Clinical Advisory Team

Joan Hoeberichts is a Zen Teacher in the lineage of the White Plum Asangha, founded by Maezumi Roshi. She leads the Heart Circle Sangha in Ridgewood, NJ (www.heartcirclesangha.org). Rev. Hoeberichts, LCSW, is a graduate of and former faculty member of the Blanton-Peale Graduate Institute. She has a private psychotherapy practice in NYC and Montclair, NJ. Working with families, couples, and individuals, she is a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist, a Certified EMDR Trauma Therapist, and a Certified IFS therapist. In 2005 Hoeberichts initiated Heart Circle Sangha’s involvement in the Psycho-Spiritual Healing Project, a joint project of Heart Circle Sangha and Sarvodaya, the largest nongovernmental organization in Sri Lanka, following the tsunami of 2004 where 35,000 people were lost in Sri Lanka. Bringing together senior therapists from the U.S.,counselors from Sri Lanka, and the leaders of Sarvodaya, the project developed programs that integrated Western approaches to healing grief and trauma within Eastern spiritual traditions. The project trained local counselors to work with the trauma from both the tsunami and the long civil war. Hoeberichts received several awards for this work. Mrs. Hoeberichts has been involved with Polaris Project New Jersey, now Sanar Wellness Institute, since 2011. She originally provided pro-bono counseling services to women who had been rescued from situations of imposed prostitution and labor exploitation. Hoeberichts is presently engaged by Sanar Wellness Institute to provide consultation and supervision to staff members on clinical matters. Hoeberichts has published previously in Tricycle: A Buddhist Review, in The Journal of Sandplay Therapy, in the Journal of Religion and Health and has a chapter, “Bringing Practice Home” in the book, Into the Mountain Stream, ed. Paul Cooper. She was a panelist at the Enlightening Relationships conference in NYC in October 2007 and is a frequent speaker at Buddhist events in the New York area. Ms. Hoeberichts had a prior career in business. From 1982-1992 she was President of Dassault Systemes USA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the French company, Dassault Systemes, a software developer