About Us
Bonney Gulino Schaub, M.S., C.S., APRN-BC, , is a state-licensed and nationally board-certified advanced practice nurse psychotherapist in private practice in Huntington, New York.
–Frank Lipman, M.D., Manhattan’s leading acupuncturist-physician, author of Spent, Total Renewal (Visit DrFrankLipman.com)
After working in medical-surgical nursing and in-patient psychiatry, Bonney worked as a detox coordinator and psychotherapist in an alcohol and drug treatment program. A pioneer of holistic nursing, she contributed the chapters on addiction recovery and imagery to the standard text for the field, Holistic Nursing: A Handbook for Practice, and trained and supervised nursing students at Molloy College and the College of New Rochelle.
Her experience with hundreds of addicted clients led her to the core insight that a pervasive part of their histories was a profound loss early in life. This in turn led to her gradual formulation of The Vulnerability Model of Recovery. This model sees unmanageable sensitivity and vulnerability as a core motivation for compulsive self-medicating and advocates that recovery must address this basic vulnerability through emotional education and spiritual development. This influential model has been adapted by treatment centers in the United States, Canada, and Italy.
Richard Schaub, Ph.D., is a state-licensed psychotherapist in private practice in Manhattan and Huntington. Contact: Richard Schaub, Ph.D
He began working with people in recovery in 1964 as a New York City caseworker with street addicts. He went on to work in psychiatric hospitals, in cardiac and cancer rehabilitation, in an alcohol treatment center, and in directing a hospital program for adolescents. He also taught graduate courses in rehabilitation at Hofstra University and supervised graduate counseling students at St. John’s University. His 1997 book, Healing Addictions, co-written with his wife, Bonney Gulino Schaub, describes The Vulnerability Model of Recovery. His intensive course in early and advanced phases of recovery, The Psychology of Addictions, is required for all psychiatrists and psychologists who are in training at the Istituto di Psicosintesi, a European Union-approved psychotherapy institute in Florence, Italy.
His private practice emphasizes the teaching of skills to work with difficult thoughts and feelings and the awakening of the creative and spiritual potentials in each person’s nature. Included in his practice is the mentoring of other helping professionals who want to bring a more active spiritual sensitivity to their work.
–Barbara Dossey, Ph.D., R.N., pioneer in holistic nursing, author of Holistic Nursing: A Handbook for Practice, Florence Nightingale - Mystic, Visionary, Healer
Bonney and Richard have been lifelong seekers of knowledge. In addition to four years of postgraduate training and certification in the transpersonal psychology of psychosynthesis, they studied brain-wave biofeedback at the Menninger Foundation lab of Elmer Green, trained in Zen and in mindfulness, studied QiGong with Dr. Ching Tse Lee, and have traveled extensively to deepen their understanding of the emotional healing principles in the various spiritual traditions. Their studies led them to the monastery of the Medieval mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, in Germany and to the Sufi Rumi’s Mevlevi Order in Istanbul, and they have also led several sacred art and meditation retreats to Florence. Together, they brought innovative mind-body-spirit services to the Greenwich Village community in New York at the height of the AIDS crisis.
They now direct the Huntington Meditation and Imagery Center, Inc., to teach the many benefits of meditation and imagery to individuals, couples, groups, and organizations. They are ably assisted by their long-tme colleagues and advanced students, Megan McInnis Burt, R.N., M.S., HNC, and Michael Follman, M.A.