A Seven-Week Online Course

World-System and cultural crises are unfolding around the world in various communities and societies. Social healing practitioners are needed at scale to respond to these cascading crises. Social Healing practitioners facilitate, coach, and lead social healing practices. These practices enable the development of whole persons and whole systems across multiple professional domains, contexts, and levels of practice. The transformation of collective trauma is the primary intent of practicing the art and science of social healing.

This course explores personal, historical, cultural, and archetypal perspectives to transforming trauma. Participants in this course will engage in collaborative inquiry into aesthetic, psychological, and political responses which bring about social healing and cultural renewal.

Through active dialogue participants and presenters engage complex issues of climate change, economic injustice, intimate violence, stereotyping and scapegoating, and ethnic conflict, while exploring the practices that might create conditions of social healing such as restorative justice, rebuilding trust in the aftermath of trauma, the power of empathy, and the role of awe in recasting our vision of the world. These principles and practices have been the focus of the Center for Social Healing established in 2009 at Meridian University.

Faculty

Convening Faculty

Melissa Schwartz

Melissa Schwartz, PhD is the Chief Academic Officer at Meridian University where she guides integrally-oriented programs in Education, Business, and Psychology. The Director of Meridian’s Center for Transformative Learning, Melissa is dually licensed as both a psychologist and as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT). She serves as a reviewer for the American Psychological Association’s Journal, Psychology of Women Quarterly, and the California Psychological Association’s Office of Professional Development. As well, she serves as a Subject Matter Expert for California’s Board of Behavioral Sciences in the continual development of the state’s MFT licensure examination. Melissa’s research interests are in the areas of adult development, the psychology of women, integral transformative assessment, and the role of culture in transformative learning.

Faculty

Contributing Faculty

Dan Siegel

Dr. Dan Siegel is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization, which offers online learning and in-person seminars that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. His psychotherapy practice includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. He serves as the Medical Director of the LifeSpan Learning Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Blue School in New York City, which has built its curriculum around Dr. Siegel’s Mindsight approach.

Thomas Hubl

Thomas Hübl is a renowned teacher, author, and international facilitator whose lifelong work integrates the core insights of the great wisdom traditions and mysticism with the discoveries of science. Since the early 2000s, he has been leading large-scale events and courses that focus on the healing and integration of trauma. Participants come from around the world, ranging from members of the public to faculty and staff at Harvard Medical School. His non-profit organization, The Pocket Project, works to support the healing of collective trauma throughout the world. He is the author of Healing Collective Trauma: A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds, which outlines his methodology called the Collective Trauma Integration Process as a safe framework for guiding groups through collective trauma.

Richard Schwartz

Dr. Richard Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems in response to clients’ descriptions of experiencing various parts – many extreme – within themselves. In 2000, Richard Schwartz founded The Center for Self Leadership in Oak Park, Illinois. Dr. Schwartz is a featured speaker for many national psychotherapy organizations and a fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and he serves on the editorial boards of four professional journals. He has published four books and over 50 articles about IFS. His books include Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual (with Frank Anderson, M.D. and Martha Sweezy, PhD), Internal Family Systems Therapy, Introduction to the Internal Family Systems Model, and The Mosaic Mind (with Regina Goulding), as well as Metaframeworks (with Doug Breunlin and Betty Karrer).

Eleanor Criswell

Eleanor Criswell received her Bachelor’s and Master’s from the University of Kentucky and her Doctorate from the University of Florida. She has been a professor of psychology at Sonoma State University since 1969 and has formerly been its Chairperson. She is the editor of the journal, Somatics, and the Director of the Novato Institute for Somatic Research and Training. As a counseling psychologist, she maintains a private practice in psychotherapy and somatics and is the author of Somatic Yoga and Somatics and Biofeedback.

Aftab Omer

Aftab Omer, PhD is the president of Meridian University which offers degree and professional programs globally, emphasizing the power of transformative learning. He is a sociologist, psychologist, developmentalist, and futurist. Raised in Pakistan, India, Hawaii, and Turkey, he was educated at the universities of M.I.T, Harvard and Brandeis. His publications have addressed the topics of transformative learning, dialogic capability, developmental power, cultural leadership, civil society, generative entrepreneurship, and the power of imagination. Aftab’s advising work focuses on team development and on leveraging the creative potentials of conflict, diversity, and complexity. Formerly the president of the Council for Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychologies, he is a Fellow of the International Futures Forum and the World Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Susan Shaw

The Chair of Meridian University's Board of Trustees, Susan Shaw has been a family therapist for over 35 years along with teaching and training therapists in family therapy and Narrative Practice. In 1995 she co-founded Narrative Training Associates, a non-profit group dedicated to organizing in the professional community for social justice. Her work has been instrumental in developing the North Bay Organizing Project (NBOP) where she served as Executive Director for over 12 years. Susan directed the development and organizing of the Graton Day Labor Center (Centro Laboral de Graton) from 2003 - 2008, and has served on its board since 2002. She was the recipient of the Activist of the Year Award from Community Action Partnership in 2007.

