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Miles Neale, PsyD, LMHC is a Buddhist psychotherapist, meditation teacher and expert on the clinical applications of contemplative arts and sciences. Dr. Neale provides the conceptual maps, practical skills and emotional support to individuals and groups in order to overcome psychological obstacles and cultivate innate capacities for health, healing and happiness. Dr. Neale is Assistant Director of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science, where he collaborates on state-of-the-art clinical research of meditation, and teaches public courses on the Indo-Tibetan tradition.
Personal History
Dr. Neale is of mixed British and Turkish heritage, born in Singapore, raised in Hong Kong, and has travelled extensively throughout the world. Driven by an existential yearning to know the purpose of life, to heal psychological wounds, and to cope with dissatisfaction of consumerist culture at age 20, Dr. Neale sought refuge in a Burmese monastery in Bodh Gaya, India under the auspices of the Antioch Buddhist Studies Program. His initial exposure to Buddhist philosophy and meditation guided by Acharya Godwin Samararatne in 1996 was profoundly transformative, shaping the future direction of his personal life and professional career. He subsequently pursued cultural immersion and intensive study in traditional monastic settings in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and Nepal.
Education and Training
In 1998, Dr. Neale began applying his meditative findings to clinical populations under the direction of Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard’s Mind/Body Medical Institute. That year he completed an independent major in East/West comparative psychology, graduated summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa as a Wheaton Scholar from Wheaton College. In 2001, he completed Master’s research on the clinical applications of mindfulness meditation at New York University's Gallatin Program for Individualized Study. He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology in 2006 from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Dr. Neale completed his psychology predoctoral internship and postdoctoral psychoanalytic training at the Fifth Avenue Center for Counseling and soon thereafter was licensed to practice psychotherapy in the state of New York.
Lineage and Mentors
Dr. Neale’s spiritual lineage can be traced through a succession of intimate student-teachers relationships in the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, including Joe Loizzo, Bob Thurman, Lama Zopa, Gelek Rinpoche, culminating with the Dalai Lama. Since 1998, he studied clinical applications of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism with his primary mentor and dear friend Joseph Loizzo, MD, PhD, a Harvard trained psychiatrist, Columbia trained Buddhist scholar, and Founding Director of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science. Since 1999, he studied with Dr. Loizzo’s mentor, Robert Thurman PhD, Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism at Columbia University, President of Tibet House US, preeminent author and lecturer of Buddhism in America and close student of the Dalai Lama of the past forty years.
In 2006, Dr. Neale received transmission of the Stages of the Path (Lam Rim) and the Bodhisattva vows from Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Kopan Monastery and in 2008 he received other precious instructions and vows from Kyabje Gelek Rinpoche. Like his mentors, Dr. Neale receives various teachings both in America and India from the lineage holder, His Holiness the Dalia Lama, spiritual head of the Gelugpa school, temporal leader of the Tibetan Government in-exile and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Neale expresses gratitude to all his teachers whose presence illuminates for all people the direction towards freedom and happiness. For more on Dr. Neale’s lineage and teachers see his Inspiration page.
Professional Activities
In addition to his private psychotherapy practice and position at Nalanda, Dr. Neale is a faculty member of the Tibet House, a Lineage Mentor of the Interdependence Project, and regularly offers lectures and workshops through his affiliates in the New York metropolitan area. He has taught meditation programs at prestigious university hospitals including Harvard Medical School, Columbia Presbyterian, Cornell Medical College, Albert Einstein/Montefiore Medical Center, and the California Pacific Medical Center. He consults on the design of contemplative programs for domestic and international organizations, wellness clinics, institutions of higher learning and private businesses, as well as leads spiritual pilgrimages to sacred sites around the world. With a down-to-earth style and use of contemporary psychological language, Dr. Neale’s articles, blog entries, podcasts and CD’s aim to make meditative insights and tools accessible to the general audience.
Dr. Neale lives in New York City with his wife Emily Wolf, MSEd, herself a psychotherapist and yoga teacher. In their personal time, they enjoy Dharma study, daily hatha yoga practice and playing with their bulldogs Boris and Nugget. |
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