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The Inner Work of Age Continues: Becoming a Good Ancestor

December 2-4, 2022

3 Day Live Workshop | Offered Live via Zoom

Program Description

“Spring and Winter are both present in the moment. The young leaf and the old leaf are really one. My feet touch deathlessness, and my feet are yours. Walk with me now. Let us enter the dimension of oneness and see the cherry tree blossom in Winter.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Overview

This symposium is an invitation to look back on our rich, long lives, contemplate our gains and losses, and distill the lessons we’ve learned. It’s also an invitation to look forward to becoming an Elder, step across the threshold into a new archetype, and cultivate a new stage of awareness. We will move from the Vision, through the Journey, toward the Legacy of an Elder.

With gratitude in one hand and grief in the other, we can hear the call to sacred service, bringing the boons from our heroic journeys to serve the common good in our later years. We can build bridges between the inner and outer worlds, between the soul within and the soul of the world. We can also build bridges between the generations, both past and future.

With the climate crisis, we are in a collective rite of passage. Today we are awakening from the trance of denial. We are called to bring the moral voice of the Elder to do our part for all living things. Do you hear the call? Day 3 will give you guidance to leave a beneficent legacy and become a good ancestor.

The themes and practices in this event are based on the award-winning book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul by Connie Zweig, Ph.D.

Keynote Speakers (in Order of Appearance):

  • Dennis Slattery
  • Jean Shinoda Bolen
  • Ken Wilber
  • Bill McKibben

Featured Presenters (in Order of Appearance):

  • Connie Zweig
  • Fanny Brewster
  • Rob Hopcke
  • Will Linn
  • Roger Walsh
  • Harry (Rick) Moody
  • Barbara Aston
  • David Chernikoff
  • Helen Lavretsky
  • Thomas Doherty
  • Jeanine Canty
  • Janet Lewis
  • Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg

Conference Outline with Session Descriptions

Friday, Day 1: The Vision: From Midlife Hero/Heroine to Wise Elder

Becoming an Elder: A Rite of Passage: Connie Zweig

This presentation introduces this missing but deeply needed rite of passage. It will set the context for letting go of our midlife, heroic striving and crossing a threshold into a new archetype. And it will present the inner work needed to make this transition: breaking through denial, life review, completing unfinished emotional and spiritual business, finding a spiritual practice, and leaving a legacy.

Keynote: Aging as a Hero’s Journey: Dennis Slattery

Joseph Campbell gained wide popularity with The Hero With a Thousand Faces. He laid out a three-stage journey of Departure, Initiation, and Return. Christopher Vogler expanded it in The Writer’s Journey to serve as a guide for writers. What is the aging hero’s journey? This presenter proposes a new mythic geometry of the spiral, with “nodal moments” in the hero’s journey as he or she pilgrimages into Elderhood, a deeper, more qualitatively inward version of aging. No longer merely a senior, this Hero ripens into Elderhood.

Keynote: On Becoming a Wise and Juicy Crone: Jean Shinoda Bolen

Women after midlife can trust their own instincts, choose a path with heart, and speak the truth with compassion. Crones are fierce about what matters to them—and they can change the world.

Aging While Black: Ageism and Racism: Fanny Brewster

The tradition within the Africanist cultural group is to develop and hold respect for Elders. This may be true of most cultural groups of color. But a radically different experience may occur when individuals of color are met with the ageism and racism of collective American society. What are the issues of being older and a person of color within our society? How do we provide more safety, love, and generosity to Elders so that they may age in grace?

Aging While LGBTQ: Ageism and Homophobia: Rob Hopcke

Shadow work is akin to developing a photo negative: What may appear dark and disorienting can be turned, sometimes, into clarity and direction. Those of us within the LGBTQ community are used to subverting homophobic projections onto us and dancing with the shadow, making the heteronormative bias an occasion for revolution and a celebration of freedom and fluidity. Can we queer folk do the same as we age? Can we borrow a page from our liberation playbook to make growing old a similar awakening of consciousness, personally and culturally?

