Biographies
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Dolores Krieger, PhD, RN
Please Note: Although Dr Krieger will not be present at the Therapeutic Touch Invitational Mentorship Program, her Mentorship Program lectures will be seen on DVD during this Program. Dr Krieger designed and began offering the East Coast TT Invitational Mentorship Program in NY State in the late 1990s. The West Coast Program was initiated 3 years later. Although she no longer continues to attend, both Program continue to be offered. Her website is DoloresKrieger.com.
Dolores Krieger, PhD, RN is a Professor Emerita of Nursing Science, New York University, and co-creator of Therapeutic Touch. She is a recognized holistic nursing theorist and pioneering researcher on Therapeutic Touch and the dynamics of healing. At NYU, her course Frontiers of Nursing has been taught since the early 1970's. One of the first nursing theorists to recognize holistic nursing as a viable nursing science, she was an early proponent and initiator of the term, “The Renaissance Nurse.”
A member of Sigma Theta Tau, Dr. Krieger created five graduate programs in nursing science during her tenure at New York University. Internationally known, she has traveled extensively around the world presenting her theories, papers, presentations and seminars. With more than 400 professional papers and journal articles to her credit, she has been widely sought after as a radio and television personality.
Dr Krieger’s work in Therapeutic Touch has been credited with being the first healing method taught within a university system and the most researched form of hand-on healing to date. Therapeutic Touch is a nursing intervention and considered “an extension of professional skills.” Numerous doctoral dissertations and graduate studies have originated on Therapeutic Touch. With physicians, nurses and many other healthcare professionals practicing and researching Therapeutic Touch, it has become a widely accepted nursing intervention within our medical institutions. Therapeutic Touch is taught in hundreds of medical centers and universities, and is practiced in over 100 countries worldwide. At last count, Therapeutic Touch had been taught to well over 200,000 healthcare professionals.
Dr. Krieger’s is the author of 12 books: Foundations for Holistic Health Nursing Practices: The Renaissance Nurse; The Therapeutic Touch: How to Use Your Hands to Help or Heal; Accepting Your Power to Heal: The Personal Practice of Therapeutic Touch; The Therapeutic Touch Inner Workbook; Therapeutic Touch as Transpersonal Healing; The Spiritual Dimensions of Therapeutic Touch; Therapeutic Touch: A Book of Readings; and Living the Therapeutic Touch: Healing as a Lifestyle. Her most popular books have been translated into several languages. Besides continuing to write and teach Therapeutic Touch, Dr Krieger is involved in Deep Ecology and lives in a wildlife sanctuary she has created in Montana.
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Shirley Spear Begley, RN, BFA, HNB-BC, NCTMB, CCHT, QTTT is the Executive Director of Integrated Health Care Systems, a holistic nursing consultation and education organization created in 1982, now based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Shirley’s private practice and seminars focus on combining relationship-centered care, holistic nursing, Therapeutic Touch and integrative modalities with conventional nursing. Nationally board-certified in holistic nursing and therapeutic massage and bodywork, she also holds certifications in education, Guided Imagery, Gestalt psychology, clinical hypnotherapy, group facilitation, and as an internationally Qualified Therapeutic Touch Teacher.
An international conference presenter, she has been seen on CNBC (a forerunner of MsNBC), speaking on Guided Imagery to over 10 million viewers. A former intensive care nurse and Director of Nurses, Shirley was a Project Manager for Globe Med, an integrative healthcare delivery system for Global Good Services, a not-for-profit organization created in conjunction with Native American Nations. She held a faculty appointment at the University of South Florida and lectures in the colleges of nursing, medicine, public health and social work. She has sat on several organization’s boards where she has helped shape policy in integrative healthcare.
Shirley learned Therapeutic Touch in 1982 and not until 1992 did she begin direct mentoring with Dolores Krieger, PhD, RN when invited to the International TT Invitational Programs. Due to her personal experience of years without a TT mentor, in 1995 she initiated a TT mentorship through her organization, leading to national TT credentialing through NH-PAI. In 1999 she was invited by Dr Krieger to mentor in the TT Invitational Mentorship Program, and in 2004, she became the coordinator. She worked for years with Dr Krieger creating this Program and in 2009 Dr Krieger selected Shirley as Director. She also directs the Mid-Winter TT Retreat and Mentorship Program in St Pete Beach, Florida. For 8 years she sat on the TTIA/NHPAI education committee to create TT curricula, and was a credentials reviewer. She has recently returned to the committee to create mentorship guidelines for the organization. Shirley has taught TT to well over 2000 nurses and healthcare providers.
A 3D studio artist, and published author, her article Feeling the Flow: The Energetic Language of TT was the cover story for Massage Magazine. Advance for Nurses sent her on assignment to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador to write on ecology and health. A long time student of Eastern thought and meditation, the Journal of Holistic Nursing also published an article Transcultural Nursing and Tibetan Buddhist Medicine, based on her nursing care of a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master. Traveling extensively internationally Shirley has studied for over 30 years with masters of the world’s wisdom traditions including the Dalai Lama of Tibet.
