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 Personal Bio
Professional Bio Consulting
My name is Arlene Istar Lev but most of my friends call me
Ari. I am in my late 40's and proud to have been born in Brooklyn, New York. I currently live in Albany, New York,
and spend my time maintaining a therapy practice and consulting business, teaching in two colleges, and writing
every spare minute I can find.
I am Jewish by both birth and affiliation, but also see my spiritual life as including many earth-based as well
as Eastern and yogic rituals. I am a long-time political activist, starting with anti-war (as in Vietnam War) and
civil rights work as teenager. I have been active in issues involving access and education to women's health care,
recovery from substance abuse, feminist scholarship and grassroots organizing, anti-racism and multi-cultural education
and the ongoing struggle of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equal rights. Most of my work these days
involves issues of parenting, adoption rights and examining the social construction of gender. I am a social worker
by profession, but more of political agitator and spiritual seeker by nature.
My handsome, red-haired partner, Sundance, and I parent two sons, Shaiyah and Eliezer. Both of our sons were adopted
at birth, and completely fill our days (and nights) with sweetness and laughter, not to mention, an enormous amount
of clutter.
My clinical interests have been broad, but are based in feminist philosophy, systems theory, narrative therapy,
and examining the role of social oppression on the self-esteem and psychological development of disempowered people.
I truly LOVE being a therapist and view it, as the Buddhists say, as "right livelihood." I see my work
as a "calling" and am deeply committed to the healing that can take place in the safety of the therapeutic
encounter. Having sat on both sides of the couch, I can vouch for its effectiveness and power.
I am also an educator, working within colleges, as well as training in agencies. I mostly teach adult students,
and thoroughly enjoy sharing my knowledge, yet remaining a student, open to hearing the wisdom from those whom
I teach. I find the flow of learning -- from person to person, or book to person, or computer screen to person
-- to be sacred act.
My most precious work is my writing. Some of which I offer you on this web site. I write professionally, as well
as creatively, and see writing as a tool that can right wrongs as well as write truths. I am blessed to have a
family that supports my voracious hunger to spend hours a week writing down what calls from within, and I offer
that sweet prasad (Sanskrit: blessings) to you.
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