Mythopoesis of Age: Personal, Cultural, Celestial Seasons of Life: Will Linn

This multi-media presentation will anchor our aging experience in nature, mythology, and the cosmos to expand our sense of self from personal to archetypal to spiritual.

What is Wisdom? A Conversation with Roger Walsh and Connie Zweig
We are currently in a race between wisdom and catastrophe. Connie will be in conversation with Roger Walsh to explore the nature of wisdom, which has long been regarded as the fruit of a life well-lived. Key questions concern the relationship between aging and human virtues, such as wisdom, maturity, and spirituality, as well as how these can be cultivated both individually and collectively.

Saturday, Day 2: The Journey: The Inner Work of Age and the Promise of a Late Renaissance

Breaking through Denial and Meeting the Inner Ageist: Connie Zweig

The first step in the inner work of age is breaking though denial and encountering a typically unconscious part of us that celebrates “young” and rejects “old” in ourselves or others, thereby colluding with ageist stereotypes. We will explore internalized ageism and its consequences for individual well-being and for society. It’s only after we’ve broken free of denial that we can hear the call to become an Elder.

Keynote: A Call to Grow Up, Clean Up, Wake Up, Show Up: Ken Wilber

This talk is a call to expand our personal development alongside our expanding longevity: Grow Up by moving through the stages of emotional maturation. Clean Up by doing shadow-work. Wake Up by doing spiritual practice. And Show Up by serving all living beings.

Dreams of Life Review in Film and Literature: Harry (Rick) Moody

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said that life as like a tapestry: We spend the first half of life weaving the fabric and then, in the second half, we turn it over to see how the threads are interconnected. This process of turning over the carpet and making meaning of the patterns is life review. This presentation will explore how life review happens spontaneously in the dream images and narratives of older adults. The speaker will use examples from film and literature.

Healing Past Memories to Live More Fully Now: A Native Elder’s Perspective: Barbara Aston
How can we free ourselves of painful memories and be more fully present now? How can we break the chain of intergenerational victim/perpetrator patterns, freeing our ancestors in the spirit world and our descendants in the future, thereby transforming our legacy?

We all have been hurt or betrayed by others, and the memories of these wounds may shape our experience as Elders. The hurt may have occurred in a close personal relationship or in a group that was persecuted or “othered” in some way. As a Native American Elder, the presenter will describe a multidimensional healing pathway for both personal heartbreak and intergenerational wounds.

No Regrets: A Buddhist Perspective: David Chernikoff
All of us hope to reach the end of our lives without feeling full of regret, without feeling “I wish I had…” or “I wish I hadn’t…” or “That wasn’t the life I really wanted to live.” This talk will offer spiritual teachings that enable us to live fully today, so that, when our time comes to die, we can complete our lives with authentic feelings of gratitude, peace, and love.

Mind-Body Practices to Enhance Memory, Health, and Mood: A Yoga Perspective:  Helen Lavretsky

This presentation describes the latest scientific findings about tai chi, yoga, and meditation and their beneficial effects on older adults, including improved mood and memory. It demonstrates a particular yoga practice that has been shown to improve mood, resilience, cognition, memory, and brain neuroplasticity, as well as reverse cellular aging, reduce inflammation, and improve antiviral protection.

Synchronicity and Death: Rob Hopcke      
In his books on synchronicity, Rob Hopcke explored the liminal quality of meaningful coincidences and how such events occur with surprising frequency at times of transition in our lives. There is no more profound and archetypal transition than death, whether the passing of loved ones or our own mortality.  This session, rich with stories, will explore how synchronistic events around death can guide us on our journeys through bereavement and mortality to gain a precious wisdom.

Closing: Inner Work to Outer Work: Connie Zweig

We close the day by linking the inner work of age to service or activism in the world. As we bring an Elder’s life experience, resources, spiritual awareness, and precious time to the pressing issues of our era, we can begin to experience service as spiritual practice. We can look inward at our strengths and shadow issues; we can look outward at a world that needs the moral voice of the Elder. We can move beyond ego to explore an identity that’s interconnected with all living things.