Her primary approach to TT is based on the importance of centering, and the resultant compassion developed within the practitioner. Shirley encourages students to deepen their awareness by combining a knowledgeable foundation of TT with trusting one’s personal experience. Through her on-going courses and national mentorship programs that lead to the QTTP credential, her students have provided TT for residents in the continuum of healthcare settings, senior facilities and hospice. Shirley provides consults for the Suncoast Hospice where she offers integrative modalities to patients during the admissions process.
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Eliza Twichell, MFA, QTTT is a experienced TT practitioner, teacher and mentor practicing since 2000. She says this about her work: “About twelve years ago I began to study healing work by reading, and having sessions with a healer. When I got hungry for more hands-on experience, I took a TT class with Janet Quinn PhD, RN at Omega Institute. I came away from it with an appetite for more information, and the need for a community of like-minded people to be a support and a resource for me, as I might be for them. I went on to study TT with other teachers including Dolores Krieger, PhD, RN.
Over the years I moved through the Therapeutic Touch Invitational Mentorship Program from Participant to Healing Partner’s Facilitator and eventually was invited to become a Mentor. “I was drawn to T.T. because it came from a research background, which I greatly respect. I’ve been a painter for 40 years, and while working intuitively has always played a part in my work, I believe in what I call ‘educated intuition.’ Therapeutic Touch relies very much on this. You have to have a deep understanding of your motives, and you have to have integrity in your work. Compassion, transparency and kindness are important. I am also a Kripalu yoga practitioner and teacher, and I find the two fit together nicely in their understanding of energy mechanics, and the importance of life ‘off the mat’ – or lifestyle- and its’ role in our health.
I have done a lot of work with Hospice over the years, and love both working with that population, and training TT practitioners who work with them. Currently, I’m developing a nursing home yoga program which hopefully will be up and running this winter in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I live. I work with people of all ages, and animals as well. I often write for the Therapeutic Touch newsletter- so look for me there!”
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Bev Zabler, PhD, RN, FNP
Dr. Bev Zabler’s 32 year nursing career is built on strong commitments to holism, collaboration, diversity, innovation, integrity, quality, respect for human dignity, and social justice. Her background is a unique integration of nursing research, practice and education within a collaborative nursing practice model of caring for at-risk families and communities. Dr. Zabler has been on the cutting edge of four major innovations in nursing including Nurse Managed Health Centers (NMHCs), Nursing Informatics, Integrative Health Care, and Evidence-based Practice.
Bev is a leader in the field of integrative health care. She has integrated complementary therapies into her nursing practice since 1979 and maintained a private practice in the field since 1982 offering individual holistic health consultations and education sessions to groups. She has practiced Therapeutic Touch (TT) since 1980 and also holds certifications in Massage Therapy, Reiki, Breathwork, Spiritual Psychology, and Trauma Counseling. She was invited to 10 International Krieger-Kunz TT Conferences and Mentorship Programs since 1992 and taught TT to over 400 nurses and other health care providers in Wisconsin. Bev has served as a TT mentor the East Coast Mentorship Invitational Intensive in 2000, 2008 and 2010. She is a long-time member of the Nurse Healer’s and Professional Associates, Int’l., Inc., the American Holistic Nurses Association, the Space Nurse Society, and the Institute for Noetic Sciences. She currently sits on the East Coast TT Invitational Mentorship Advisory Board. Bev treasures TT because of its deep connection to nursing and loves supporting others in their development as healers. Additionally, she provides TT to the plant beings and four-leggeds on the conservation farm where she lives.
Bev is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) College of Nursing (CON). She joined the research team at the UWM Silver Spring Community Nursing Center (SS CNC), one of the longest standing academic NMHCs in the US, in the fifth year of its 24 year history. Her Family Nurse Practitioner practice blended with nursing education and research at this NMHC. As a Family Nurse Practitioner, she provided holistic, integrative health care in the community through day care health, school health nursing, adolescent pregnancy prevention, maternal-child health nursing services, and health promotion and chronic illness programs within the collaborative model of the NMHC. This included the role of Project Coordinator for a state funded teen parenting program for seven years. From 1992 10 2002, Bev taught over 150 undergraduate and graduate nursing students, medical students, and social work graduate students in their community clinical experiences at the NHMC, role modeling partnerships and collaborative, transdisciplinary practice.
