This workshop will explore the wisdom teachings of the North American Medicine Wheel, a map of wholeness and integration for individuals and communities experiencing turbulence and separation. We will engage in simple practices to reconnect ourselves with Mother Earth, our people, and our own hearts. Please bring a rattle, drum or small musical instrument plus an offering for Mother Earth (tobacco, cornmeal, or lavender).

Presenter: Carol Parker, PhD, LPCC

Category: Multicultural

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

Conventional ways of defining and affirming self (religious and secular) through external means are increasingly slipping away. Our calling is to turn our attention more fully to the essential nature of our consciousness and our role in the world. When we open the inner door to our minds and hearts, we enter the primordial world of Soul, the source of our being, our way home and our way to fulfillment in this world. Therapy is an experience in which we pursue the power and mystery of love in a sacred place in which the many facets of self can coalesce, find voice, and sponsor a life of health, grace, and gratitude. We curate and metabolize the soul-centered essentials from ancient teachings, transcendent awareness, applied experience, and professional training that is free of glamour, pretense, and hyperbole. Soul-centered therapy works from the oneness of the whole Spirit, collaborating with the genesis impulse that love will have its way. This presentation develops the sensibilities and skills needed to turn inward and follow the pathways and currents of energy that awaken and lead to the resources and realms of soul wisdom, connecting to our soul-stream and identifying that we innately bring love in service to self, others, vocation, life, healing, resolving limitation, and the transformation of the world.

Presenter: Robert Waterman, PhD, LPCC

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

HYBRID - ZOOM OPTION - link will be emailed

Conventional ways of defining and affirming self (religious and secular) through external means are increasingly slipping away. Our calling is to turn our attention more fully to the essential nature of our consciousness and our role in the world. When we open the inner door to our minds and hearts, we enter the primordial world of Soul, the source of our being, our way home and our way to fulfillment in this world. Therapy is an experience in which we pursue the power and mystery of love in a sacred place in which the many facets of self can coalesce, find voice, and sponsor a life of health, grace, and gratitude. We curate and metabolize the soul-centered essentials from ancient teachings, transcendent awareness, applied experience, and professional training that is free of glamour, pretense, and hyperbole. Soul-centered therapy works from the oneness of the whole Spirit, collaborating with the genesis impulse that love will have its way. This presentation develops the sensibilities and skills needed to turn inward and follow the pathways and currents of energy that awaken and lead to the resources and realms of soul wisdom, connecting to our soul-stream and identifying that we innately bring love in service to self, others, vocation, life, healing, resolving limitation, and the transformation of the world.

Presenter: Robert Waterman, PhD, LPCC

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

HYBRID - IN PERSON OPTION

We will join together in creating a sacred space in which to support each others personal and collective transformation with the assistance of the Spirit's of Mother Nature, the renewing 'Tree of Life', Ancient Shamanic Practices of Healing and return to Compassion. Teachings will be shared from many cultures that support the understanding of the powerful times we are in giving hope for a shift to a greater state of consciousness as we transmute the shadow through the storm.

Presenter: Michelle Rozbitsky, LPCC

Category: Multicultural

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

This workshop will address healing perspectives on contemporary global issues illustrated through the case of the Israeli occupation of Palestinians, the wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers, and humane solutions to displacement and resettlement. A focus on ethical approaches and responsible outcomes to humanitarian needs will be discussed.

Presenter: Jean Ellis-Sankari, LISW

Category: Ethics

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

John the Conqueror is a figure that doesn’t exist prior to the African diaspora to the new world through chattel slavery. Yet he is a fixture in African American folklore, blues music and Hoodoo practices. He embodies the spirit of resistance, resilience, and joy. We can surmise from these facts that his presence is a gift from enslaved ancestors to provide hope and healing for the generations to come.

In this interactive lecture we will look at stories passed down through time to connect threads of meaning and gain insight to the psychology of the enslaved mind. These stories are often humorous bringing focus away from the pain of a lived experience of oppression, instead encouraging use of creativity, charisma, and solidarity to endure. The goal of this lecture is to give participants tools to connect especially their African American clients to their ancestral lineages of strength.

Presenter: Naja Druva, LPCC

Category: Multicultural

CEs: 1

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

This workshop will explore Sustainable Love: Transformation and Training Center’s current community model of healing, which has been co-created over thirty years of exploration. Through unifying diverse modalities and creating healing teams, we discovered the Quantum Love-Field is the sacred medicine. Most trauma happens in relationships and therefore we explore how loving relationship in a safe container has the power to transform the deepest wounds.