Sunday, Day 3: The Legacy: Aging, Climate, and Becoming a Good Ancestor

Building a Movement of Earth Elders: Connie Zweig

The Climate Crisis in An Aging Society: A Conversation with Harry (Rick) Moody and Connie Zweig

Globally, the 60+ population, a “continent” of a billion people, is the fastest growing age group. In the U.S., there are more than 54 million Americans 65 or older; in 2050, there will be more than 85 million. What are the interconnections between an aging population and climate change? Is the new longevity part of the problem or part of the solution? Will Elders suffer more than others from extreme weather events? How can Elders, who may feel some responsibility for the climate crisis, take meaningful action now? What is our legacy in this context?

Discovering your Environmental Identity and Sustainable Self: Thomas Doherty
This presentation will introduce the concept of environmental identity, a useful tool for all ages and a key resource for Elders and would-be Elders. Building on environmental identity, Thomas will discuss diversity and multicultural competency related to people’s eco values and activism. He will explore the importance of moving from a position of “climate hostage” to “climate cosmopolitan,” one who believes that all human beings, regardless of their differences, belong to a single community. He will share insights about coping and reclaiming a sense of meaning during the climate crisis, based on his clinical work and research.

From I to We: Collective Narcissism and Climate Justice: Jeanine Canty

While it is common in our society to identify individual narcissists, few of us recognize how our collective narcissism has resulted in extreme damage to the planet, as well as to people. We will look at collective narcissism and its relationship to planetary injustice, including racism, and contemplate the call to move from an egocentric to an ecological self.

Climate Anxiety in the Therapy Room: Janet Lewis     

As climate reality unfolds, mental health is at risk. Clinicians face patients of all ages who feel a range of distressing feelings, such as powerlessness and despair, now called eco-anxiety and climate grief, even futurelessness. Professionals in the emerging field of climate mental health are learning to create structures of support to help patients contain difficult emotions and maladaptive defenses, so that they can both face the truth and feel empowered to act. This is not cultivating conventional resilience.  Dr. Lewis says, “I don’t believe that works with climate change because there’s no going back.  There’s no return to ‘normal.’”

Good Grief: From Climate Anxiety to Action: Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg
Good Grief Network facilitates peer-to-peer support groups that help individuals and communities build resilience by creating spaces where people can process their heavy feelings about the climate crisis and explore practical ways to reorient their lives toward meaningful efforts. This presentation will help people trace a path from grief and anxiety toward collective, sustainable action.

Keynote: Third Act: Calling All Elder Activists:  Bill McKibben

Experienced Americans are the fastest-growing part of the population: 10,000 people a day turn 65. That means there’s no way to make the urgently needed changes to protect our planet unless we bring the power of this group into play. As a generation, we have unprecedented skills and resources. Washington and Wall Street must listen because we vote, and we hold a huge share of the nation’s assets, perhaps an unjust share. Many of us have kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids, profound reasons to work for our habitat. For this reason, Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, is now organizing Boomers to become Earth activists.

Closing: From Elder to Ancestor: The Arc of the Soul Through Time: Connie Zweig   

CE Learning Objectives

  • Identify ways in which viewing the aging process as a rite of passage offers a psychological path for working through areas of denial and unresolved emotional stress
  • Differentiate between the psychological orientation of a “senior” as compared to an “elder” with regards to ego and Jung’s articulation of the Self.
  • Identify three factors that cause greater psychological issues in people of color as part of their aging process
  • Identify the psychological dynamics behind the social prejudice of ageism
  • Identify intergenerational victim/perpetrator patterns and describe a multi-dimensional pathway for working with this trauma.
  • Describe two mind-body practices used to prevent mood and cognitive disorders in older adults
  • Define the neurobiological mechanisms of response to the mind-body practices.
  • Define Jung’s concept of synchronicity and learn how to identify and work with the synchronistic events involved in the death and dying process
  • Identify the unconscious defenses that lead to a denial of the climate crisis in older adults
  • Recognize the signs of environmental trauma for aging adults and learn to access sources of environmental resilience and well-being.

