ALLIANT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Course Proposal
Description of Content:
This workshop responds to a pervasive hunger for meaning, for belonging to place, and for service in our time of global crisis. With an evening introduction and a daylong intensive, Dr. Plotkin introduces a new ecopsychology of human development that reveals how fully and creatively we can mature when wild nature guides us. Bill’s book, Nature and the Human Soul, provides a visionary model for the human life span, one that is rooted in the cycles and qualities of the natural world. His blueprint for individual development ultimately yields a strategy for genuine cultural transformation.
During this weekend, participants will explore eight stages of human life, paying particular attention to the developmental tasks of the psychological of early/ late adolescence and early adulthood. Each stage will be defined by a way of joining the human to nature, with the challenges and benefits of each stage. Participant’s will explore how we can progress from our current egocentric, aggressively competitive, consumer society to an ecocentric one that is sustainable, cooperative, just, and deeply imaginative. The workshop will provide participants the opportunity to improve their capacity to assess eco-developmental deficits and to design effective ecotherapeutic interventions.
Course Goals and Objectives:
Schedule (11 hours CEU workshop):
PLEASE NOTE: You may register for the Saturday night lecture or BOTH the Saturday night lecture and the Sunday Intensive. Those who are seeking CEUs must register for BOTH events. SUNDAY WILL INCLUDE A DRIVE TO THE NATURE SETTING (CAR-POOLING ARRANGEMENTS AVAILABLE AT REGISTRATION). PARTICIPANTS SHOULD WEAR HIKING SHOES AND OUTDOOR-CLOTHES LAYERS, BRING SACK LUNCH, LIQUIDS, AND A JOURNAL. Dinner will be provided. If you require a vegetarian and/or vegan meal, or other special meal accommodations, please contact victoria.pak@gmail.com .
Workshop participants will, at the completion of this activity, be able to:
Ability to identify and differentiate the developmental tasks of the psychological (as opposed to chronological) stages of early and late adolescence
Improved capacity to assess eco-developmental deficits —quite common in Western society — and facilitate "remedial" practices (experiential activities that support people to become fully human)
Enhanced ability to design effective ecotherapeutic interventions
A deepened understanding of cross-cultural practices for locating and developing self, and their essential differences from psychotherapy/ecotherapy interventions.
Feb 28, 2009
6:00pm ............Wine and Cheese Reception
6:30 – 8:30pm ..Overview of the Eco-centric Developmental Wheel
8:30 - 9:00pm .. Discussion wrap up
Mar 1, 2009
8:00am Registration: Introduction to comparative ........................ developmental practices
10:00am .Guided nature walk: Tasks of eco-centric stages
12:30pm Lunch
1:30pm Guided nature walk: Nature-aligned human .........................development
2:30pm Solo nature walk: Discovery practices and .........................individual journaling
4:30pm Rejoin group: Assessing eco-developmental .........................deficits
5:00pm Dinner
6:00pm Post workshop discussion: Assessing .........................eco-developmental deficits (cont.) and ........................designing effective ecotherapeutic interventions
7:00pm Workshop wrap up
Brief Bio:
Bill Plotkin, PhD, is a depth psychologist, wilderness rites guide, ecotherapist, and author. As the founder and president of Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute, he has, since 1981, guided thousands of people through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision quest. Previously, he has been a research psychologist (studying non-ordinary states of consciousness), professor of psychology, psychotherapist, rock musician, professional river runner, and mountain-bike racer. His doctorate in psychology is from the University of Colorado at Boulder. While a psychology professor at SUNY-Albany in 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack peak, Bill experienced a “call to adventure” that lead him to abandon academia in search of his true calling. He is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (New World Library, 2003) and Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (New World Library, 2008).