Introduction

Nations, just like individuals and relationships, need help processing their history—especially their traumatic history. History doesn’t ever go away, and its ghosts and remnants are lived out in individuals and families. Unprocessed trauma tends to replay itself. We are seeing the rise of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim feelings as well as anti-Semitism throughout Europe. Xenophobia (the fear of those different from us) is increasing rapidly; the number of hate crimes is growing; new discriminatory laws are passed, and there is an escalating sense of an “us” versus “them” mentality.

Our work aims at providing tools to work with conflicts rooted in history. This includes such traumatic past events as World War II, unprocessed trauma and issues around the Holocaust, or difficult times like the transition of countries after the fall of the Soviet Union. We want to work on healing the relationships between various groups and countries burdened with difficult histories. Many of us carry the traumatic experiences of our parents and grandparents buried deep within us because this history has shaped and drastically changed the lives of so many of them. Our goal is to learn how to heal the collective memory and thus build a real, genuine connection between various groups and nations.

We are interested in working on tension and conflict in order to make violence an obsolete method of problem-solving. We also aim to explore the power of nonviolent methods of conflict facilitation.  Therefore, we want to provide tools that allow people to deal with strong emotions—ones hidden in the background which didn’t have the chance to come out yet and the repression of which causes a cycle of silence and depression. We want to create a space where all voices, positions, and feelings can be expressed.

Our work is based on the Worldwork seminars. Worldwork is the group aspect of Process Oriented Psychology (also known as Processwork), a psychological approach created by A. Mindell. Processwork is a holistic approach of working with individuals, relationships, and systems in various areas. It attempts to find meaning in past and present experiences without condemning them as solely negative. The method assumes that there is something meaningful hidden in everything that happens in our lives. The central principle of Processwork is that if we observe the world with awareness, we can facilitate different processes of nature and make way for whatever is supposed to happen. Approaching dreamlike processes with openness and curiosity can lead to new insights, as well as create energetic shifts vital to our development.

Aims 

• To understand the role of history in shaping individual processes (our work, personal, and family life, including trans-generational trauma and chronic symptoms).

• To understand how the “ghosts of history” influence conflicts in groups, between nations and individuals.

• To learn methods to spot the ghosts of history in the “here and now” in working with individuals and groups.

• To work with national/ group stereotypes: how to raise awareness, react against, unfold and find the hidden messages.

• To learn group facilitation of processes with history in the background

• To develop skills and methods to work with trauma

• To learn to understand and work with historical trauma and contemporary problems (ex., immigration, terrorism, fundamentalism) on various levels: individual/ group/society; Consensus reality/ Dreamland / Essence

• To become fluid in facilitating relationship conflicts on different levels.

Recipients

This is a specific training for human rights, peace, and political activists, facilitators, organizational development practitioners, psychotherapists, and other interested people worldwide. The training is open to everybody interested in wanting to integrate this approach into their professional field and/or use it for personal development.

Theory and Methods

Methods of political, social, and psychotherapeutic work will be combined and connected based on Worldwork. Processwork is a holistic methodology working with individuals, relationships, groups, and systems in very different areas, attempting to find meaning in every experience. The central principle is to follow what is happening with awareness. Worldwork, as one application of Processwork, offers methods for nonviolent conflict resolution and includes concepts such as diversity, "Deep Democracy," self-perception, “participant facilitator,” "Eldership," and concepts of dealing with power, rank and privileges as well as with hot spots, trauma, and accountability. 

Application and Admission

To be admitted to the Certificate program, submit a written application that contains your interest, aims and individual situation, and reasons for wanting to join the program. After submitting the application with a non-refundable fee of $75, the trainers will discuss the application. As an applicant, you may be asked additional questions. The trainers decide about participation individually. If accepted, there will also be a $250 administrative fee to help cover the costs of the program.

Program Costs 

The costs of the program are different for participants from different economic zones.

Basically, the costs you need to consider are these:

• Registration fee

• Costs of 6 seminars (seminar fee, travel, and accommodation)

• Therapy and supervision hours – 15 sessions

Requirements  

• Participation in 6 Healing History seminars

• 15 hours of personal work/ supervision

• Healing History project

Systems

As a Certificate program student, you choose an advisor (from the list), and together you create a learning plan.  It consists of the following:

• The list of seminars attended / to be attended

• The plan for using 15 sessions between personal growth and supervision based on the following:

a. Identifying areas of needed personal work (ex., historical/ political aspects of personal issues, own trauma, family and cultural patterns, large group identifications, et cetera; aiming at developing awareness about who you are as a facilitator

b. Identifying needs for support around your final project

• Final project

Within the training, you will develop a project that helps you to apply your learning into your life and keep being in dialogue with your community, organization, society, and world. This can be an open forum, a seminar, a special family gathering, an art project, et cetera. The development of the project will be accompanied and supervised by a chosen mentor. You need to write a short essay about the project, your ideas, how and where you want to develop and apply them, your interests/motivation, edges and learning as well as the methods you are using. You will also be asked to prepare a short piece of information about your project for our website.

