Expired Healing the Healer: Compassion and the Therapist’s Way of Embracing Grief [Online]

There is no question that 2020 was a pivotal, paradigm-shifting year for the world, and collectively we will be experiencing its ripple effects for years to come. The collective grief and trauma of a global pandemic and the impacts of pre-existing conditions such as racism, anti-Blackness, and systemic oppression at every level of our lives cannot be underestimated. We have been continually called in and challenged to be in deep and radical relationship to the nature of impermanence and the processes of mourning. For therapists and mental health practitioners, the need for healing, holding, and restorative interventions is critical in building our emotional, mental, somatic, and spiritual resources, as we meet each day, tending to ourselves, our families, and those we serve.

Join us for this 3-hour experiential workshop to explore mind-body practices informed by contemplative psychotherapy and Indigenous Focusing-Oriented Therapy (IFOT) to work with grief in its many forms. This community of care will support you in tending to your most vulnerable and challenging moments, staying in connection to your internal resources as you support others in need, honoring the preciousness, internal wisdom, and quiet resilience of our human lives.

Learning Objectives:

• Deepened understanding of therapist’s relationship to systemic oppression, how it shows up for them personally and within the clinical space, and how to courageously hold one’s own vulnerabilities and strengths in order to remain in a position of agency and choice
• Experiential understanding of how contemplative and mind-body practices can support the therapist in touching into and gently staying with experiences of difficult emotions related to experiences of marginalization or devaluation, such as anger, rage, or anxiety, and actively draw upon the therapist’s use-of-self as a pathway into deepened compassionate action and healing presence
• New or expanded skill set of mind-body interventions that can be used in-vivo during sessions with clients and in personal meditation practice that help the therapist mine their own internal resources and wisdom to attune to their moment-to-moment experience and practice compassion as a restorative and growth-promoting resource for self and others

Presenters:

Lama Rod Owens, MDiv., is an author, activist, and authorized Lama (Buddhist Teacher) in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism and is considered one of the leaders of his generation of Buddhist teachers. He holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School and is a co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation. Owens is the co-founder of Bhumisparsha, a Buddhist tantric practice and study community and has been published and featured in several publications including Buddhadharma, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, The Harvard Divinity Bulletin and has offered talks, retreats, and workshops in over 7 countries. Lama Rod facilitates undoing patriarchy workshops for male identified practitioners in Brooklyn and Boston. Lama Rod’s next book project will explore transformative anger and rage and is due out June 2020.

Helen Park, LCSW, MFA, is a clinical social worker and family therapist specializing in integrative, anti-oppressive, healing centered approaches for children, couples, and families. She completed her Master of Social Work at New York University and a Master of Fine Arts in Digital Art/New Media at University of California, Santa Cruz. Helen is a graduate of Ackerman’s Social Work and Diversity and Clinical Externship programs. Helen is a Clinic Therapist in the Ackerman Institute’s Clinic and has taught meditation at meditation centers throughout New York City. She is currently training in Indigenous Focusing-Oriented Therapy.