She is also suited to work with clients who are experiencing sports performance and physical health challenges, and those looking to restore balance in their lives following transitions. She is experienced in short-term solution-based therapy and long-term insight-oriented therapy. Her approach is eclectic psychodynamic and explores subconscious conflicts that can stifle happiness. She maintains a holistic understanding of her clients and utilizes mind-body interventions such as meditation to facilitate healing and personal growth. She has specialized training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and holds an Associate Faculty position at the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center. She is also a member of the Association of Applied Sports Psychology and ha

Dr. McConville completed a combined residency in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry at Tulane University School of Medicine. He also completed his Fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry at Tulane. Dr. McConville is board certified in Psychiatry and works at Tulane Hospital and Clinic, Southeastern Louisiana Hospital, Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System, St. Charles Parish Hospital, and the Medical Center of Louisiana, New Orleans. He supervises and teaches Psychiatry residents and medical students on the Consultation/Liaison Service at Tulane Hospital and Clinic and on the Psychiatric inpatient unit at Southeast Louisiana Hospital in Mandeville, Louisiana. Jenna Rosen, Psy.D. serves former Players referred from The Trust to Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine (TISM) as TISM’s Director of Mental Health and Follow Up Care. Dr. Rosen is a licensed clinical psychologist at TISM and oversees the emotional wellness and follow up components of the Tulane Brain and Body Assessment Program. She has experience providing co

Dallas has been working with children, adolescents, and adults in the mental health field for 30+ years. In 2000, while living In Maine, he began looking for large muscle exercise that would not stress his limbs and joints and that he could do in the winter. He found yoga and began what has become a regular practice. Through this practice, he also began to realize the impact of yoga on his own body, mind, and spirit and that how he approached his life was the same both on and off the mat. He learned he could practice and experiment with life changes by first practicing them on the mat. In 2011, Dallas became a Registered Yoga Teacher at the 200 hour level by the Yoga Alliance. During his mental health career, he became increasingly interested in complex trauma and its impact on people’s lives. He completed the Trauma Center’s 40-hour Trauma-Sensitive Yoga course in 2013 and then followed up the next year with the Trauma Center’s certification process, completing that in April of 2015. Since February 2015, he

Dr. Weiss is a psychiatrist who has a wide range of clinical interests, including caring for adolescents and young adults with emerging psychotic disorders, as well as providing psychiatric care for chronically mentally ill adults. Additionally, she is the attending psychiatrist for a school-based program offering comprehensive mental health services for children with complex behavioral and emotional disorders. Her academic interests include developing a progressive medical education curriculum in psychiatry for medical students, while teaching future physicians to develop a whole-person approach to patients. Dr. Weiss also provides supervision and teaching to psychiatry residents and child and adolescent psychiatry fellows. She maintains a strong connection to the New Orleans community and is committed to providing care for the underserved.

Dr. Kanas is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. For over 35 years, he conducted research on people under stress. He has over 200 professional publications and is the recipient of the Dr. J. Elliott Royer Award for academic psychiatry. Since 1970, he has studied and written about psychological and interpersonal issues affecting people living and working in space. For over 15 years, he was a NASA-funded principal investigator, doing psychological research with astronauts and cosmonauts. He is a member and former trustee of the International Academy of Astronautics. Together with Dietrich Manzey, he is the co-author of the text book entitled Space Psychology and Psychiatry (2nd ed.), which was given the 2004 International Academy of Astronautics Life Science Book Award. In 1999, Dr. Kanas received the Aerospace Medical Association Raymond F. Longacre Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in the Psychological and Psychiatric Aspects of Aerospace Medicine. In 2008, h

Professor Legshe has taught Tibetan studies and social work at Tulane University since 2005. He also works as a family therapist, addiction specialist and on-call crisis supervisor for RHD-Metropolitan ACT, serving people with chronic mental illness and substance abuse issues. He works as a psychotherapist in a private practice. Ngawang was ordained by HH the Dalai Lama and was a Buddhist monk for more than 20 years, receiving many gold medals at both the Seraje School, Sera Mahayana Monastic University and at Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. He selected to study at Hampshire College and was a Kahn Buddhist fellow at Smith College. He received his MSW from Tulane in 2008 and was given the Leanne Joy Knot award for service. Professor Legshe works with the Louisiana Himalayan Association and other NGOs to support Tibetan communities and continues to teach meditation and dharma studies. His research interests are clinical applications of mindfulness, compassion and meditative practices in understandi