Online Symposium Timeline

Day 1: Friday, Dec. 2, 11:30-5:00 

The Vision: From Midlife Hero/Heroine to Wise Elder

11:30 AM              Welcome and Introduction

11:40-12:00        Connie Zweig: Becoming an Elder

12:05-12:45        Dennis Slattery: Aging as a Hero’s Journey

12:45-1:25           Jean Shinoda Bolen: On Becoming a Wise and Juicy Crone

1:25-1:55              Joint Q&A (25 mins)

2:00-2:15             BREAK 15 mins

2:17-2:45              Fanny Brewster: Aging While Black

2:50–3:20           Rob Hopcke: Aging while LGBTQ

3:20-3:45              Joint Q&A (25 mins)

3:45 – 4:00          BREAK

4:00 – 4:30          Will Linn: Mythopoesis of Age: Personal, Cultural, Celestial Seasons of Life

4:30-4:55              Connie in Conversation w/ Roger Walsh, MD: What is Elder Wisdom?

4:55-5:00              Connie Zweig: Closing: Elder W/1000 Faces

 

Day 2: Saturday, Dec. 3, 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM

The Journey: The Inner Work of Age and the Promise of a Late Renaissance

10:00-10:20       Connie Zweig: Breaking through Denial and Meeting the Inner Ageist

10:30-11:10         Ken Wilber: A Call to Grow Up, Clean up, Wake up, Show up

11:10-11:30           Q&A

11:30 – 11:40       Break

11:40-12:10          Harry Rick Moody: Dreams of Life Review in Film and Literature

12:15-12:45          Barbara Aston: Healing Past Memories to Live More Fully Now

12:45-1:05:          Joint Q&A

1:00-1:45              LUNCH

1:45-2:15              David Chernikoff: No Regrets: A Buddhist Perspective

2:20-2:50            Helen Lavretsky, MD: Mind-Body Practices to Enhance Memory, Health, and Mood: A Yoga Perspective

2:55-3:25             Rob Hopcke: Synchronicity and Death

3:30-3:50            Joint Q&A for all three

3:50-4:00            Connie Zweig: Day 2 CLOSING: Inner Work to Outer Work: Elder Service as Spiritual Practice

 

Day 3: Sunday, Dec. 4, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM

The Legacy: Aging, Climate, and Becoming a Good Ancestor

9-9:15 am             Connie Zweig – introduction

9:15-9:40              Rick Moody: The Climate Crisis in an Aging Society

9:45- 10:10           Thomas Doherty: Discovering your Environmental Identity and Sustainable Self

10:15 – 10:40       Jeanine Canty: From I to We: Collective Narcissism and Climate Justice

10:40 – 10:50       BREAK

10:55 – 11:20        Janet Lewis: Climate Anxiety in the Therapy Room

11:25 – 11:45         Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg: Good Grief: From Climate Anxiety to Action

11:50 – 12:20       Bill McKibben: Third Act: Calling All Elder Activists

12:20 – 1:00     Q & A

1:00 – 1:30            Connie Zweig Closing: From Elder to Ancestor

Program Details

Dates

Friday, December 2nd: The Vision: From Midlife Hero/Heroine to Wise Elder
11:30am-5:00pm (Pacific Time)

Saturday, December 3rd: The Journey: The Inner Work of Age & The Promise of a Late Renaissance
10:00am-4:30pm

Sunday, December 4th: The Legacy: Aging, Climate Change, and Becoming a Good Ancestor
9:00am-1:00pm

Location: Online via Zoom
The link will be sent via email prior to the conference start date. Recordings will be available for viewing up to 90 days after the conference for paid attendees.

Rates

  • $225.00 Pacifica Student Rate
  • $275.00 Pacifica Alumni, Full Time Students & Senior Rate
  • $325.00 General Rate
  • $25.00 CECs (6 CEC hours)
    *Live attendance to the zoom sessions is required for verification of CEC hours. Please make sure that your Zoom account name matches the name of the attendee requesting CECs.

