Eric Spiegel, PhD is a licensed psychologist in Maryland and Pennsylvania with over 20 years of clinical experience. After several years as a staff psychologist at James Madison University, he founded a private practice in Philadelphia in 2007, which grew into Attune Philadelphia Therapy Group. In 2025, he expanded the practice to the DC area as Attune Bethesda Integrative Therapy. He is a Past-President and Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH), He holds its highest certification as an Approved Consultant and has taught hypnosis nationally and internationally. He has received multiple ASCH awards, including the Early Career Achievement Award and Fellowship status. She is co-author of Attachment in Group Psychotherapy (APA) and has published widely on hypnosis, attachment, trauma, and the therapeutic relationship, including co-editing a special issue of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. He frequently presents workshops, courses, and trainings across North America and abroad.

Akira Otani, EdD. is a Fellow and Approved Consultant of the ASCH. After spending 20-plus years at The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Counseling Center, he decided to teach, consult, and travel which he had always wanted to do. In 2016 he spent 6 months in Kobe, Japan, where he studied Theravada Buddhist meditation intensively. He has published 9 books (in Japanese) and more than 70 journal articles and book chapters (in English and Japanese) on hypnosis and meditation. He maintains a part-time psychology practice in Linthicum, Maryland.

Small Group Facilitators

Tobi B. Goldfus, LCSW-C, BCD is a psychotherapist, author (“From Real Life to Cyberspace and Back Again:  Helping Our Young Clients Develop a Strong Inner Selfie”, 2017), and national/international speaker. She has over 30 years of clinical hypnosis training/teaching experience and is a certified Ego State Therapy therapist, consultant and trainer (EST North America and EST International). She is a member of, and frequent presenter/faculty for the Milton H. Erickson Foundation, ASCH (American Society of Clinical Hypnosis), ISH (International Society of Hypnosis), ESH (European Society of Hypnosis), MEISA (MHE Institute of South Africa), SCEH (Society of Experimental and Clinical Hypnosis), and faculty and key note speaker at NPHTI (National Pediatric Hypnosis Training Institute). She is a member of NASW and GWSCSW, and a Board-Certified Diplomat. Tobi is in private practice in Germantown, Maryland.

Mary Wells, PhD, LCP is a licensed clinical psychologist who has been in practice for over 30 years in the areas of rehabilitation and pain management. She completed her graduate work at The George Washington University and started her career at the Washington Pain and Rehabilitation Center in Washington DC. She went from there to VCU Health System in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation as a rehab psychologist, providing services to a full range of rehabilitation patients on both the inpatient and outpatient service. She left VCU to work in an interdisciplinary pain clinic in the community, and later went into private practice. In 2000, she joined the medical psychology department at Sheltering Arms Hospital, first as a staff psychologist and later as director of the department, a post she held for 10 years. She has recently returned to the VCU Dept. of PMR and is currently working as part of an interdisciplinary team of medical professionals at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System to provide services to patients with chronic pain due to a variety of medical conditions. She provides evaluations and psychological treatment for management of chronic pain.