Our Esteemed Presenters

Mark Saltzman, LMP, IFSP, is a licensed massage therapist who integrates therapeutic massage with IFS as a Level 2 trained practitioner. As a certified Grief Educator, Mark specializes in grief and the ways in which it manifests in the body. Mark, founder of Kiwuppet Studios and a skilled puppeteer, enriches his creative practice through puppetry. His multifaceted approach combines bodywork, somatic awareness, emotional healing and creative expression.

Gina Abbeduto, LCPC, CIFST, has practiced as a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor since 2001 and as a Certified Internal Family Systems Therapist since 2011. She has completed Levels 1, 2 and 3 IFS training and has served as a program assistant for Level 1 trainings as well. She offers introductory IFS trainings to clinicians in her hometown of Las Vegas, as well also is a guest lecturer for the Couples and Family Therapy graduate program at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. She has applied IFS therapy in her work in community mental health, inpatient treatment and partial hospitalization programs, and in private practice. Her current practice focuses on the healing powers of IFS in working with trauma, grief and loss, and parenting, and she has been a frequent workshop presenter for the IFS Great Lakes Retreat.

Beth Jerva, LCSW, is a Certified Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist as well as a Certified Yoga Teacher. She completed Level 1 IFS training in 2013 and works with children, adolescents and adults, specializing in anxiety, trauma and addictions. She has presented on the benefits of yoga therapy in clinical settings and has developed many therapeutic yoga workshops focusing on adolescents, anxiety, mindfulness and calming techniques for children. Beth has studied alternative therapies since graduating with her MSW in 1998, having completed her Phoenix Rising Therapy training in 2003 and yoga teaching certification in 2004.

Mary Beth Thomas, RYT-500, is passionate about sharing her love of yoga as a tool for transformation. She began her pursuit of yoga at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health 26 years ago, and has since studied with many gifted yoga mentors. Sje is a certified facilitator of the Trauma Informed Mind Body Program, and is a Level 1 trained IFS practitioner. To explain why she teaches, she quotes Rolf Gates from his book, ““Meditations from the Mat:” “The word ‘educator’ comes from the Latin verb educere, which means to lead or draw out. The Latin term was used by midwives, with the meaning ‘to be present at the birth of.’ Teaching yoga is first and foremost about drawing forth that which is already present in a student…. I became a teacher in the true sense when I recognized my teaching was a divine opportunity to be present at the birth of an individual’s authentic self. The real payoff of a yoga practice…is not a perfect handstand or a deeper forward bend, it is the newly born self that each day steps off the yoga mat and back into life.”

Tanis Allen, LMSW, ACSW, your “camp director,” is a Certified IFS Therapist and clinical consultant in private practice in Ann Arbor, specializing in work with depression and anxiety, eating disorders, grief and loss issues and mentoring other therapists learning the model. She has been training in and teaching the model for over 25 years, having completed Level 1 training in 2003, Level 2 in 2007 and Level 3 in 2019. Tanis has been a frequent presenter at the annual IFS national conference as well as other venues, has served as a PA many times, and is author of a new book that was published this year by Penquin/Random House Books titled, “The Self-Led Internal Family Systems Workbook: Learn to Use IFS Skills to Understand and Love All Your Parts.” With the help of our wonderfully gifted teachers and committed supporters in the IFS Great Lakes tribe, she created the IFS Great Lakes Retreat in 2015. She is so thrilled to gather with all of you on the shores of beautiful Crystal Lake and Lake Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which has been a lifelong source of healing and inspiration for her, and she is hopeful that all of you will find that here as well.....