IPF Facilitator Directory
George Haas
George moved to Los Angeles from New York to work in film and photography in 1992, when he started practicing Vipassanā at Ordinary Dharma in Venice, and studying Buddhist texts extensively. In 1998 he began study with Shinzen Young, at Vipassanā Support International. He began teaching meditation in 2000, founded Mettagroup in 2003, and became an empowered teacher through Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, where he taught from 2007 to 2016. More recently, George trained extensively with the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown, PhD, author of Attachment Disturbances in Adults: Treatment for Comprehensive Repair, which informs Mettagroup’s approach to attachment repair as manifested in one-on-one IPF facilitation sessions, our monthly Meditation x Attachment Masterclass, and in all of our current intensives.
George’s schedule tends to fill up quickly, so serious students are invited to schedule a 15-minute consultation to determine if he’s the right teacher for you on your journey. If you aren’t adequately resourced for sessions with George, a list of other facilitators is provided below.
Rate: $250 per 50-minute session.
Schedule a 15-minute virtual consultation via the link below, or get in touch via our contact page.
Christian Lesniak
IPF helps Christian get his ducks in a row!
Christian offers IPF facilitation because of how profoundly helpful it has been to him. IPF has helped Christian to befriend and understand old ghosts that used to bewilder him, to more clearly see the world, to better understand his own behavior, and to more thoughtfully choose who to engage with.
As a facilitator, Christian wants his client to become firmly convinced that they are totally capable, and to see that there are kind, reliable and compassionate people out in the world; they can have close, caring and mutual relationships, despite the traumas and sorrows they have been through, and despite how impossible these ideas might seem. Christian is here to provide the frame and hints along the way based on what he has found helpful in his own practice, but the picture is all yours to paint.
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
‘I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Rate: From $50 for 50 minutes
If you are interested in learning more, email ChristianFLesniak@gmail.com.
Tonya Huntley
Tonya’s love for facilitating IPF comes from direct experience. From her own practice of meditation since the age of 18, and, specifically, IPF since 2020 she has experienced profound healing. This healing shined light on pain and suffering that for her stemmed from intergenerational trauma and structural social barriers. To create meaningful experiences for her clients Tonya combines embodied elements from her exploration and learning of Attachment Repair (George Haas & Dan Brown), Tantra (Source School of Tantra Yoga), Quodoushka, Human Energetics (Lynda Caesara) and Vipassana Meditation (S.N. Goenka).
Her training as an engineer, including degrees from Howard and Stanford Universities, gives her discipline and focus to help her address areas of need while facilitating IPF, and to collaborate about the best way forward, and, inward. Tonya sees her clients develop a sense of self-agency which could lead to fulfilling relationships, even with themselves. IPF works!
Mettagroup rate: $90 for a 50-minute session. A sliding scale is considered upon request.
Tonya lives in Hawaii and welcomes all, including those in Oceania, Asia, Africa, and the U.S.
If you are interested in learning more, email Tonya.Huntley@gmail.com.
Evan Leed
Evan Leed is an artist and meditation teacher originally from New York, currently living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was authorized to teach on meditation and attachment several years ago by George Haas, with whom he maintains an active mentoring relationship. He also had the fortune to study under the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown for nearly two years in the Ideal Parent Figure Masterclass.
He specializes in attachment repair using the IPF Protocol and the comprehensive Three Pillars Model developed by Dr. Brown et al. at Harvard University, supplementing this with Mettagroup’s meditation techniques for fostering metacognition and emotional regulation. He works with clients at all stages of the healing process, helping them come into greater security, resolve old wounds and traumas, and experience a deeper sense of meaning in both individual pursuits and interpersonal relationships.
Rate: $150 USD per hour-long session. Some sliding scale available.
If you’re interested in learning more, email evan.leed@gmail.com.
Dufflyn Lammers
Dufflyn Lammers, AKA “The cool aunt who took you to Rehab and Planned Parenthood but made you tell your mom,” is the go-to relationship expert for women in recovery.
Lammers is the founder of www.dufflyn.com where she offers online courses, an online community, in-person events in France and one-to-one coaching remotely. She helps women to succeed at sex, love, dating and relationships without resorting to tequila, Ben & Jerry’s or *67. She combines a unique background in Tantra (trained with Dawn Cartwright), Attachment Repair (trained with Daniel P. Brown and George Haas), Intervention (Arise Certified) and Coaching trained with (iPEC) to help women create optimum relational wellbeing.