Program Testimonials

"The content and style of presentation of this remarkable conference on the spiritual aspect of aging & later life establishes a new genre in the field of Continuing Education for therapists. In addition to personal experience, all therapists deal with patients who may experience challenges regarding the issues of aging, fear of loss of control, sickness, and death, and this conference provides for therapists a spiritual toolbox for themselves and for helping their patients to progress through this heretofore neglected area of the life cycle. Since "none of us get out of this alive," a regular offering of this conference on "The Inner Work of Aging: Shifting From Role to Soul" seems as relevant and necessary for all therapists' continuing education as the other required areas of CE, such as Treatment of Anxiety & Depression, Child & Elder Abuse, Substance Abuse, Suicidality, etc."

William Flaxman, PhD, MFT

"Thank you for a wonderful, deep, informative, experientially moving retreat-continuing education program."

Dr. Ruth Fisher

"Thank you for such a moving, deeply meaningful, and significant offering."

Betsy Hall, Ph.D., LCSW (She, Her, Hers)

About the Teachers

Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D. has been teaching for 54 years, including in the Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of 30 volumes, including The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh; Harvesting Darkness: Essays on Literature, Myth, Film and Culture; Creases in Culture: Essays Toward a Poetics of Depth; Bridge Work: Essays on Mythology, Literature and Psychology; An Obscure Order: Reflections on Cultural Mythologies; The Way of Myth: Stories’ Subtle Wisdom. He coauthored Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit, which won the 2020 Nautilus Book Award in Creativity and Inspiration.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, internationally known speaker and author of The Tao of Psychology; Goddesses in Everywoman; Gods in Everyma; Ring of Power; Crossing to Avalon; Close to the Bone; Goddesses in Older Women; Crones Don’t Whine; The Millionth Circle; Like A Tree; Urgent Message From Mother; Moving Toward the Millionth Circle; and Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman. She is Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, past Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at U.C. San Francisco, and former board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She is a 2020-21 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree from Marquis Who’s Who.

Ken Wilber is known as the “Einstein of consciousness” for mapping reality and the full spectrum of advanced human development. He is founder of Integral philosophy, a “theory of everything” that embraces the truths of all the world’s great spiritual, scientific, and philosophical traditions, and of Integral Institute, formed in collaboration with 200 scholars in every field. He wrote 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, including Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; A Theory of Everything; Integral Life Practice; Integral Psychology; Integral Spirituality; and The Religion of Tomorrow. He also co-founded Integral Life, a social media-hub dedicated to sharing the Integral vision with the world-wide community.

Bill McKibben founded the first global grassroots climate campaign, 350.org. He helped launch the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion pulling out of oil, gas and coal. He is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 to work on climate and racial justice. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont and is a contributing writer to The New Yorker. In 2014 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize by the Swedish Parliament. He’s also won the Gandhi Peace Award and honorary degrees from 19 colleges. He has written more than a dozen books about the environment, including the bestseller The End of Nature and the new book The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened

Connie Zweig, Ph.D., is a retired therapist and coauthor of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow and author of Meeting the Shadow of Spirituality and a novel, A Moth to the Flame: The Life of Sufi Poet Rumi. Her new bestselling book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends her work on the Shadow into midlife and beyond and explores aging as a spiritual practice. It won the 2022 Nautilus Gold Award, 2021 American Book Fest Award, and 2021 Best Indie Book Award for inspirational non-fiction. Connie has been doing contemplative practices for more than 50 years. She is a wife, stepmother, and grandmother. After all these roles, she’s practicing the shift from role to soul.

Fanny Brewster, Ph.D., is a Jungian analyst and Professor at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her books include The Racial Complex: A Jungian Perspective on Culture and Race, and Racial Legacies: Jung, Politics, and Culture. Her poems have been published in various journals, and she is featured poet in Psychological Perspectives journal.

Robert H. Hopcke is a Jungian-oriented L.M.F.T. in private practice in Berkeley, California. He is author of the bestseller There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives and There are No Accidents–In Love And Relationships. His scholarly work includes Jung, Jungians and Homosexuality; Men’s Dreams, Men’s Healing; A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung; and The Persona: Where Sacred Meets Profane, as well as Living the Mysteries and a new translation of the Little Flowers of St. Francis.

