Models of Love - Softcover

Vissell, Joyce; Vissell, Barry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0961272015 ISBN 13: 9780961272012

Publisher: Ramira Pub, 1986

About this title

About the Author

Joyce and Barry Vissell are a nurse and psychiatrist whose main interest since 1972 has been counseling, healing and teaching. They are the authors of four deeply-moving books on relationship, family and healing: THE SHARED HEART: Relationship Initiations and Celebrations (1984), MODELS OF LOVE: The Parent-Child Journey (1986), RISK TO BE HEALED: The Heart of Personal and Relationship Growth (1989), and LIGHT IN THE MIRROR: A New Way To Understand Relationships (1995).

As a result of the wide popularity and unique perspective of these books, they have been sought after to present talks and workshops internationally. They have been keynote speakers/workshop leaders for The Association of Unity Churches, Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, The Bob Barcley Foundation, A.R.E. (The Edgar Cayce Foundation), Science of Thought Foundation in England, Unity in Yoga Annual Retreat, and the A.C.O.A. Regional Retreat in Kansas City. They have been invited to offer programs at Omega Institute, New York Open Center, Interface Foundation, Whole Life Expos, and hundreds of "new thought" churches internationally.

Joyce was born to a Christian family in Buffalo, New York, in 1946; Barry to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, nine days later in the same year. They met during their first year of college at the age of 18. Two years later, they transferred to different colleges in an attempt to separate over religious differences. Their love drew them back together and they were married in 1968.

Barry received his MD from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles in 1972. He won the Pfizer Award as the top-ranking medical student in his first-year class. During that time he trained at the Gestalt Therapy Institute in Los Angeles. Joyce added her MS in child psychology from the same university to her previously earned B.S. and RN. One of her preceptors (and an influential teacher for them both) during her graduate work was Leo Buscaglia, who later became a close friend and contributor to their second book.

The couple then moved to Portland, Oregon, where Barry trained in psychiatry at the University of Oregon, and Joyce taught pediatric and psychiatric residents the subtleties of play therapy. Unsatisfied with the rigidity of traditional psychiatry, the Vissells undertook an intensive exploration of holistic and alternative medical and psychiatric disciplines, as well as a spiritual pilgrimage that led them half-way around the world and into meaningful training with teachers and leaders of the East and West.

Joyce and Barry finally settled in Santa Cruz, California in 1975, where they established a reputation as counselors who integrated the psychological with the spiritual. The writing of their books came out of their rich personal as well as professional experience.

Barry and Joyce are the founders and directors of the Shared Heart Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the healing and integrity of individuals, couples and families. They write a monthly column, "New Dimensions of Relationship," which appears in 30 publications nationwide. In 1992, they built a center for their work on 16 hilltop acres in the Santa Cruz mountains, where they live and facilitate workshops, including an annual 10-day training program, called "Living Your Purpose."

The Vissells are the recipients of The Aquarian Award, a national honor given to those who have made an "outstanding contribution to the transformation of human consciousness."

They have two daughters born in 1976 and 1981, and a son born in 1989. They are committed to "walking their talk," so they spend as much quality time as they can cultivating their relationship with each other and with their children.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ramira Pub
• Publication date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0961272015
• ISBN 13: 9780961272012
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 322