Presenters: Allegra di Carpegna & Robin Duda

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY-NO ZOOM OPTION

From a physiological perspective, the human heart is central to the circulatory system and plays a vital role in the community of systems that make up your human body: muscles, bones, nerves, connective tissue, glands, skin, and senses. From a relational perspective, the human heart plays a leading role in day-to-day interactions with self, family members, co-workers, clients, and cashiers at the convenient store. How does the heart’s physiology shed light on your ability to build community within yourself so you can extend this ability as you build community with others? How does a somatic movement experience help you access and experience your self-compassion so you can extend it to others? How does your heart communicate with you and how do you communicate with others from your heart?

A curated integration of neuroscience, including polyvagal theory and heart research will be presented and experienced through meditation, somatic movement, and expressive arts therapy. At the end of this workshop, participants will gain embodied and creative resources to cultivate a practice of connecting with the heart, speaking from the heart, listening to the heart and, most importantly, trusting the heart’s courageous compassion in fostering partnership-based communities.

Presenters: April Vogel, LPCC, and Marialuisa Diaz de Leon, RMST, REAT

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

ZOOM ONLY - Link will be emailed

Deep, conscious connection to Self is the ground for calm presence with another person. Connection to Self creates clear boundaries for both therapist and client, allowing for safety necessary to make lasting progress when working with dissociation or vagal nerve regulation. This workshop is highly experiential and will utilize individual and paired activities. The exploration of a strong connection to Self will begin the session. This connection will be used to create a clear boundary while working with another person. Your example models personal grounding essential for experiencing safety. We will then focus on experiencing and teaching a basic breathing technique which has been shown to be effective in regulating the vagus nerve.

Presenters: Cheri Koinis, LP & Toni Rivera, DC

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

Awareness of collective trauma surfaces in all its sizes, shapes, textures, and intensities, often stimulating our own unearthing, our reactions, busyness, or numbing. We may ask ourselves how do we commit, even more deeply, to strengthening and feeling resources and creating centers of safe refuge. How do we balance and integrate awareness of the pain of history with the pure joy of being alive, and with activism? These points of connection with the heart and body, often were not noticed or fully taken in. We’ll begin to build relationships to both the resources and our protective parts, which will help us to digest what is happening within and around us, and form living, breathing resonating orchestras of healing, that actually have immense ripples into the world. Sarah will draw from basic IFS, Mindful Self Compassion (Neff and Germer), the somatic work of Manuela Mischle-Reeds, and experience with Thomas Hübl.

Presenter: Sarah Stout, LPCC

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

Creativity moves us and helps us to make sense of the world. Expressive arts therapist Adriana Marchione and film collaborator Dianne Griffin will engage us through film and expressive therapies enhancing our work as clinicians by exploring how the arts support recovery from substance use disorders. Accessing a contemplative and expressive arts approach, this event will include introspection and experiential engagement in response to viewing their film, The Creative High documentary (www.thecreativehigh.com). The film features nine artists in recovery from addiction who are transformed by creativity in their search for identity and freedom.
In this presentation, we will inquire into our own addictive tendencies and our work as counselors and therapists as related to mental health. Through this lens, we will discuss how the arts can open us up to our true selves inspired by the artists in the film, and actively engage personal material using mindfulness practices and the arts (i.e. drawing, movement and writing exercises). This presentation will examine how past traumas, difficult feelings, thoughts and memories can be channeled into creative expression to safeguard those in recovery from falling back into unhealthy behaviors. As well, we will outline how art allows people with addictions the opportunity to feel empowered and rejuvenate themselves, in addition to incorporating new tools to enliven their recovery as effective methods of treatment. All are invited, no creative art skills required.