Rosa N.MA in Counseling Psychology StudentWatch Rosa N., run time 9:26

Curriculum

Course Modules

Week One

Entering the Forbidden Landscape: Seven Dimensions of Collective Trauma

Dissociation, Disembodiment, and Distraction
Developmental and Complex Trauma
Empathy Practices
Contemplative Practices

Week Two

Hearing the Lion’s Roar Again: Recovering Resilience and Courage After Trauma

Intergenerational Transmission of Interpersonal Experience
Restoring Memory and Cognition

Week Three

When Connection Breaks: The Neurobiology of Trauma

Character Persists: Habits and Patterns are Like Stuff
Physiological and Neurological Effects of Traumatic Stress
The Cage of Addictive Patterns
Somatic Practices Affect-Regulation Practices

Week Four

Our Longest Journey: From Scapegoating to Presencing Collective Wisdom

Projection, Splitting, and the Need for Enemies

Week Five

We are Different, We are One: Race, Gender and Culture

The Dialectics of Repression and Oppression
Systemic Institutionalization of Gender, Racial, Ethnic, and Economic-based Oppression
Evolution, Development, and Dissociation
Social Fields and Trans-generational Trauma

Week Six

We are Born Artists: Social Artistry and Transforming Trauma

The Aesthetics of Healing and Practice of Reconciliation
Restorative Justice Practices
Reconciliation as Transformative Healing
Conflict Transformation Practices
Accountability Practices

Week Seven

Reimagining the Rules: The Power of Myth, Ritual and Story

Cultural Leadership and Social Healing
Refinding the Transgressive Imagination
Engaging and Embodying Archetypes
Narrative Practices and Active Hope

Online Course Format

Course Structure

Seven-week online course through October 31, 2021
Six live 75-minute Zoom sessions with faculty held Wednesdays at 9:00 am PT (Pacific Time) and recorded for participants who cannot join every session live
Resources, networking, and emergent community outcomes
Content and collaboration via Meridian's social learning platform

Course Schedule

Course begins asynchronously via the Pivot collaboration platform, participants begin engaging with course resources and activities
September 22 at 9 am PT - First live course session
September 29 at 9 am PT - Second live course session
October 6 at 9 am PT - Third live course session
October 13 at 9 am PT - Fourth live course session
October 20 at 9 am PT - Fifth live course session
October 27 at 9 am PT - Sixth live course session
October 31 - Course ends, participants continue engagement via learning platform’s social group

Course Fees

$250, including the synchronous course video calls (with recordings), online learning platform access, participation in the course learning community, plus course resources and written activities.

Accreditation

Meridian University is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) - a higher education accreditor recognized by the United States Department of Education. WASC is also the accreditor for Stanford University, UCLA, and the University of California at Berkeley.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is an Online Course?

Meridian's online courses are conducted via the University's own learning platform. Our online courses promote community learning, through strong interactive engagement with fellow students and faculty as well as live video sessions with faculty.

Q: What technology do I need to take an online course?

You will need an email account, a high-speed internet connection, and access to a computer, iOS or Android device. If you are planning to attend the course video calls live, you will need a webcam and microphone for your device. (Course video calls are conducted with participants video-enabled.)

Q: Do I need to be online at certain times for class?

Live 75-min video sessions with faculty and fellow students will be conducted throughout the course. Each week's live video call will be recorded and posted on the course platform. Video presentations, readings, discussions and learning activities will be accessible asynchronously and may be completed on participants' own schedule. Course resources and recordings will remain available up to 30 days after the close of the course.

Q: What is Meridian's refund policy?

Full refunds are available until two (2) days before the course begins, by request via email.

Q: Do I need to apply to Meridian graduate program to take this online course?

You do not need to apply to a Meridian graduate degree program to take this online course. This course is one of Meridian's open-enrollment courses.

Q: How can I reach course support?

The course support team will be available to assist from start to finish. Please send your questions/requests/issues to openenrollment@meridianuniversity.edu

Q: Who will teach each session?

Convening faculty generally lead each live session. Contributing faculty typically contribute in one of the live course sessions. Course resources address the work of both convening and contributing faculty.

Q: Is financial aid available for this public online course?

Meridian has institutional and federal financial aid options for our graduate degree programs. This open enrollment course does not have financial aid or payment plans available.

Transforming Collective Trauma: