Buddhism & Psychotherapy: Dr. Mark Epstein & Helen Tworkov

Psychiatrist Mark Epstein, M.D. is in private practice in New York City and the author of a number of books about the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy, including The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life published in 2022 by Penguin Press, Thoughts without a Thinker, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart, Going on Being, Open to Desire and Psychotherapy without the Self, and The Trauma of Everyday Life. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University.

Helen Tworkov is Tricycle’s founding editor and author of Zen in America: Profiles of Five Teachers (1989). She’s also the co-author of Turning Confusion Into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism (2014) and In Love With the World: A Monk’s Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying (2019), which she wrote with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.

Community builder Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper served as Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church from 2006 to 2021. She was formerly at Coral Gables Congregational Church in Miami and before that at Yale University, and teaches leadership at the Hartford Seminary. As an elder, she is passionately concerned about leaving the next generation well-prepared for all they have to face. She has written over 35 books including Approaching End of Life: A Practical and Spiritual Guide (2015), Grace at Table: Small Spiritual Solutions to Large Material Problems, Solving Everything (2013), to her most recent book I Heart Francis: Letters to the Pope from an Unlikely Admirer (2016), among many others. She is an Editor-at-Large at the Rail.