Presenters: Dianne Griffin & Adriana Marchione

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

ZOOM OPTION - Link will be emailed

Creativity moves us and helps us to make sense of the world. Expressive arts therapist Adriana Marchione and film collaborator Dianne Griffin will engage us through film and expressive therapies enhancing our work as clinicians by exploring how the arts support recovery from substance use disorders. Accessing a contemplative and expressive arts approach, this event will include introspection and experiential engagement in response to viewing their film, The Creative High documentary (www.thecreativehigh.com). The film features nine artists in recovery from addiction who are transformed by creativity in their search for identity and freedom.
In this presentation, we will inquire into our own addictive tendencies and our work as counselors and therapists as related to mental health. Through this lens, we will discuss how the arts can open us up to our true selves inspired by the artists in the film, and actively engage personal material using mindfulness practices and the arts (i.e. drawing, movement and writing exercises). This presentation will examine how past traumas, difficult feelings, thoughts and memories can be channeled into creative expression to safeguard those in recovery from falling back into unhealthy behaviors. As well, we will outline how art allows people with addictions the opportunity to feel empowered and rejuvenate themselves, in addition to incorporating new tools to enliven their recovery as effective methods of treatment. All are invited, no creative art skills required.

Presenters: Dianne Griffin & Adriana Marchione

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON OPTION ON SWC CAMPUS

Sensation is the language of the body. Permitting our sensations to express themselves through breath, movement, and sound connects us with the natural intelligence of the body, which then informs our clinical practice. The creative process of uniting body wisdom with thoughtfulness opens new ways to relate to self and others. Coming home to our bodies is essential for our personal and interpersonal healing and thriving as well as the flourishing of our planet Earth. For this hour, we will move, feel, sense, and listen to the body to deepen the relationship between soma and psyche. Please wear comfortable clothing that will allow you to move freely.

Presenter: Silvia Stenitzer, MA, LPCC

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 1

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

Psychedelic Literacy for Therapists will provide foundational knowledge about psychedelics, benefits, risks, psychedelic-assisted therapy, and harm reduction, enabling therapists to support clients who use psychedelic-assisted therapy or psychedelics in other settings. Important and effective concepts from psychedelic-assisted therapy and harm reduction will be applied to other non-ordinary states of consciousness, such as grief.

Presenter: Patricia Song, Ph.D

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

Utilizing principles of the Nia Technique and the eight stages of Nia Freedance, this conference session will explore our power to choose the sensation of “Yes,” as a sustainable somatic practice of self-care. We will practice choosing ways of moving in community that help us connect to ourselves and each other, accessing the sensation of “universal joy,” with mindfulness, and relaxed effort, seeking a somatic “Yes” in service to healing and recovery. Please wear comfortable clothing that facilitates movement.

Presenter: Kate Latimer, LPCC

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

HYBRID-ZOOM SESSION - Link will be emailed

Utilizing principles of the Nia Technique and the eight stages of Nia Freedance, this conference session will explore our power to choose the sensation of “Yes,” as a sustainable somatic practice of self-care. We will practice choosing ways of moving in community that help us connect to ourselves and each other, accessing the sensation of “universal joy,” with mindfulness, and relaxed effort, seeking a somatic “Yes” in service to healing and recovery. Please wear comfortable clothing that facilitates movement.

Presenter: Kate Latimer, LPCC

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

HYBRID-IN PERSON SESSION - Link will be emailed

Our current frame for contextualizing healing focuses on behaviors and the restrictions of the trauma body, but ignores the way that symptoms attempt to remediate the individual’s lack of vitality and control the erotic’s natural movement through a kind of distorted understanding of safety. Models that only attend to containment of behaviors and thoughts create opportunities for survival patterns to take on different forms repeatedly offering the illusion of change but never resolving the core divisions or conflicts. The Existence Model presents a bio-psycho-social-energetic approach which centers eating disorders, addiction, and addictive patterns within the context of a larger societal and epigenetic inheritance. In this model, addiction decontextualized from diagnosis is comprised of patterns of survival and compensation in response to trauma or oppression. These patterns repeat within lineage, are often mistaken for identities and a false sense of belonging, and are supported by western societies. The chasm or division that is formed and carried through lineage will continue to “sing out” the lack of wholeness and belonging until resolution is created through liberating bound life force and reweaving the inner system to be in alignment with honesty and groundedness.
The Existence Model is groundbreaking in its interweaving of indigenous intelligence, modern medicine and contemplative sciences. It has been beta tested for over a decade in Vermont and is poised to inform care and create opportunities for public health nationwide.

Presenter: Bree Greenberg, LMFT

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

This interactive session will allow participants to learn about holistic health concepts, including the importance of nature, spirituality, and connectedness in healing. We will focus our presentation on research findings related to hermeneutic practice and constructivism in contemporary Western society.