Will Linn, Ph.D., is founder of mythouse.org and the General Education Department at Hussian College, Los Angeles, a leading film and performing arts school where he teaches myth, story, and philosophy. Will is a cast regular for the ZDF series, Myths: Great Mysteries of Humanity, appeared in two feature documentaries, Memory: Origins of Alien and The Taking, and created the Climate Bootcamp Certificate for Climate Reality and Harvard Alumni Association. He served at the Joseph Campbell Foundation and at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where be completed a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies. His KZSB radio series, Mythosophia, was nominated for a Peabody, and he co-hosts the Myth Salon, a monthly online community featuring speakers on myth and depth psychology.

Roger Walsh MD, Ph.D, DHL, is professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of California, where he researches contemplative practices, Integral philosophy, wisdom, and global crises. His books include Paths Beyond Ego (with Frances Vaughan), Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices, The World of Shamanism, and he edited a more recent collection, The World’s Great Wisdom. He is an authorized lama in Tibetan Buddhism and co-hosts the podcast Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit.

Harry (Rick) Moody, Ph.D., who goes by Rick, is retired Vice President for Academic Affairs with AARP and is currently Visiting Faculty at Fielding Graduate University and Tohoku University in Japan. He previously served as Director of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College and as Chairman of the Board of Elderhostel (now Road Scholar). He is author of The Five Stages of the Soul, co-author of Aging: Concepts and Controversies, and editor of the “Human Values in Aging” newsletter. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society on Aging. His forthcoming book, Climate Change in an Aging Society, will be published next year.

Barbara Aston is a citizen of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma and serves as a Faithkeeper for the Wandat Longhouse. She worked in higher education, providing leadership for Native American programs and served as liaison between the university leadership and tribes. Barbara has served as a Spiritual Director for twenty years, providing spiritual companionship to individuals from diverse faith traditions. She holds a Master of Jurisprudence in Indian Law and a Masters in Pastoral Studies. She recently completed training as a Certified Sage-ing Leader for Sage-ing International and is also pursuing training in dreamwork through the Haden Institute.

David Chernikoff, L.C.S.W., M.Div., is a meditation teacher, spiritual counselor, and life coach who taught psychology and meditation at Naropa University for many years. As former training director of the Spiritual Eldering Institute, now called Sage-ing International, he has taught conscious aging programs throughout the world. David is currently a guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Community of Colorado and has a private practice in Boulder. He is author of Life, Part Two: Seven Keys to Awakening with Purpose and Joy as You Age.

Helen Lavretsky, M.D., an integrative geriatric psychiatrist in Los Angeles, is a Professor In-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA. She leads federally funded research programs in geriatric depression and integrative mental health using mind-body interventions. She is a recipient of the Career Development award from NIMH and the NCCIH. She currently studies psychopharmacological treatment of geriatric depression, mild cognitive impairment, and the use of Tai Chi, yoga, and meditation for the treatment late-life mood and cognitive disorders. She is Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, and the Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Thomas Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical and environmental psychologist who has developed a specialty addressing people’s concerns about environmental issues and climate change. His publications on nature and mental health include “The Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change,” co-authored by Susan Clayton. Thomas is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), Past President of the Society for Environmental, Population and Conservation Psychology, and founding editor of the academic journal Ecopsychology. He founded one of the first eco-focused certificate programs for mental health counselors in the US at Lewis & Clark Graduate School, and he hosts the podcast Climate Change and Happiness.

Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg is a facilitator, lawyer, writer, and deeply-feeling animal. Sarah followed her passion for environmental activism and earned a J.D. with a Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law from Lewis & Clark Law School. She has focused her attention on environmental and human rights law, climate justice activism, introspective and body-based therapies, and community resilience-building. Sarah is Executive Director of Good Grief Network, where she helps people process painful feelings about the state of the world and reorient their lives toward meaningful action.

Jeanine M. Canty, Ph.D., is professor of transformative studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. A lover of nature, justice, and contemplative practice, her teaching intersects issues of social and ecological justice, ecopsychology, and the process of worldview expansion and change. She is both editor and contributor to the books Ecological and Social Healing: Multicultural Women’s Voices and Globalism and Localization: Emergent Approaches to Ecological and Social Crises. Her new book is Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet.

