Biography of Boaz Feldman
Boaz works as a clinical psychologist, educator, Dharma teacher and action-researcher. His areas of intervention are diverse, including individual and group therapy, public-private partnerships, humanitarian NGO’s, community-based research for impact, groups and individual clients.
“My objective is to
enhance resilience and performance,
to support sustainable
healing and agency-centred
strategies through action-research,
embodiment and relational practices
individuals, groups and communities.”
Education
Boaz has studied in various countries including Switzerland, England, Canada, the United States and Thailand. With his first degree in business administration and economics (BBA), he developed a solid basis for working efficiently, setting and meeting realistic goals. A depression in his early 20’s due in part to the lack of sustainable mindsets in the coporate world, led him to ordain as a Buddhist monk in Thailand in 2005. Over the last 20 years he has practiced in intensive silent retreats for over 7 years.
He then decided to return to Europe, and started his studies in psychology at the University of Derby for his bachelor’s (BSc) and graduating from the University of Geneva’s Integrative Clinical Psychology Masters (MSc). In parallel, he got trained in psychosomatic therapeutic practices (Somatic Experiencing) and Mindfulness (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy at Bangor University). Boaz specialized in mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in humanitarian emergencies (with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative), designing and implementing methodologies with a unique cross-pollination between clinical practice, psycho-biological sciences and wisdom traditions.
Boaz pursued his graduate studies in Buddhism at the universities of Sunderland, South Wales (supervised by Prof. Shaw at Oxford University). He is passionate about understanding the Buddhist psychology, the development of contemplative abilities for systemic change and the role of Sangha, the community of practitioners, in achieving the highest states of liberation, the Jhanas and Nirvana.
Clinical & Corporate Practice
Boaz led numerous missions as an emergency psychologist in conflict affected countries (Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Myanmar), low-income regions (Eastern Europe, Turkey, Sub-Saharan Africa) and natural disasters (Thailand). He also assisted in Somatic Experiencing Trainings in Switzerland and Ireland, and then became the lead European faculty in Organic intelligence for 5 years, while working in a multi-disciplinary psychotherapeutic practice with groups and individual clients in Geneva, Switzerland. His clinical areas of expertise include asset-based positive psychology, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), burnout, depression and anxiety disorders.
His expertise from highly stressful humanitarian contexts has built a solid basis from which he worked in the corporate sector. He taught Mindful Leadership at the Trinity College Dublin Executive MBA program (2016-19), Contemplaction Programs for lawyers and mediators (in collaboration with the Geneva and Vaud Barristers, as well as the Swiss Chamber of Commercial Mediation), and has founded the Corporate Mindfulness Training Series PRO-X: Performance & Resilience for Organisational eXcellence.
Both SE and OI had a focus on individuals, and Boaz was interested in group and community processes. He thereby founded NeuroSystemics, Swiss-based global not-for-profit training organization providing personal and collective embodied & relational healing and developmental experiences. He designed a 3-year complexity science, somatic and positive psychology-centred CARE Training program (Clinical Abilities for Relational Empowerment), which he leads with his teams across the globe.
Dharma Path
As a child, Boaz was an introvert and, without knowing it at the time, was meditating and contemplating life deeply on a regular basis. He started to experience an imminent sense of death since he was 14 years old, which gradually intensified. It was during his first bachelors in Canada, as he underwent a period of severe depression, that he had intuitions of practicing meditation intensively and finding durable peace. He did an Erasmus program during which he ordained as a Buddhist monk in a local monastery in Chiang Mai (Thailand). Boaz has been going on 3 months-long silent retreats in Gaia House (UK), the Insight Meditation Society (USA), Shwe Oo minh (Myanmar) and solitary cottages every year since then, compounding over 7 years of intensive retreat experience. After 20 years of dedicated meditation practice and study of the Buddhist texts, he graduated from the Bodhi College Dharma Teacher Training Program in 2023, and was authorized to teach Buddhist retreats in Europe and online.
Research
It was during his studies in psychology that Boaz developed an appetite for research. As part of his Masters, he studied the effects of compassion meditation for conflict resolution at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Affective Sciences (CISA) at the University of Geneva. It was empowering for him to understand scientific epistemics and wanted to further refine his abilities in this field, as well as contribute to science with his community-based expertise developed in humanitarian emergencies. He acts as a lead at Life Itself Research, studying “deliberately developmental spaces” that exist in North America and Europe, and conducts studies in Relational Embodiment Residencies, designed and implemented by his own organization, NeuroSystemics, to understand some of ways in which to potentiate human learning, growth and development for a weller and wiser world (a formulation acccredited to Life Itself!).
Boaz is currently a Research Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and researching implementation and community-based citizen sciences with youth. As he is interested in the link between inner development and societal resilience, he studies the ways in which trauma healing can support opportunity youth in education spaces for Black and Brown folx to positively impact their local community. He is also an Education Ambassador at Harvard University’s Clinical and Translational Science Center, serving the research community to accelerate research and improve health by offering courses and educational programs, research consulting, tools for study design and clinical trial collaboration, guidance on regulatory issues, and pilot funding for novel, high-impact projects.
Please see this page for a brief of past and present collaborations. For a more complete biography, please see the following LinkedIn page.
“Live each day as
though it were
your last,
learn as if you were
to live forever.”M.K. Ghandhi