Discussion and image-making will help participants begin to explore how nature, spirituality, and connectedness can be applied to individual and communal healing practices.

Presenter: Rita Palisaityte & Meghan Hartwig

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

Please join us for music and light refreshments to celebrate the many years Kate Cook, MA, LPCC, TEP, has served the role of Director for NEI’s Applied Interpersonal Neurobiology Certificate Program at Southwestern College & New Earth Institute.

IN PERSON SESSION

Our world is centered on the rights and needs of non-disabled people. This workshop will explore themes of ableism, racism, disability justice, institutionalization, mental health, the medical model vs the social model, aging, suicidality, and worldwide prejudice and discrimination with the filmmakers behind the acclaimed documentary, We are the Most Beautiful People | Adults with Disabilities. In a social media driven culture, humankind faces superficial concepts of beauty daily. The film uses beauty as an underlying theme and pulls back the veil on conventional concepts of beauty, urging people to rethink how they engage with all humans in the world, highlighting the strengths and innate qualities needed to raise awareness and deconstruct culturally embedded norms. . The workshop will include viewing a segment of the film and art making in response to the intimate stories collected from a wide array of persons with disabilities from around the world who have experienced profound marginalization, inequities, and injustice. It will provide an engaging and safe space for curiosity, creativity and enriching discussion on a topic that has been unseen by too many for too long. It will also examine how to support diverse individuals struggling under daily injustice in today’s culture, including using art and art therapy, allyship and empowering strategies for individuals with disabilities.

Learning Objectives
● Participants will examine historical treatment of adults with disabilities including institutionalization, access to medical care, equity and inclusion.
● Participants will distinguish the difference between Disability Rights and Disability Justice.
● Participants will recognize differences in the medical model and the social/cultural model of disability.
● Participants will identify strategies useful in treatment that can create a strong foundation in allyship.

Presenters: B.A. Short & Zian Chavez

Category: Multicultural

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

Embark on a soul-enriching journey with this Eco Art Therapy workshop, a harmonious blend of nature, narrative, and creative expression designed to support recovery from eco anxiety, collective grief, and relational isolation, while also addressing one’s own personal ebbs and flows. Join us in exploring:

-Narrative Therapy Techniques: Uncover the power of storytelling as a tool for self-discovery and transformation. Engage in a guided exercise to reshape and reclaim your personal narrative within the nurturing embrace of the natural world.

- Grounding Through Expressive Arts: Immerse yourself in the therapeutic process of grounding. Utilize natural materials, spoken word, found instruments, and rhythmic expressions to connect with the present moment, fostering a deep sense of mindfulness and self-awareness that serves as a balm for relational isolation.

This workshop is a celebration of eco-conscious creativity, inviting you to co-create with the environment, your inner self, and a diverse array of artistic elements. Come join us on this transformative journey where the beauty of nature intertwines with the expressive arts, guiding you towards recovery, resilience, and a renewed sense of wholeness and well-being.

Please note: This workshop will take place outdoors on the grounds of SWC Campus. Please dress accordingly and bring sun protection.

Presenter: Francesca DeBiaso, LCAT

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

Experience Dr. Marianela Medrano, Ph.D., LPC, CPT, a writer and mindfulness teacher, as she walks you through innovative interventions that you can use to help your clients move from mourning into the spiritual experience of grieving and healing from Historical Trauma and Grief. Drawing on her expertise as a scholar, researcher, and psychotherapist, Dr. Medrano blends case studies with creative strategies for long-lasting transformation in your client's lives. Explore the interfacing relationship between historical/contemporary events, the ensuing trauma, and the impact that the erasure of indigenous ways of grieving via rituals has had on many peoples, and how to creatively and culturally appropriately facilitate the mourning process aborted for some. Unresolved Historical Grief is pernicious and travels intergenerationally; learn the power of ancient wisdom to heal personally and collectively. Experience Mindful Writing (MW), which offers an opportunity to rediscover the power of silence, somatic awareness, and writing to introspect and see from a wider lens. Writing and mindfulness are channels to contemplation, to get out of emotional and mental "stuckness" and into a renewed sense of being in the present moment. The approach is non-intimidating and eases the process for those fearful of expressing themselves in writing or who have misconceptions about writing poetry.

