Melisssa Moore, PhD

Melissa Moore attended Naropa Institute from 1979 to 1980 and continued to work at the Institute in recruitment as it moved from 1111 Pearl to the Arapahoe Campus and became accredited. Melissa worked as a therapist in eating disorders after graduating and moved to San Francisco. She earned a Ph.D. in Psychological Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 1994. In 1995, she and her husband were asked by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche to represent Shambahla in Europe. In Germany, in 1996, she co-founded Karuna Training, a 3-year certification in Contemplative Psychology. Karuna does not train therapists but offers the foundations of Contemplative Psychology to people from all walks of life. She started Karuna Training in North America after she returned to the States in 2014. Karuna Training has been offered in nine countries and five US states. Melissa was the founding Director of The Felton Institute Research and Training in Community Mental Health in San Francisco from 2005 to 2015, where she trained front-line providers in Evidence-based Practices and then researched the outcomes with a host of academics. She lives with her husband in Denver, Colorado, and has been offering Karuna Training full-time. She joined the Master’s Program in Contemplative Psychology and Buddhist Psychotherapy first as a Maitri Space Awareness teacher and now as an adjunct faculty in 2023.

The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity through Contemplative Psychology; Modern Wisdom Press, Boulder, Colorado 2021