A daily meditation practice of over 13 years informs her work with clients. Her philosophy is to work from the "outside in" using goals, plans, accountability, mentalizing and collaboration to re-write your personal story, while working from the "inside out," using Ideal Parent Figure Protocol to effect the profound psychic change that is possible through the imagination. Lammers is also one of the co-teachers of Mettagroup's Meditation X Attachment in EU.
She spent the first 12 years of her own recovery single until at last she met her match. It was a long, hard, painful road for her. But it doesn’t have to be for you! Her mission is to be the coach she would have wished for back then. Of course once she met her match she realized the relationship was not the destination, it was the beginning of a whole new journey. Listen, it takes courage to look deeply at ourselves and allow ourselves to show up fully. And, if we want true intimacy that is what it takes.
She has the best Frida Kahlo costume you’ve ever seen, a self-described “hyena laugh,” and can often be found wandering the streets of Paris looking for Hellman’s Mayonnaise.
“I think it’s drastic to say something like Dufflyn Lammers gave me my husband, but there is truth to that statement. I really had some problems with dependency, codependency and addictive behaviors and she helped me see what my needs were with clarity and particularly just letting me see who my best self is.” - Maggie, Los Angeles.
Rate: $125 for a 50 minute session (this is a special rate for Mettagroup only so please say you found me on Mettagroup). Remote only.
If you’re interested in learning more, email info@dufflyn.com .
Joseph N. Ghaleb
Joseph is a consultant, bespoke artisanal perfumer, and artist with a background in fine arts and cinematography. He has been practicing meditation since 2009, maintaining an interest in developing and sharing an integrally informed approach to practice and healing.
As of 2021, Joseph serves as a facilitator and practitioner of the Idealized Parent Figure Protocol within the Mettagroup community, led by George Haas and initiated by the late Dr. Daniel P. Brown, Ph.D. He draws upon a foundation in state training, embodiment, subtle movement practices, intimacy, and nuanced breathwork protocols. Joseph is certified as an Embodiment Teacher/Spiritual Psychotherapy Practitioner in the Realization Process by Judith Blackstone. He is currently based in Portugal, where he focuses on creative projects, one-on-one consulting, group offerings, and men's work.
Mettagroup Rate: $200 per 60 min session. Sliding scale and long-term packages available upon request. .
If you’re interested in learning more, email josephghaleb.com .
Hai Van Chung
Hai Van provides IPF facilitation with acute sensitivity and intuition, a deep curiosity, and compassion. She sees IPF work as a co-creative, collaborative effort. She has the experience of being a first-generation Vietnamese immigrant who graduated with a biochemistry degree from Harvard, but yet struggled internally with feelings of low self-worth, of which she was largely unconscious. She always cared deeply about her relationships, but found herself seeking therapy for relationship issues on and off since her early twenties. Fast forward into her early forties, she finally realized that she had not escaped childhood unscathed as she had thought. Instead, she was re-living her unresolved childhood trauma in her adult relationship in what felt like an inescapable cycle of suffering…until she found and underwent “The Three Pillars” approach herself.
Hai Van’s meditation experience includes Vipassana as taught by S.N. Goenka, and she currently practices the meditation techniques taught by George Haas. She also practices breathwork and is interested in experimenting with combining breathwork with IPF.
Having experienced betrayal trauma as well as living with a partner with borderline personality disorder, Hai Van has taken those hardships and turned them into her strengths for helping others. She and her husband, who is taking the Three Pillars Approach for his own healing, are working together towards rebuilding a relationship that is secure and collaborative. She has had the privilege of working with Stan Tatkin of the PACT Institute and has an in-depth understanding of the concepts he teaches. She also is familiar with the topics of covert incest and the Minwalla Model.
Hai Van trained in the scoring and coding of the Adult Attachment Interview through Mary Main and Erik Hesse’s program out of U.C. Berkeley.
Hai Van is a certified neuro-somatic intelligence practitioner and can incorporate nervous system resilience training to support your sessions. She also is a registered dietitian with a masters in nutrition as well as degrees in the culinary and patisserie arts. She is a parent to a young child, who is currently unschooling with her. She plays piano and cello, raises goats, alpacas, chickens, and pigs, writes poetry, and is a self-taught gardener, soap maker and cheesemaker. Her passion for facilitating IPF is buoyed by her background in science as well as her penchant for co-creating with the universe.