Judson Brewer MD PhD is the Director of Research at the Center for Mindfulness and associate professor in medicine and psychiatry at UMass Medical School. He also is adjunct faculty at Yale University, and a research affiliate at MIT. A psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for addictions, Brewer has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for addictions, including both in-person and app-based treatments. He has also studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI, and source-estimated EEG, and is currently translating these findings into clinical use. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, presented to the US President’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, trained US Olympic coaches, been featured on 60 minutes, at TED, TEDMED, TEDx, in Time magazine (top 100 new health discoveries of 2013), Forbes, Businessweek, NPR and the BBC among others. He writes a blog for The Huffington Post.Watch his Te

Katherine Mattes is an experienced criminal defense attorney. She has expertise on the intersection of criminal justice and mental illness, with an emphasis on mental competency to stand trial and the defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. She was lead counsel in State v. Denson, a landmark case that resulted in statewide changes to Louisiana's treatment of mentally ill criminal defendants.

Dr. Alvarez directs the Internal Medicine/Psychiatry residency at Tulane. She is also precepting at the Med/Psych resident clinic at Ruth Fertel Community Health Center, where she and the residents are piloting a primary care-based opiate replacement intervention. She attends on the UMC behavioral Health Inpatient unit, specializing in medically complex cases, and is always looking for innovative models to provide quality care for complex and underserved populations.

Ngakpa Karma Lhundup Rinpoche is a ngakpa, a lay yogi practitioner, of the Nyingma lineage of ‪Tibetan Buddhism. His teachings are simple, direct, humorous and applicable to everyday life.He specializes in the Dudjom Tersar, Northern Treasures (Changter) and the Dzogchen traditions of meditation, and performs various ancient Tibetan rituals, rites and ceremonies for living, dying and after death.

Ms. Novod is a social studies teacher. Her first son, Saul Welton Novod, was born prematurely on June 7, 2014, and passed away due to complications. His legacy inspired Saul’s Light foundation, which helps meet the needs of families and their babies in the NICU, as they transition home, and in the tragic event of a baby’s death.

Dr. Dery is an infectious disease physician, specializing in the negative impact of poverty on health. In 2010, he started a non-profit organization, the New Orleans Society for Infectious Disease Awareness (NOSIDA), to raise awareness of HIV in Southern Louisiana. Through NOSIDA, Dr. Dery founded WHIV FM, a radio station dedicated to human rights and social justice.

Chadly is a doctoral student in NYU's social psychology program. His research examines how people's goals, motivations, and expectations shape the way they perceive and interact with others. His work places an emphasis on the importance of political ideology in shaping how people come to understand the world.

In Part I of this ongoing series, William Arendell, Dr. Calderon, and Kevin Conway discuss a Whole Body Mental Health approach on addiction and recovery.

Geoffrey Roniger is the founder of and primary teacher at Freret Street Yoga. Well-known in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater New Orleans Area for his clarity, sincerity, and creative use of imagery to guide his students, Geoffrey’s enthusiasm for yoga is undeniably contagious. Geoffrey graduated from Piedmont Yoga Studio's 18-month Advanced Studies Program, where he formally apprenticed with ‪Richard Rosen‬ and ‪Rodney Yee‬. Geoffrey's clientele have included corporations such as Salesforce.com, several CEOs dealing with high levels of stress, professional athletes aiming to improve their overall efficiency, health care professionals searching for a reliable method of self-care, evacuees of Hurricane Katrina and athletes with disabilities. He has been featured in the Awakened Athletes, Masterclass, and Basics columns for Yoga Journal as well as in the Gaiam video, Yoga Now. He is an ambassador for lululemon athletica and leads workshops and retreats around the United States. Geoffrey’s main str