The Minuchin Center for the Family

Faculty

Cara Brendler, LCSW works with families, couples, adolescents, and young adults, with a special expertise in women's issues and working with fathers and daughters within the family context. She has co-led family and couples therapy training groups for therapists and has run therapy groups for teenagers and young women. Cara speaks French and is also a graphic designer, painter, and ceramicist, bringing her artistic sensibilities into her work as a therapist.

Jorge Colapinto, LPsych, LMFT is the Coordinator of Training and Consultation at the Minuchin Center for the Family.  Jorge has 35 years of experience as a structural family therapist, supervisor, and trainer, and 25 as a consultant to child protection, family preservation, foster care, residential, and home-based programs, in the United States and abroad. A recipient of the Distinguished Contribution To Social Justice Award presented by the American Family Therapy Academy, Jorge is the co-author with Patricia and Salvador Minuchin of Working With Families Of The Poor, adjunct faculty at Drexel University's Marriage and Family Program, and an AAMFT Clinical Member and Approved Supervisor. 

Richard Holm, DSW, LCSW, LMFT has extensive experience providing consultation, training and supervision at home-based services, community-based and residential treatment centers for adolescent substance abusers, and inpatient and outpatient mental health systems. He contributed to a chapter in Minuchin et al.'s Working with Families of the Poor (2nd ed.). Richard is a Clinical Member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy,an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, and a former Associate Professor in the Department of Human Services, CUNY-New York City College of Technology. His special interest is in helping develop and implement family-centered services in agencies that serve marginalized populations.
                         

Daniel Minuchin, MA, LMFT is a licensed marriage and family therapist with an active interest in how the public and non- profit sectors, and helping institutions in general, can interact with families more productively.  He provides consultation and training on working with families to schools, mental health centers, and to agencies working in residential treatment, substance abuse, psychiatric and home-based treatment, foster care, and prevention.  For a number of years he was a consultant and trainer for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health.   Dan is a Clinical Member of the AAMFT and an AAMFT Approved Supervisor.

Ethan Ornstein, LCSW has extensive experience        working with families, couples, and youth in a variety of settings.  He was a supervisor in one of New York City’s leading child abuse prevention programs and spent a number of summers guiding cross-cultural immersion and community service-based programs for teenagers.  Currently Ethan conducts workshops and trainings on structural family therapy and family engagement for mental health programs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, where he also serves as family therapist for the Masonic Center for Youth and Families.  Ethan’s special interests include working with adolescents, families from under-served communities, and consulting programs to enhance their family systems work.   

Roni Schnadow, MS, RN, LMFT is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Certified Advance Practice Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nurse. In addition to her private practice in Rhinebeck and Kingston NY she is a consultant to psychiatric hospitals and mental health agencies in the Hudson Valley. Areas of expertise include working with divorced and blended families, families dealing with alcohol and substance abuse, and families living with a medical or psychiatric illness.

                                                                                                George Simon, MS, LMFT has been practicing family therapy for twenty-five years and has been involved in the training and supervision of family therapists for over eighteen years. Currently George directs the graduate program in Marriage and Family Therapy at Hofstra University. He has co-authored a book on family therapy supervision with Salvador Minuchin and Wai-Yung Lee, and has published the book Beyond Technique in Family Therapy: Finding Your Therapeutic Voice. He has a special interest in the application of the principles of structural family therapy to clinical work with couples.

 
Wai-Yung Lee, PhD, an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, is the Associate Professor and Founding Director of the HKU Family Institute at the University of Hong Kong, and Clinical Director of the Academy ofFamily Therapy, Hong Kong.  She has trained family therapists in the US, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Much of her research has focused on dispersing  myths about Asian Chinese families, while developing a framework for a culturally relevant approach in working with not just Chinese families, but also families of the world. Her current research and clinical focus is on understanding children responses to parental conflicts, as well as the interactive patterns of couples from different Asian regions.  Dr. Lee is the co-author of Mastering Family Therapy, with Minuchin and Simon, and Assessing Families and Couples, with Minuchin and Nichols.
 

Board of Directors

 
Charles Fishman, MD

Frank Harvey, MSW, LCSW

Max Howard, MSW, LCSW

Jay Lappin, MSW, LCSW

Salvador Minuchin, MD

Naftoli Walfish, MSW, LCSW


Board Emeriti:

Nancy Boyd-Franklin, PhD

Marta Sullivan, DSW