Format

During the training, you will participate in at least 6 Healing History seminars offered in different countries that will also give you a chance to understand different cultures and to learn about their perspective of history, cultural habits, patterns, and edges, and how this is entangled within Europe and the world. During these seminars, there will be slots of personal supervision to work on issues that might come up.

The seminars will be given in a circular mode; the topics repeated after each round is finished.  You can start at any point. You need to attend at least 6 seminars in order to complete the program.  Introduction to Healing History will be given more often than other topics as a possibility for more people to learn the basics and to fill in the missing parts for those who start the program at any other point.

The six required seminars include:

• Two seminars on Healing Trauma

• Two seminars on Transforming Conflicts

• One seminar on Applications of Healing History Tools to Systems and Fields

• One seminar on Healing History, the Earth, and Climate Change

• One seminar on Getting off the Wheel of Trauma and History

Content  

Each seminar includes basic methods of group facilitation.  We provide theory and basic concepts about “group process” as well as “inner work.” Inner work is a central method of Processwork to develop an awareness of the field and how issues in the outer world are reflected in the inner realm. We all carry our personal and collective history inside us. With inner work exercises and with small and large group processes, we explore how history has shaped us and affects our lives today. The goal is to develop awareness about inner patterns such as “inner oppression” and free ourselves from the ghosts of history in order to connect with our deeper selves and find a place from where we can facilitate current world issues. Identifying unhealed parts of history within current world situations, such as the refugee flow, we will apply and reflect our learning. Each seminar is unique due to place and group of participants: through deep encounters, we learn from each other and co-create each event together.

Healing Trauma

Two of the seminars are focused on trauma work. We explore tools crucial for transforming patterns of frozenness, helplessness, and revenge in order to reconcile with ourselves and in relationship with others. Whether our family roots are grounded in the side of victims or offenders, the unresolved collective trauma often keeps us in a cycle of silence and depression that can lead to revenge and violence.

With inner work, dyad, and group exercises, we will identify the dynamics of power, rank, and oppression within ourselves and collectively in order to facilitate these dynamics within our family and larger groups that we belong to. We also practice community healing through listening to our stories and sharing emotions. The goal is to heal the wounds, reconnect with our strength, develop awareness about national and group stereotypes, and become fluid in facilitating relationship and group conflicts.

Transforming Conflicts

These seminars focus on learning and practicing tools that help us to deal with conflicts in our relationships, workplaces, families, and communities. We also learn about working with situations of extreme conflict, such as war, violence, terrorism, and fundamentalism. Special tools will be taught in terms of working with strong emotions and the heat of conflict in order to make violence an obsolete method and create a safe space. This includes awareness about escalation and de-escalation signals as well as developing fluidity about one’s own attitudes, roles, and styles. We will explore and train these methods within our group and apply them into the regions of the world we are working in.

We will also learn how to work with outer and inner conflict internally: to ease the outer tension by working on the tension that we hold inside. The seminars include intuitive and sentient methods of working with conflicts. Beyond the topics, tools, and interventions we have studied, we will apply new methods that help us develop detachment, wisdom, compassion, and empathy in order to make changes sustainable.

Application of Healing History Tools to Systems and Fields

In this seminar, we will focus on how to apply our learning into our families, communities, organizations, political parties, and governments, as well as to facilitate and work on healing history between groups and nations. We will explore different levels of the practical details, the emotional field, and the larger system in which our actions take place in order to help us in bringing this work into the world and implement our projects.

You will get a chance to present your research and get 721-feedback. 721-feedback is an interactive multi-leveled approach that unites the awareness of various dimensions of experience. It includes not only practical learning but also the hidden dreaming background, which is crucial to any learning situation. The goal is to move into community learning and into action of world change.

Healing History, the Earth and Climate Change 

The Earth is like our bodies. It absorbs and carries all the wars, the trauma, at the spots they occur. Also, the Earth is suffering from abuse and neglect from humans in the form of climate change and the climate crisis. In this seminar, we learn methods to work at the essence, dream, and consensus reality level to build a sustainable relationship with the Earth.

Getting Off the Wheel of History

In this seminar, we focus on Healing History as a path of freedom and enlightenment for the individual and the world. Once we heal our history, we develop a kind of spiritual and psychological rank that, when used consciously, can help other people work through their trauma to a place of being free from the symptoms of trauma. Tremendous growth, integration, and empowerment can come from the agony of history. We learn to move from denying our history to processing our history to being free of our history to helping others get free. Part of breaking the chain of history is processing the trauma, and another part is getting free of the trauma.

Note: This is a certificate of learning stating what courses the participant attended.  It is not a certification to practice this work.