Rate: $100 per hour-long session. If you’re interested in learning more, email haivanchung@gmail.com .
Martin Zobel
Martin is a certified psychotherapy practitioner based in Germany. He has trained with Dr. Daniel P. Brown, as well as David Elliot, PhD, the co-creators of the IPF protocol and has completed the training institute for the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). He has been taking IPF sessions as a client since March of 2020 and has since moved from disorganized attachment with unresolved loss to earned secure attachment. He has been practicing meditation since 2015, mostly in the Theravada tradition and more recently in the Tibetan tradition
He is excited to share what he has learned along the way - both from professional training and personal experience - to help people move along the same path of earning secure attachment.
He works based on a sliding scale price model of $75 - $125 per session (50-60 min).
If you’re interested in learning more, visit martinzobel.de.
Niav Connor, MA Psych
Niav brings a depth and range of professional and personal experience to her clients including almost three decades of study of the human body through yoga, massage and craniosacral therapy, over two decades of studying human psychology, and twenty years of Neo & Classical Tantric exploration and study.
She began meditating at the age of 14 when she attended one of the first Young Adults Retreats at Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in 1988 and has been a dedicated meditation practitioner since. Developing a practice of self-reflection, mindfulness and introspection at such a young age, was one of the most pivotal experiences of her life. Over the past three decades she’s explored and practiced a variety of meditation styles including mindfulness, vipassana, Shaiva tantra, and most recently, Mahamudra with Dan Brown.
Niav graduated cum laude from Mount Holyoke College with a BA in Anthropology and Pre-Medicine in 2001. In 2007, she acquired a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Pre & Perinatal Psychology.
She spent two decades teaching yoga classes, privates and retreats, and offering hands on healing as a certified massage and craniosacral therapist. As a VITA Certified Sex, Love & Relationship Coach and a Certified Erotic Blueprints coach, specializing in Tantric Sex and Men’s Sexuality, she currently coaches women, men and couples on how to attain the love and sex lives of their dreams.
After two decades of attempting to heal the trauma of childhood sexual abuse through traditional psychotherapy as well as many other holistic approaches, Niav became a patient of the late Dr. Dan P Brown PhD in January of 2020. She suffered from complex trauma and disorganized insecure attachment. She worked intensively with Dr. Brown up until his death in March of 2022. Their work together was the biggest needle mover of her life. Niav has earned secure attachment and drastically transformed her most intimate relationships. She now has the capacity to create and sustain loving connected secure relationships.
Niav was so positively impacted by Dr. Brown’s Three Pillar approach to healing insecure attachment and trauma that she began studying professionally with him and George Haas in the summer of 2021. Her personal experience of healing, profoundly informs her work as a coach as well as her capacity to hold clients with the deepest attunement, love, and respect.
One of Niav’s greatest gifts is her ability to transcend the darkest of nights and alchemize the deepest pain into wisdom, compassion and unconditional love.
Rate: $200 per 60 minute session, sliding scale available upon request.
If you’re interested in learning more, email niavconnorcoaching.com.
Stas Fedechkin
Stas is an Azerbaijan born, Russian-raised immigrant completing a Masters in Social Work. He initially became interested in mental health and later attachment theory by attending a local meditation center. His interest eventually led him to working at an intensive residential mediation center, where he spent about a cumulative year on meditation retreat, practicing primarily in the Vipassana tradition and studying with multiple teachers including Gil Fronsdal and Shinzen Young.
Stas trained with Dr. Daniel P. Brown of Harvard Medical School and George Haas of Mettagroup for treating attachment disturbances using the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol and mindfulness practices. Recently, he completed a year long chaplaincy class and works with clients of Santa Cruz Hospice experiencing life transitions. Stas is also completing the Adult Attachment Interview training with Drs. Howard and Miriam Steele. He is committed to inclusivity, cultural sensitivity and has experience working with substance use and co-occurring disorders and is a registered substance use counselor. Stas is based out of Santa Cruz where he enjoys surfing and leading an environmentally-conscious lifestyle.
Stas provides Ideal Parent Figure facilitation and mindfulness based techniques for individuals.
Rate: $150 for 50 minute session. Sliding scale available on request. To learn more, click below to reach out to Stas.
If you’re interested in learning more, email mindfulattachmentcoaching.com.