Myrtle Heery, Ph.D., is founder (2000) and director of the International Institute for Humanistic Studies (IIHS), www.human-studies.com, where she instructs licensed psychologists, marriage family therapists, and clinical social workers, in the applications of mindful existential-humanistic and transpersonal psychotherapy in the U.S. and on Zoom reaching clinicians in Canada and other locations. She has previously conducted trainings in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Mexico, and Russia. She is a licensed marriage family therapist and has had a private practice for over forty years in Petaluma, CA seeing individuals, couples, families, and leading groups. During COVID she started a telemental health private practice for adults and consultations for colleagues, which is now limited.
In August 2017, Dr. Heery was honored by the American Psychological Association, Division 32, Humanistic Psychology, with the Rollo May Award for “independent and outstanding pursuit of new frontiers in existential-humanistic psychotherapy.” She has taught psychology to undergraduates at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA, and graduate students at the master’s and doctoral level at Sofia University, Palo Alto, CA, where she taught group psychotherapy and was an active member of many doctoral committees. In addition, she was a twenty-year volunteer for Hospice of Petaluma.
She has published many articles and chapters in psychology books. In addition, in April 2013, she founded the Tonglen Press with the intention of publishing books on the transformation of listening mindfully to others in pain and suffering with diverse populations. The first book for the press is Unearthing the Moment (2014) and the second is Awakening to Aging (2nd Edition, 2015) focusing on the baby boomers aging. She was an editor for collections in both books. She encourages her colleagues attending trainings at IIHS to publish and in 2022 Karen Barlow, Ph.D. and Gina Mercer, Ph.D., published through Tonglen Press, Don’t Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, They Come Back Biting: An 8-Step System for Resolving Anger. You can read more about these books on the home page.
She is presently completing her memoir, Tracking Kindness, to be published at the end of 2024 by Tonglen Press. She is researching Expanding Kindness to follow her memoir.
Myrtle walks her talk by remembering and using kindness, compassion, courage, tolerance, resilience, and hope in her daily life. She was born in Savannah, GA, and has made her home in Petaluma, CA for several decades where she raised her son and now enjoys him, a daughter-in-law, and grandson in Healdsburg, CA. She has the family’s ten-year-old chocolate lab and enjoys an amazing garden where she unearths many wonderful moments.
