Dr. Zari Hedayat is an active educator, supervisor, and psychotherapist with over 35 years of clinical experience. Pursuing numerous avenues of interest, Dr. Hedayat has always maintained a strong focus on maternal mental health and trauma. She joined Antioch University as an Adjunct in 1994. For the academic year 2014–2015, she served as the interim director of the Trauma specialization Program; and is currently an affiliate faculty for the Child Specialization of the MAP program.

In 2000, she completed the infant mental health specialist program at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, where she also served as adjunct faculty and a community agency liaison at St. John’s and Edelman.

Dr. Hedayat has provided trainings at a variety of conferences on a number of topics, including Neurobiology of Trauma, The Cultural Aspects of Perinatal and Postpartum Disorders, EMDR Therapy for PTSD, Islamic Perspectives on Psychopathology and Psychotherapy, and Maternal Mental States During Pregnancy and Infant’s Developmental Risks.

She is currently the primary supervisor for the Colors LGBTQ youth Program and has served in a number of supervisory roles throughout her career, including at Edelman Clinic, at St. John’s early childhood center, and in her current position as Clinical Director for Open Paths Counseling Center. She has worked in private practice since 1986, and she is fluent in French and Persian.

Dr. Ruddy is Professor of Clinical Psychology and directs the Major Area of Study in Clinical Health Psychology within the Department. Dr. Ruddy has been a proponent of the integration of behavioral health into primary care throughout her career, as an educator, consultant and advocate.   Her commitment to integrated behavioral health reflects her belief that it improves health and mental health outcomes, facilitates whole person care and improves access to behavioral health services.   Dr. Ruddy has actively supported the emergence of this new field by collaborating with others to develop curricula for medical and behavioral health students and clinicians, and actively developing training opportunities for psychologists to work in primary care during their training.  In addition, she has helped develop and disseminate best practices in integrated behavioral health implementation.  She is excited to join Antioch’s Clinical Psychology Department, which is at the forefront of integrated primary care training.

Dr. Ruddy has spent most of her career in medical education, primarily as a faculty member in Family Medicine residencies and in academic health centers and community hospitals.  Her faculty roles have focused on healthcare communication, chronic disease management, development of team based care competencies, self care and provider wellness, detection and management of behavioral health issues among other things.  In addition, Dr. Ruddy has facilitated training program improvement efforts, most recently at Stanford Healthcare in Palo Alto, CA where she served as a Education Specialist and Program Consultant to dozens of medical residency and fellowship programs.  She has been active in various professional organizations, most recently serving as the President of the Society for Health Psychology in 2019.    Dr. Ruddy was awarded the Health Psychology Timothy B. Jeffrey Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Health Psychology in 2013, named a Fellow of the Division of Health Psychology in 2014 and awarded an APA Presidential Citation in 2016.  She was the author of the 2008 APA Books publication The Collaborative Psychotherapist.  She is currently working on a second book focused on a systemic view of  integrated behavioral health practice and implementation.

Dr. Shabnam (Shab) Salanga, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist (PSY 27797). She works with children, adolescents and adults performing psychological and psychoeducational assessments in her private practice in Calabasas, CA. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at Antioch University where she teaches courses.

I am an Affiliate Faculty member in the spiritual and depth psychology Specialization. I came to the field of clinical psychology after 10 years of working as a Human Resources consultant in healthcare and tech start-ups. After a few years of “finding myself” I enrolled in the Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology program at Antioch University Los Angeles where I specialized in Spiritual and Depth Psychology. After I graduated, I decided to pursue my doctorate in clinical psychology with an emphasis in depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. My dissertation was a qualitative phenomenological study of the clinician experience of treating suicidal patients and I continue to specialize in working with people who suffer from suicidal ideation and chronic depression.

I have trained in a variety of modalities and settings, including LGBTQ+ affirmative psychology at the LA LGBT Center and Angeles Psychology Group, neuropsychology at Cedars-Sinai, and psychoanalytic psychotherapy at Wright Institute Los Angeles. As a result of my education and training, my clinical approach is broadly psychodynamic with a soupçon of depth and relational psychoanalysis.

In my experience, to be a psychotherapist is a vocation—something to which one is called—and, to paraphrase Jung, I am deeply privileged to witness people’s souls through my work. I have a private practice where I work with adult individuals, couples, and groups using an integrative approach to trauma recovery, relationship issues, and neurodiversity. In addition to my role as Affiliate Faculty in SDP, I also teach and supervise at Wright Institute Los Angeles.

Lucy Sladek, MFT, (she/her/ella) has worked with various populations as a community mental health clinician before transitioning to private practice. She is also an affiliate therapist with the LA Gender Center. Upon graduating from AULA in 2016, she moved to San Francisco and worked with survivors of sexual trauma and their families. Lucy has worked with multiple non-profit organizations to partner with the Department of Mental Health in order to ensure BBIPOC communities have access to mental health and other resources. Her background in advocacy work with marginalized communities has led her to work with LA-CAMFT and CAMFT to address diversity issues within the therapy community. Lucy is an all-inclusive therapist that specializes in trauma-informed, intersectional, and client-centered affirmative therapy. She applies a social justice and culturally humble approach to all her clinical and teaching work. She holds an MA in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles.

Niralli D’Costa is an Affiliate faculty in the graduate psychology programs’ Spiritual and Depth specialization. Niralli is a licensed psychotherapist (MFT #54007), certified eco-therapist, teacher, and practitioner of integrative energy healing modality Syntara System. She believes that everything that we need in order to heal and awaken is available to us in the natural world. Niralli draws upon her long-term study of yoga, meditation, and tantra to support people on their spiritual path and healing journey. She is passionate about serving people who have been marginalized, and she sees social justice as central to our collective liberation, healing, and evolution.

Niralli received her MA from the Somatic Psychology department at John F. Kennedy University and has taught at the intersections of social justice, embodied spiritual practice, and nature-based elemental healing at a range of institutions. She has served as adjunct faculty at UC Berkeley, John F. Kennedy University, Syntara System School of Energy Awareness, the Mind Body Therapy Certificate Program at Embodied Philosophy, the Earth Body Institute, and currently serves as affiliate faculty in the Spiritual and Depth Psychology Specialization at Antioch University.

Her essay “Movement of Awakening” was recently published in the book Embodied Resilience Through Yoga and in 2020 she contributed to conversations about embodied healing as a panelist on topics of resilience, trauma, multicultural healing practices, power, privilege, and the integration of somatics and yoga. In 2013, Niralli founded the Oakland Holistic Psychotherapy Center and practiced beyond her Oakland office, outdoors amidst the redwoods, pine, and oaks of the California Bay Area. In 2018, she relocated to the chaparral and beaches of Southern California where she grew up. She currently practices online and looks forward to the day when she can integrate ecological restoration into her therapeutic group work. Niralli has a passion for creating ritual, transformative, and immersive eco-therapeutic experiences for and with her clients.