Murray Dabby, LCSW - Center Director

A graduate from Columbia University School of Social Work in New York, Murray has worked in the mental health field for over 30 years. With a background in working with chronic mentally ill, family therapy, diagnostic research and community social work, he was one of the founders of the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy, an international training program where the social therapeutic method is taught, practiced and developed. He is still on the faculty there.

Murray moved to Atlanta in 1987 and has held supervisory and consulting positions in Atlanta psychiatric hospitals and clinics for families, children, adolescents and adults. As Director of the Atlanta Center for Social Therapy he works with groups, individuals, couples and families as well as supervises and teaches the social therapeutic approach to development. He is also a lecturer, workshop leader and presenter on the use of performance and developmental approaches to a wide variety of issues. He is a respected therapist who is known for a non-pathologizing and humane approach to working with people and is often able to work with most challenging and complex situations with sensitivity and skill. Murray's style is conversational, personable, humorous, and engaging. He has worked with diverse issues and personal experiences including minority family and alternative lifestyle.

Murray also has interest in the relationship between community and youth development and therapeutics. He is interested in postmodern approaches that focus on the cultural development of our life and its contradictions and challenges. This has led him to numerous directions. He founded the Atlanta All Stars Talent Show Network, an inclusive program that uses performance to support youth and community development. This work uniquely qualifies him to work as a life coach for youth and parents focusing on development and growthful approaches to parenting. Murray has also served as trainer and coach for Performance of a Lifetime, an organizational consulting firm with international Fortune 500 clientele. He has led workshops at conferences and trainings relating to international audiences, including co-leading training in Bosnia for educators and psychologists in the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia, Serbia, etc) who are developing performatory, cultural and life developing approaches to work with refugees whose lives were devastated by war.

Please feel free to reach Murray for a therapeutic, coaching or organizational consultation or for any questions you may have.

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L. Rachelle Moore, LCSW - Assistant Director

Rachelle Moore is the assistant director of the Atlanta Center for Social Therapy, developing the group therapy, and working with families, individuals and couples therapy. She is a social therapist who practices a performatory, developmental approach.

Rachelle has 20 years working with patients struggling with addictions and psychiatric illness in private hospitals, a context where she has been a top clinician and clinical supervisor. With an expertise in the addiction field, Rachelle uses social therapy to help people move beyond recovery to development.

As a postmodernist, Rachelle practices a non-diagnostic, non-pathological approach to working with people. She helps people get better by creating environments (such as the social therapy group), where they can bring their emotional pain (loneliness, anger, humiliation, depression) and create something new with it — new conversations, new meanings, new emotions, new lives.

Her style is engaging and bold, and her clients often remark that she has a calming effect on them.

Rachelle received her graduate degree in social work from the University of Georgia, in Athens, Georgia. She received her post graduate certification in social therapy from the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy, the international training institute where social therapy is taught. A long time community activist, Rachelle has worked to create development projects with theater and youth, such as the Atlanta All Stars Talent Show Network.

Rachelle is also a highly skilled and talented workshop leader, providing classes and training on various topics for clinicians, clients, businesses, mental health agencies, hospitals and educational institutions. Rachelle was honored by the East Side Institute with the 2007 Psych Out Award for being a creative, passionate professional who brings humanity and dignity to her field. The Institute established these awards to recognize colleagues throughout the US and internationally who are working to support people to learn, develop, and create change in their lives and in their communities.

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