Lorne Ladner

Lorne Ladner, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. He provides individual psychotherapy, family therapy, and psychological testing and assessments. Dr. Ladner also provides workshops and trainings on the psychology of positive emotions, the integration of meditation and psychotherapy, and on Buddhist psychology. He is the author of a number of books and articles including The Lost Art of Compassion: Discovering the Practice of Happiness in the Meeting of Buddhism and Psychology (HarperCollins, 2004). Dr. Ladner previously served as an adjunct faculty member in the counseling program at the American School of Professional Psychology, where he taught graduate-level courses in Developmental Psychology, Personality Theories, and Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy.

Dr. Ladner began studying Buddhist meditation almost 20 years ago. Over the years, he has studied Tibetan Buddhism closely with some of the greatest living Tibetan masters and with numerous leading Western scholars. He has been a student of Lama Zopa Rinpoche for many years, and was also a close student of the late Kyabje Ribur Rinpoche. Dr. Ladner has also taught Buddhist meditation for a number of years at various meditation centers around the East Coast. He has taught workshops on using meditation in integration with psychotherapy--especially for evoking positive emotions such as compassion--at venues including Omega Institute, Tibet House, The New York Open Center, and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. He also teaches workshops on these subjects for clinicians.

In addition to his Ph.D. in psychology (from Pacifica Graduate Institute), Dr. Ladner has also earned a B.A. with high honors in Religious Studies (from Wesleyan University) and an M.A. in non-fiction writing (from the University of New Hampshire). He has written two previous books. The first, Bridges of Compassion: Insights and Interventions in Developmental Disabilities, was co-authored with Alex Campbell and published in 1999 by Jason Aronson, Inc. This book presents a series of case studies illustrating how to most effectively help adolescents and children with developmental disabilities. The second, The Wheel of Great Compassion: The Practice of the Prayer Wheel in Tibetan Buddhism, was published by Wisdom Publications in the fall of 2000. This book is about the Buddhist meditation practice of the prayer wheel for developing loving compassion. He has a video coming out later this year (2006) from American Psychological Association Press on Mindful Psychotherapy.