Acknowledging and Reconnecting

Acknowledging and Reconnecting

An online interactive 3-day Workshop facilitated by Donata Schoeller

October 13-15, 2023
Friday and Saturday 11:00am - 3:00pm New York time (4 hours*)
Sunday 11:00am - 2:00pm New York time (3 hours)
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DESCRIPTION
Gendlin’s principle of “interaction first” and his experiential approach to meaning implicitly question demarcation lines of what we consider “rational” or not by radically challenging how we unthinkingly separate and divide things. His philosophical work supports a shift in basic patterns of thinking and human self-understanding that can be uncomfortable indeed, exactly by re-connecting us to what dualist ways of thinking have separated. At the same time, Process-Model concepts – together with the experiential-embodied practices of Focusing and TAE – re-open channels of perceiving the vibrant, vulnerable entanglement of life we are part of down to our very cells.

In this workshop, Donata invites us on a journey of realization in which we:

1. Acknowledge our entanglement within an environmental crisis that goes right through the way we think, live, and imply, in order to face our ecological footprint and our being part of overpowering, environmentally destructive systems. 
    
2. Reconnect ourselves to the non-man-made energy within our interactional bodies by focusing on environmental experiences, our relations to the living process within our bodies, plants, animals, and landscapes as sources of courage and creative steps. Reconnecting is a way to recharge – against all odds and feelings of hope- and helplessness, enabling transformative initiatives that might be close at hand. 
    
3. Explore how the foundational terms in Eugene Gendlin’s A Process Model help us through the moves of acknowledging and reconnecting. Gendlin’s philosophy and practices strengthen both capacities, thus preventing despair or paralysis. 
    
4. Deliberately experiment and investigate experiences that do not make sense within linguistic divisions between “humans” and “nature,” “body” and “environment,” “thinking” and “feeling”, to name but a few decisive cuts.

Many of us would consider it “silly” to introduce ourselves to plants, for instance. Feeling “silly” when having or speaking-from non-habitual experiences of a more-than-human world might however be worth exploring. Perhaps “feeling silly,” “feeling embarrassed” or “feeling confused” connect to patterns of thinking/acting we need to seriously re-think today? Throughout this workshop, we will always again bear and hold the felt tension between a rationally clear-cut world and the sometimes rather crazy experience of body-environmental intricacy. Let’s pause together, when this happens, and grope for words to explore the social, political and pedagogical implications we sense when habitual mental frameworks shift in order to make sense of experience.

PREREQUISITES
Some Focusing experience is needed as a condition of participation, but registrants do not need experience with philosophy.

FORMAT
We use Zoom videoconferencing for our online classes. You will need to have a computer/mobile device. Calling in by phone is also possible but not preferred. This workshop will be held in Zoom meeting format and breakout rooms will be utilized (breakout rooms are not recorded). 

ABOUT YOUR FACILITATOR
Donata Schoeller is a philosopher who teaches at the Universities of Koblenz and Iceland. She wrote her PhD on Meister Eckhart. Her Habilitation (a second PhD necessary for the tenure track in the German speaking world) is based and inspired by many years of research of Gendlin’s philosophy. She is the academic director of the interdisciplinary program "Training in Embodied Critical Thinking, in which five universities participate. The program is funded by the European Erasmus + Funds for Strategic Partnership in Higher Education. Donata Schoeller has published extensively on Gendlin’s philosophy. With Christiane Geiser, she has also translated A Process Model into German. In close collaboration with Eugene Gendlin and Neil Dunaetz, she has written a first introduction to this oeuvre. She is a Focusing trainer giving year long courses in Switzerland. As a TAE-teacher she is invited internationally to teach at Universities and Academies. She has three daughters and lives in Switzerland and Germany. For more information, see donataschoeller.com

Registration Policies

Regular price $265  Modified price $190  *Lowest price $115

Three tier pricing. We welcome you to select the level right for you, while reminding you that if you have a reliable means of support and live in a country with a strong economy, we ask that you pay the regular price. By choosing the highest amount you are capable of paying you help make the sliding scale possible. Thank you! 

*Note: if the lowest price is not affordable for you, assistance might be available from our General Scholarship Fund or our DEI Fund. Please write to [email protected] to inquire.

Refunds A full refund minus a $15 administrative fee for cancellations 14 days before the start date. Cancellations less than 14 days before the start date are nonrefundable. The International Focusing Institute reserves the right to cancel or re-schedule for insufficient enrollment or for other unanticipated reasons. In such cases you will be given a choice of applying your tuition to future programs, or having the full enrollment fee returned to you.

TIFI reserves the right to cancel, change and alter the program if necessary. Participants authorize TIFI to use their name, statements and likeness without charge, for promotional purposes in publications, advertising, video, web, new media, or other formats.

By registering for this course with the Institute, and in consideration of the right and opportunity to participate in and contribute to the Institute’s classes, for the purposes of its control of all video and/or audio recordings thereof pertaining to uses serving our purposes and goals, in enrolling in this session you acknowledge and agree to the Institute’s ownership of all rights in such classes, including all rights under copyright therein.  In no circumstance shall any portion or clip posted or displayed exceed 3 minutes in duration.  If you plan to use, post or display any portion or clips of these recordings, including posting these to a website or to a social media platform or portal, you agree that you will seek and obtain the prior approval of the Institute.

For more information:

Contact Elizabeth at [email protected] or (845) 480-5111.