Presenter: Marianela Medrano, Ph.D., LPC, CPT

Category: Multicultural

CEs: 1

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

In the powerful Jewish folktale, "The Corpse-Bride", a promise given in jest becomes dreadfully real. As you witness this story dramatically told, imagine counseling the terrified groom, the angry corpse-bride, or the heartsick new bride. Can there be both justice and love? Where do you draw the line between supporting clients and trying to save them? How do you ethically help clients find their way between duty to the past and promise of the future? Explore your responses and ethical concerns through inner work, sharing, and art.

Presenter: Anna Katherine

Category: Ethics

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

This conference session is an overview of Chi for Two® - The Energetic Dance of Healthy Relationship as a supportive, resonant “The Mother” voice for the momentous journey of menopause. The life/death/life cycle, which is the grieving process, is an inherent part of menopause. Chi for Two is a multi-generational trauma healing method based on new understanding of nervous system functioning.

We start with the Chi for Two “Map,” which offers a dance movement therapy perspective of Polyvagal Theory informed by Kestenberg (Susan Loman) Tension Flow Rhythms. Chi for Two incorporates Peter Levine’s understanding of trauma patterning, along with Mary Whitehouse & Janet Adler’s Authentic Movement. We will explore how certain movements can be mobilized by the active state that Polyvagal Theory calls Play/Dance. We will “dance” four Chi for Two partner practices for client (as child) and therapist (as parent).

Participants will learn these four Chi for Two partner practices, one from each of the Four Emanations of Embodiment in support of the grieving process.

Presenters: Ingrid Lacey & Dee Wagner

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

“The Body will transform emotional/spiritual issues in the instant we give it permission to do so.” - Lee Cartwright.

Focusing on an everyday aggravation or a “pain in the butt situation”, a heartache or a looping thought pattern, we will explore this healing approach by studying the different functions of the digestive organs and then applying their digestive abilities to the challenging circumstance. We will begin by experiencing the difference between functions like chewing, breaking down foods, deciding if something needs to be spit out or swallowed, mixing, absorbing and eliminating.

In a second step we will experience the wisdom of the enteric nervous system, the gut’s nervous system, and its innate ability for teamwork, noticing how the inner transformation affects our outer reality.

Presenter: Ursula Hofer, LPC, LMT

Category: General Professional Development

CEs: 3

IN PERSON ONLY - NO ZOOM OPTION

This conference session will utilize the narrative frame of T.S Elliot's poem "The Hollow Men" to explore the rise of our contemporary dominant culture and discuss what humanity has lost in our modern paradigm. We will examine how this traumatic loss has led to a drastic increase in substance and process addictions, and explore the wisdom of ancient cultures to see how "old ways" have served for many generations to both prevent trauma, and provide immediate and complete repair and integration when ruptures/traumas occur. We will discuss neurobiological effects of ceremonial practice such as repetition, rhythm, relationship, ritual, regulation, community, meaning and medicine. Sweatlodge traditions, and how these ceremonies support healing, will be explored via the presenter’s personal experience utilizing sweatlodge ceremony as a component of inpatient substance abuse treatment. We will also envision how, as individual providers, we can find our own ways to authentically distill the healing aspects of traditional ceremony into our own personal and professional practices.

Presenter: Richard Pelfrey, LADAC

Category: Multicultural

CEs: 3

ZOOM ONLY - Link will be emailed

Please join Katherine Ninos and the Southwestern College Community as we offer gratitude and love to outgoing President, Dr. Ann Filemyr. Ann’s leadership has been instrumental in keeping the college alive through the pandemic. When many small colleges were forced to close, Ann has supported sustainable growth and expansion of degree programs and educational offerings at Southwestern, while attending to student concerns during a time of great change and uncertainty. She will continue to serve as the Director of the Regenerative Leadership and Visionary Practice PhD Program.

Free

HYBRID - IN PERSON SESSION

Please join Katherine Ninos and the Southwestern College Community as we offer gratitude and love to outgoing President, Dr. Ann Filemyr. Ann’s leadership has been instrumental in keeping the college alive through the pandemic. When many small colleges were forced to close, Ann has supported sustainable growth and expansion of degree programs and educational offerings at Southwestern, while attending to student concerns during a time of great change and uncertainty. She will continue to serve as the Director of the Regenerative Leadership and Visionary Practice PhD Program.

Free

HYBRID - ZOOM SESSION - Link will be emailed