Amanda Rowan, LCSW | Founder and CEO

Amanda Rowan is an LCSW and the founder and CEO of the Therapist Development Center. Amanda graduated with honors from Dartmouth College, where she majored in Neuroscience. She earned her Master of Social Welfare degree at UCLA. Since founding the Therapist Development Center in 2008, Amanda has prepared more than 100,000 therapists nationwide to pass their state licensing exams. She is a certified Gestalt Therapist who has worked with a wide variety of clients in various settings over the past 20 years. She is a highly effective instructor with a passion for collaborating with seasoned therapists who understand what works because they do it daily.  

Michelle Seely (LMFT) is a licensed therapist with a private practice in Los Angeles. She is an experienced teacher of gestalt and meditation and has trained and supervised licensed therapists and associates in the US and internationally. She has served on the core faculty at the Pacific Gestalt Institute for over a decade. She is a contributing author to the academic anthology The Relational Heart of Gestalt Therapy (Routledge, 2022). She was trained to teach Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) by the program’s developers, Kristin Neff, and Chris Germer, and has taught privately and with InsightLA Meditation. She is president emeritus of the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Los Angeles (GTILA), where she also served on the executive board for eight years.