HER BIO
Rita R. Melissano, Ph.D.
rita@thewayof.love
Rita R. Melissano is a Clinical Psychologist from the University of Padua in Italy, who also received a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA.
With a lifetime of clinical experience, Dr. Melissano has worked with individuals, couples, families and groups of every socio-economic and ethnic group, spiritual belief, gender, age, ability, sexual orientation, civil and military background.
A former Clinical Fellow and an Approved Supervisor of AAMFT, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, she used to be licensed in both IA & IL and has trained thousands of professionals to obtain their MFT license. She has also been an EAP counselor, an MBTI trainer and a Diversity trainer, pioneering the traditions of locally celebrating International Women’s Day, UN International Day of Peace, and International Community Gardening.
Dr. Melissano speaks Italian, Spanish, French, and English, has studied Mandarin Chinese, Modern & Ancient Greek, Latin, Sanskrit and Ancient Egyptian. She has traveled extensively and presented at national conferences, international academic settings and world congresses (e.g. China, India, Hungary, Norway, Ecuador, Canada & USA).
She has taught a variety of graduate courses as an Associate Professor at St. Ambrose University, an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Iowa and Western Illinois University and has led study abroad programs to India and Ecuador.
Dr. Melissano has, in fact, played multiple roles professionally as a clinician, a motivational speaker, a writer, workshop trainer, an educator, and a spiritual leader. As such, she combines all her theoretical and directly acquired knowledge of diverse cultures with her clinical experience and spiritual philosophy. Her career and personal life have always been intertwined. A long-time meditator in multiple traditions, she has dedicated the last two decades of her life almost exclusively to the science, practice and teachings of Mindfulness. Dr. Melissano brought Mindfulness to the scientific world of Caltech, California, where she has offered Mindfulness programs for Faculty, Staff and Post-Docs. To Long Beach, she brought the revolutionary “Mindfulness by the Water”, in Southern Italy she pioneered Mindfulness trainings into hospice settings and the general public.
An eternal student of all ancient mystical traditions and an ordained minister, she is very passionate about raising consciousness, living and promoting a heart & spirit-centered life, acquiring and deepening sacred and scientific knowledge. She continues to write on the art of mindful and conscious living, even in poetry forms.
Almost two decades ago, she founded “Satva Center” in Rock Island (IL) - Quad Cities, offering to its community an array of healing arts, spiritual teachings, retreats, and meditation practices. She studied and taught there, in the Buddhist temple on site, with Venerable Somnieng Hoeurn, Deputy Head Monk of Wat Damnak Monastery in Siem Reap, Cambodia. She has practiced Mindfulness in Italy with Phap Ban, a Buddhist Monk from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Order of Interbeing - Tiep Hien (Plum Village, France) - while she also translated his book on Mindfulness into English.
Over the years Dr. Melissano has found much inspiration, practiced the teachings and attended classes, retreats, workshops and symposiums with many leaders & living or ascended Masters in the Mindfulness field and Consciousness path, especially, but not limited to the Theravada/Vipassana tradition, such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jalaluddin Rumi, Paramahansa Yogananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Deepak Chopra, Dan Siegel, Diane Winston, Jack Kornfield and many more.
Her success with incorporating Mindfulness principles and practices in the therapeutic setting led her to offer Mindfulness Training to organizations, the educational system and the corporate world as well. Both the Iowa Board of Medicine and the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation invited her to work closely and train physicians on Mindfulness practices to decrease stress & burnout and enhance personal wellbeing & resilience in the workplace. She also designed (obtaining approval & CMEs from the Medical Committee), a Mindfulness Pilot Study for hospitalists, to be delivered in a Q.C. hospital setting.
Earlier, as the executive director of the Trinity Enrichment Center in Davenport, IA, she created and organized two regional conferences on “Science and Spirituality” (providing both CEUs & CMEs) to bring awareness of both ancient holistic methodologies and cutting-edge approaches in the health & mental health care system. She presented on Mindful Living and Spirituality in the therapeutic setting.
Dr. Melissano has been often interviewed and consulted by magazines (e.g. Woman’s Day) and newspapers (see the article on the Long Beach Grunion-Gazettes about her revolutionary project of “Mindfulness by the Water”). She has been a frequent guest on live talk shows and local TV stations in both Illinois & Iowa and has received basic and advanced Media Training herself.
In 2020 she moved away from her beloved Long Beach, California, back to the Midwest in the Quad-Cities area, where she has been cultivating her passion for Japanese short form Poetry, Photography, Egyptology, and the spiritual Art of Giving Light. Her new website is “The Way of Love” …