Janet L. Lewis, M.D., is Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester, a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, and co-chair of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry’s Climate Committee. She is in private practice in New York. She has given numerous presentations on climate mental health at annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association. She is published in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice and has authored climate papers in Psychodynamic Psychiatry and the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. She is currently involved in joint projects of the Climate Psychiatry Alliances and Climate Psychology Alliances of the UK and North America, including trainings for Climate Aware Therapists.

General Information

Location

Hosted Online

Cancellations

Cancellations 14 days or more prior to the program start date receive a 100% refund of program registrations. After 14 days, up to 7 days prior to the program start date, a 50% refund is available. For cancellations made less than 7 days of program start date, no refund is available.

Continuing Education Credit

This program meets the qualifications for 6 hours of continuing education credit for Psychologists through the California Psychological Association (PAC014) Pacifica Graduate Institute is approved by the California Psychological Association to provide continuing education for psychologists.  Pacifica Graduate Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content.  Full attendance is required to receive a certificate.

This course meets the qualifications for 6 hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.  Pacifica Graduate Institute is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (#60721) to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs.  Pacifica Graduate Institute maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content.  Full attendance is required to obtain a certificate.

For Registered Nurses through the California Board of Registered Nurses this conference meets qualifications of 6 hours of continuing education credit are available for RNs through the California Board of Registered Nurses (provider #CEP 7177).  Full attendance is required to obtain a certificate.

Pacifica Graduate Institute is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs.  Pacifica Graduate Institute maintains responsibility for each program and its content.  Full day attendance is required to receive a certificate.

Continuing Education Goal.  Pacifica Graduate Institute is committed to offering continuing education courses to train LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and LEPs to treat any client in an ethically and clinically sound manner based upon current accepted standards of practice.  Course completion certificates will be awarded at the conclusion of the training and upon participant’s submission of his or her completed evaluation.

CECs and Online Program Attendance: Participants requesting Continuing Education Credits (CECs) for Online programs must attend all live sessions (offered via Zoom) in order to receive CECs. Please make sure that your Zoom account name matches the name of the attendee requesting CECs.

Live attendance is mandatory at the following presentations:

Friday, December 2:

  • 11:40 AM – 12:00 PM: Connie Zweig: Becoming an Elder
  • 12:45 PM – 1:25 PM: Jean Shinoda Bolen: On Becoming a Wise and Juicy Crone
  • 2:15 PM – 2:45 PM: Fanny Brewster: Aging While Black
  • 2:50 PM – 3:20 PM: Rob Hopcke: Aging while LGBTQ
  • 4:30 PM – 4:55 PM: Connie in Conversation w/ Roger Walsh, MD: What is Elder Wisdom?

Saturday, December 3:

  • 10:00 AM – 10:20 AM: Connie Zweig: Breaking through Denial and Meeting the Inner Ageist
  • 1:45 PM – 2:15 PM: David Chernikoff: No Regrets: A Buddhist Perspective
  • 2:20 PM – 2:50 PM: Helen Lavretsky, MD: Mind-Body Practices to Enhance Memory, Health, and Mood: A Yoga Perspective
  • 2:55 PM – 3:25 PM: Rob Hopcke: Synchronicity and Death
  • 3:50 PM – 4:00 PM: Connie Zweig: Day 2 CLOSING: Inner Work to Outer Work: Elder Service as Spiritual Practice

Sunday, December 4:

  • 9:45 AM – 10:10 AM: Thomas Doherty: Discovering your Environmental Identity and Sustainable Self
  • 10:55 AM – 11:20 AM: Janet Lewis: Climate Anxiety in the Therapy Room
  • 12:25 PM – 12:55 PM: Connie Zweig Closing: From Elder to Ancestor

For additional information, including travel, cancellation policy, and disability services, please visit our general information section.

Registration Details

December 2-4, 2022

Number of Presenters: 18 Presenters

Class Length: 3 Days.

CECs: 6

Registrations are now closed

805.969.3626 | retreat@pacifica.edu

Participants requesting Continuing Education Credits (CECs) for Online programs must attend all live sessions (offered via Zoom) in order to receive CECs. Please make sure that your Zoom account name matches the name of the attendee requesting CECs.