EHI is excited to once again hold the program Experiential Residentials at lovely Westerbeke Ranch.
The students who are accepted into the upcoming cohorts will enjoy the wonderful ambiance and food that are provided by the fantastic staff and environs of Westerbeke Ranch in Sonoma, California. Westerbeke Ranch as a retreat center has historic significance for our community, as it was the meeting place for many of the seminal writers in E-H theory and practice such as Rollo May and James Bugental.
Experiential Dates for 2016/2017 Cohorts
Experiential I
• Sun, October 23rd, 2016 - Thurs, October 27th, 2016 Experiential II
• Fri, March 24th, 2017 - Tues, Mar 28th, 2017
Visit the Westerbeke Ranch website to see where we hold our retreats!
EHI's Sonja Saltman works in triad with students at Experiential
Enrollment is Open for 2016-2017 Education and Training Programs
Do you have questions about a program or about becoming an EHI student?
Orah Krug, our Clinical Director, and , EHI's Student Coordinator and Teaching Assoicate will be happy to give you more information and to answer your questions about the upcoming EHI programs.
Contact either Orah or Troy by email: info@ehinstitute.org
During their AgeSong Orientation the Pacific Institute Gero-Wellness program participants learn about contemporary Existential-Humanistic Psychotherapy practices in use at AgeSong. Nader Shabahangi and Vincent Siekiewicz each discuss how E-H Therapy pertains to the work done by the therapy interns in the AgeSong communities. Nader discusses how the Gero-Wellness Interns can engage in existential-humanistic relationships with the residents in the coming year.
AgeSong 2014 Intern Orientation: Day 1 Session 4 video
Nader Shabahangi asks the interns what they think Existential-Humanistic Psychotherapy is. The interns come up with great responses including:
"It is a person to person centered approach"
"To be really present with other"
"Relationship"
"Be open to all kinds of ways of looking at life"
"Walking with"
"Being a witness to the journey"
"Be with the other"
"Lose myself to be open to the other"
Nader points out traditional therapy is antithetical to the concept of being “present” where the therapist is supposed to have a “hypothesis” about what is going on with the client.
Vincent Sienkiewicz talks about how E-H Therapy pertains to working with elders at AgeSong communities. Vincent presents the view that Jim Bugental’s put forward, that E-H Therapy is another level beyond Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Psychodynamic Therapy.
Here is an excerpt from Vincent’s discussion on Jim Bugental’s view of these levels:
“Existential-Humanistic Therapy is the ability to not just kind of understand who you are, but to also realize the greater freedom of existence and the ability to kind of adjust that greater sort of picture and to change, you know, with the times. ”
And the connection that this has with this population is the fact that these older adults have been through alot of these changes.
I believe that this population is particularly ripe for exploring these issues of existence, who they have been in the past and who they are now, who they’d like to be and how to shift it.”
Nader finishes the session with a discussion into the differences between “process comment” and “content comment” and how it pertains to the work within the “moment.”
View the AgeSong Educational Series videos here on the AgeSong Library of Videos page. Watch Existential-Humanistic Therapy training in practice in San Francisco's visionary humanistic assisted living communities for the elders of the Bay Area.
Interested in finding out how to bring awe-based consciousness into your life? EHI can recommend a recent article that includes an interview with Dr Kirk Schneider of EHI. Written by Heidi Wachter and featured in the December, 2015 issue of Experience Life magazine.
Awestruck
by Heidi Wachter, Experience Life Magazine, December 2015
Heidi Wachter, staff writer of Experience Life magazine, writes a timely article on awe and leads readers to "discover how the feeling of awe can make us humbler, kinder, and more altruistic."
In her article Heidi conducts a Q&A with Kirk Schneider, PhD on "Becoming Awed." She asks Kirk some specific questions on the positive impact of awe, on how we "tap into awe-based consciousness," and how we can cultivate more awe in our life.
Read the whole article, Awestruck, by Heidi Wachter on Experience Life Magazine's website or read the excerpt of the interview with Kirk Schneider on his blog, Awakening to Awe, on PsychologyToday.com.
Bob Edelstein presents an existential crises embodied in Innaritu's 2015 movie "Birdman" starring Michael Keaton. In his article "The Existential Crisis of Birdman" on PsychologyToday Bob discusses the existential struggle to become your authentic self.
"As humans, we all struggle to understand both who we have been and who we want to be — a struggle which centers around accessing and expressing our present, authentic self and releasing aspects of our old self.
I recently saw a powerful representation of this struggle in the movie Birdman.
Riggan Thomson — played by Michael Keaton — is a former movie star known for his portrayal of the superhero icon, Birdman. The role, one he played 20 years ago, made Riggan a celebrity. His fans don’t want him to be anyone else. "
Kirk Schneider, EHI's Vice President, shares a vision for his coming year as 2016 President of The Society for Humanistic Psychology highlighting some of the challenges faced by today's society. In his message to the division Dr Schneider "discusses how humanistic and existential psychology can contribute to healing a polarized society and ways to ensure humanistic educational opportunities for future generations."
Dr Kirk Schneider also inaugurates his presidential them for his term, “Reawakening Awe in Psychology and Life.” Dr Kirk shares that "by “awe” I mean the humility and wonder or sense of adventure toward living. I mean a reawakening of our recognition of the paradoxes of life, that is, the whole of life, that embraces both our great vulnerabilities and fragilities before the vastness of existence, as well as our equally great resiliencies and capacities to participate in that vastness and create our lives anew.
Read the full Message to the Society for Humanistic Psychology from the October 2015 division newsletter.
