Chi Professional Development

Linnie Larson Pickering grew up in San Francisco. She received her BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and her master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, where she won the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement. She is a specialist in the prevention of domestic violence, child abuse, suicide, and sexual assault. She has worked on suicide, crisis, breast cancer and domestic violence hotlines and has developed and presented national and international workshops on the above topics. She co-authored "34 Cranberry Lane," a video and discussion workshop on Domestic Violence in suburbia that was produced with a grant from Phillip Morris. Linnie is the author of Blue Sky: The Oral History of James L Greenwald, in which he reminisces about a life and career lived to the fullest as well as the emotional challenges of aging, declining health and facing one’s own mortality. Linnie did post graduate training at Columbia University’s Center for Complicated Grief. She has a private therapy practice in Rye, NY with a focus on loss and grief, and she is a frequent workshop presenter on topics related to loss, death, dying and bereavement and Covid-19.

Gae Savino, LCSW, CT, is a licensed clinical social worker and Certified in Thanatology (CT), the study of death, dying and bereavement by the Association for Death Education and Counseling. She brings extensive experience and empathetic compassion to working with individuals with an intensive focus on conducting bereavement support groups due to addiction, spousal/partner, and parent loss. In session, Gae utilizes the Dual Process Model of Coping with Grief, Complicated Grief Treatment, Collaborative Solution-Focused Therapy, and Dialectic Behavioral Therapy while centering these therapies from an individual’s self-determination and strength-based perspective. She earned her Master’s Degree in Social Work from Fordham University and has extensive post-graduate training at Columbia University’s Center for Complicated Grief. Gae is a frequent workshop presenter on issues of death, dying, bereavement, complicated grief and the multifaceted impact of Covid-19.