About Integrated Life Skills
Our training and experience make us unique in the world of education, teaching and consultation for healthcare professionals, their families and their teams. We bring decades of experience and knowledge that includes understanding the context, challenges and practice of healthcare in both academic and private settings. In addition, due to our diverse training, we have experience and recognition as educators for individuals, partners and teams who want to create more satisfying and fulfilling relationships as they juggle the demands of professional and personal life. We are nationally recognized and have studied, published and taught skills for improving relationships at home and at work. Because of our background, we have personally encountered many of the challenges being confronted by our clients.
For work settings, our ability to share and teach evolving information in relationship science can improve leadership, teamwork, and communication skills as they relate to managing disagreements, creating cultures of psychological safety and inviting creativity and innovation. On a personal level, we help individuals improve their relationships with themselves, expanding their self-awareness and self-regulation and cultivating resilience to burnout and stress as well as cultivating the tools for prosilience which leads to better preparation for similar events when they occur in the future. Our education is also designed to help individuals learn new ways to enrich their connections with their partners, spouses, family members and significant others.
We have experience providing education and training to healthcare professionals across the spectrum of care, including physicians (faculty, medical students and residents), nurses, APPs, administrators and other healthcare professionals that results in more authentic and fulfilling relationships. Between us, we bring BOTH understanding of your work “context” as well as experience and broad training in relationship skills designed to help individuals become better resourced to manage life’s demands.
Dr. Jamie Dickey Ungerleider
Dr. Jamie Dickey Ungerleider grew up in Laurel, Mississippi. She received her PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Mississippi (UM) in 2001, a MSW from Tulane University in 1991 and a MA in Counseling in 1977 (UM). She has spent over 45 years as a teacher and as a consultant for individuals and teams, helping them learn emerging concepts in teamwork, interpersonal communication and relationship skills, professionalism, conflict management and personal choice related to creating resilience from burnout and for establishing physical, emotional and mental well-being. Jamie is also a LCSW and has decades of experience combining her training and knowledge with her skills as a psychotherapist, joining and guiding individuals and couples as they engage in their own transformative work. Jamie’s engagement with individuals, couples and families as an educator and therapist has helped her to guide important changes for clients that have translated into more fulfilling life experiences. Her unique ability for attuning to the specific challenges of individuals and couples resonates around her model of integrated life skills that incorporates her own innovative approaches to relationship skills with her extensive training across a wide spectrum including: Dick Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS), the Satir Growth model, John and Julie Gottman Couples Therapy, Dan Wile’s Collaborative Couple’s Therapy, Dan Siegel and Lou Cozolino’s Interpersonal Neurobiology, Motivational Interviewing, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Sensory Motor Psychotherapy, Practical Applications of Intimate Relationship Skills (PAIRS), adult attachment, Myers Briggs Temperament Index (MBTI), Strengths Deployment Inventory (SDI), and Spiral Dynamics. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on teamwork, personal and occupational wellness, leadership, adult learning and conflict management, as well as on the experience of couples and significant others in their relationships with their partners. She has been an invited speaker for numerous national and international meetings. Since 2001, she has worked for academic medical centers (Oregon Health & Sciences University—Portland, Oregon and Wake Forest University School of Medicine—Winston Salem, North Carolina) and as an associate professor of psychiatry and director of Wellness for faculty, residents, students and professional staff. She also served as a consultant and coach for the pediatric residency training programs at Case Western Reserve University –Cleveland, Ohio and at Driscoll Children’s Hospital—Corpus Christi, Texas. She has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards, attesting to her ability to connect with learners in a meaningful and relevant way. Jamie has served as a member of the task force for Professionalism for the American College of Surgeons as well as a board member for Satir Global. In addition, she has served on the well-being committee for the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) and her plenary presentation at their 103rd annual meeting in Los Angeles on the Experiences of the Spouses and Significant Others of CT Surgeons can be found on the publications and the media page of this website. Jamie has worked as an educator and clinician for most of her career. She is currently utilizing her skills (as a PhD in educational psychology) as a teacher to educate and train individuals, couples and teams. In addition, individuals and couples (who reside in or who are willing to travel to North Carolina) and who are seeking to explore a deeper connection with themselves or with their partners may be candidates to pursue therapy with Jamie in selected circumstances.
Dr. Ross Ungerleider
Dr. Ross Ungerleider grew up in Glencoe, Illinois. He attended Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut) where he graduated with Highest Honors in Biology and a major in English. He then completed medical school at Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois (where he was elected to membership in AOA as a junior). He received his surgical training at Duke University Medical Center (Durham, North Carolina) where he remained on the faculty for 15 years, rising to the level of tenured professor while becoming a nationally recognized leader in pediatric cardiac surgery. Over the course of his career, he has been a professor, CT surgery chair, program director and vice chairman for education (for a department of surgery), helping to build children’s heart programs and teach leadership, teamwork, and interpersonal and communication skills at each organization. He is the author of over 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers and book chapters as well as the lead editor of one of the major textbooks in the field of critical heart disease in infants and children. He has been named to America’s Best Doctors, Cambridge’s Who’s Who, Castle Connolly’s Top Doctors (receiving their distinction as being in the top 1% nationally in his specialty) and by Good Housekeeping as one of the best pediatric cardiac surgeons in the U.S. He was the recipient of the James Carreras International Humanitarian Award for his work performing heart surgery on children in undeveloped nations and his contributions have been highlighted on national television shows (CNN, 700 club, Learning Channel, Discovery Channel). He has been invited to give commencement addresses at both the high school and university level. His leadership training and skills led to his election to the presidency of the Southern Thoracic Surgery Association (2006), and he was voted the Physician Leader of the Year by his business school classmates in the University of Tennessee MBA program (2006). He has spent almost 3 decades studying personal growth and relationship skills and has extensive training as a coach, including completing certification as a Presence-Based Coach. His coaching also incorporates his training in relationship skills from Internal Family Systems (IFS), John and Julie Gottman’s Couples therapy, Dan Wile’s Collaborative Couples Therapy, The Satir Growth Model and Dan Siegel and Lou Cozolino’s Interpersonal Neurobiology (and he is a board member for GAINS—the Global Association for Interpersonal Neurobiology Studies). Because of his almost 50 years of experience as a surgeon combined with his substantial training in leadership development, conflict management, relationship and communication skills and change management, he is frequently invited to give presentations on a variety of topics related to his work including: “The Courage to Learn,” “The Seven Practices of Highly Resonant Teams,” “Whole Brain Leadership for Multidisciplinary Leaders,” “Integrated Life Skills for Managing the Demands of Life,” and “Cultivating a Culture of Psychological Safety and Innovation.”
Together, Ross and Jamie offer a unique combination of training and skills that enable them to create an approach that can be customized to meet a variety of hopes and goals for individuals, couples, families or teams. Jamie’s training and expertise as a therapist enables her to attune to and guide clients as they gain access to their inner journey of more fully understanding themselves and their relationships with others. Ross is a trained coach who has also studied and been certified in a variety of relationship skills approaches. He is also experienced in negotiation and conflict management skills and is adept at helping clients operationalize what they learn to help them become better leaders and team members in their work environment or better partners at both home and at work.