About the Fundraiser

GUEST SPEAKER: Mark Epstein

“If it doesn’t destroy us, trauma wakes us up… and makes us more human, caring, and wise.  It can be our greatest teacher.”  – Mark Epstein

Mark Epstein, MD is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and author renowned for integrating Western and Eastern psychology. Dr. Epstein is the author of several books exploring the interface of Buddhism and psychotherapy, including Thoughts without a Thinker, Going to Pieces without Falling Apart, Going on Being, Open to Desire and Psychotherapy without the Self. In his newest work, The Trauma of Everyday Life, Dr. Epstein writes that trauma is an integral part of life that can be used as a lever for growth. In the book, he uses the Buddha’s biography as a way to explore the hidden psychodynamics – and contemporary relevance – of Buddhism. With this perspective, he explores how suffering connects us to the world and to each other, rendering us more human, caring, and wise. In trauma and suffering, Dr. Epstein sees “transformational potential.”

Dr. Epstein is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Postdoctoral Program in Psychotheraphy and Psychoanalysis at New York University. He is in private practice in New York City.

HONOREES: The George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation

For the past 60 years, the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation has made a tremendous impact on the Houston community with thousands of wide-ranging grants and scholarships. The Jung Center has been the grateful recipient of their support for more than 25 years. This special relationship began with a cherished friendship and mutual respect between the Milby and Fay families. Through that friendship, Charles Milby, Sr., then a trustee of the Hamman Foundation, supported his friend Carolyn Fay and The Jung Center with a grant to update the Lecture Hall in the Carolyn Grant Fay Building with an acoustical divider wall and sound equipment, both of which are still in use.

Since that time, the Hamman Foundation has supported The Jung Center in numerous ways, the most significant being their 18-year sponsorship of the Hamman Professional Wellness Workshops. Through the Hamman Workshops, The Jung Center “cares for the caregivers,” including professional counselors, psychologists, social workers, and marriage and family therapists. Hamman Workshops invite mental health professionals to focus on their own well-being as well as to learn tools to more effectively help thousands of people navigate the big and small “traumas of everyday life.”

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