Bev’s NMHC research role varied from interventionist, to data collector, to project coordinator, to data analysis and reporting, to Co-Investigator. She supported multiple grant funded research and service projects and is currently a Project Coordinator on a five-year HRSA grant to improve access to health services for the underserved and increase health care student experiences in NMHCs. She is now the Director for Special Projects of the UWM Institute for Urban Health Partnerships, which umbrellas two UWM NMHCs, with a primary responsibility for across-site data quality. Four NMHC initiatives in her tenure contributed to significant local and state healthcare policy changes - for pregnant and parenting teens, for day care health, for school health, and for chronic disease nurse case management. The overarching NMHC research goal is to test an alternative model of health care delivery. Outcomes research from the UWM CON NMHC helped to make the NMHC model a component of two national health care reform bills, funded initiatives through the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and a pivotal part of the recently released IOM 2010 The Future of Nursing report.
Bev gained nursing informatics expertise through her service at the NMHC, where an electronic client health record (EHR) was instituted in 1986 as part of its Automated Health Information System (ACHIS) for documentation and data collection. In ACHIS, nursing practice data are captured by the Omaha System standardized nursing informatics language. She contributed to the development and testing of ACHIS and international discussions for the 2005 revision of the Omaha System language. Bev became the IUHP Documentation Educator and since 2000, took the lead on teaching over 350 health care students and NMHC staff the use of ACHIS and the Omaha System and implementing continuing education to improve the inter-rater reliability of client data collection. Omaha System data has been a part of six studies, which Bev conducted or collaborated on as a member of the research team. One study described the use of TT in an NMHC and another included innovation of a methodology for qualitative narrative coding.
Finally, Dr. Zabler is an expert in evidence-based health care practice (EBP). For example, in her early nursing practice in acute care, she utilized research evidence in patient pre-operative education sessions from research demonstrating more effective health education through groups. Later, in a tertiary care setting, she began chair exercise sessions to improve elderly cognition, which was supported by research. As a public health nurse, she taught parents infant massage to promote growth and development for premature, low weight infants after reading a 1987 study indicative of the positive outcomes of infant massage. The programs she co-developed at the NMHC all had strong evidence-bases. She has generated and integrated evidence from practice for community nursing best practices. Most recently, Bev developed an evidence-based holistic teen pregnancy prevention curriculum. She has taught over 100 senior undergraduate nursing students how to evaluate evidence and determine best practices and another 162 how to develop evidence-based community care plans.
In addition to the highlighted aspects of her nursing career above, Bev’s teaching experiences extend to physical assessment courses, nurse practitioner student site visits, undergraduate theory and senior nursing specialty courses for almost 400 students during her time at UWM CON. Student evaluations of her teaching are historically positive with high scores. Her teaching strengths are fostering critical thinking, promoting teamwork, and creating safe, interactive learning environments. She has most recently taught courses at the UWM CON in Role Development in Nursing Practice, Research and Leadership and Holistic Nursing.
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Rebecca M. Good, MA, RN, LPC, QTTT
Registered Nurse, Psychotherapist, Qualified Therapeutic Touch Practitioner, Mentor and Teacher
Rebecca began her nursing education at the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio. She received her Master's degree at New York University in NYC. She is licensed as both a Registered Nurse (RN) and a Professional Mental Health Counselor by the states of Utah and Nevada. Therapeutic Touch International (TTIA)/Nurse Healers-Professional Associates International (NH-PAI), the official organization of Therapeutic Touch™ recognize Rebecca as a Qualified Therapeutic Touch Teacher, Mentor and Practitioner She has taught and practiced Therapeutic Touch for many years.
She began her career in Therapeutic Touch when she took her first class with Dr Dolores Krieger at New York University. Rebecca has studied for over 30 years with the co-developers of Therapeutic Touch, Dr Krieger and Dora Kunz.
Rebecca has been an active RN for more than 40 years. She has worked in all areas of clinical nursing practice, hospice and case management. With extensive counseling and therapy experience, she has worked with individuals of all ages suffering acute, chronic and terminal illnesses and their families, and with issues related to grief and loss. Rebecca is presently in private practice offering Holistic Counseling and Therapy and Therapeutic Touch™ (TT)™ Therapy.
Rebecca has served on the Board of Directors of many professional organizations. She served as Coordinator/President of Nurse Healers Professional Associates International/ Therapeutic Touch International Association’s (TTIA) Board of Trustees. Rebecca has assisted in the development of numerous organizational publications for NH-PAI/TTIA. She is the past Coordinator of the national Council for Healing (CFH) Board.
Rebecca has publications with the Utah Nurses Association, co-authored a chapter on "Therapeutic Touch and Fibromyalgia" in the Elsevier third edition on Fibromyalgia Syndrome, a section on "Patient safety and pain management teaching and assessment tools" in Aspen's Complementary Medicine Modalities Supplement. She is included in Who’s Who in Nursing, Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare, and Who's Who in the World.
Rebecca loves teaching and passing on her years of experience and love for Therapeutic Touch. She has previously taught in the annual March Florida Therapeutic Touch Invitational Mentorship programs and co-created and taught in the Lotus Flower of Compassion, a course for Therapeutic Touch Teachers held in Florida.
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