Professor Todd DuBose
Into the Paths Where No One Goes:
Therapeutics and the Taboo, the Extreme and the Impossible
An international online workshop delivered direct from Chicago over 3 half-days
Thur 7, Fri 8 and Sat 9 NOV 2024
Introduction
Therapoetics is the hermeneutical-phenomenological practice of heeding lived meaning. Heeding is more than just hearing or listening; it is discerning and taking in what matters to those seeking our care regarding their lived situations. Sometimes what is meaningful is explicitly said or shown, sometimes it is pre-reflective, sometimes it is inconspicuous. Heeding is neither correcting what is deficient, nor translating symptoms into conclusive interpretations. We simply companion with the other and follow phenomena of concern wherever they take us; the therapoet resides in a clearing where what shows itself can be just as it is.
Workshop Overview
In this workshop, we will explore just how open we really are in a quest to discover our capacity to reside in the clearing of very hard places. What happens when what shows itself takes us into the unwanted clearings of the taboo, the extreme, or the impossible?
Day 1 – Introduction and The Taboo
We’ll start by readying ourselves for the trip down paths that we really won’t want to travel. We’ll need to ask ourselves:
- At what point do we start to shake our head, start labelling, getting tight or try to shake off and move away from being with, letting be, without why?
- What is the clearing, what calls us out of it, what helps us stay in it?
- Is therapoetics tough enough for the pit?
- Is therapoetics ethical or does the ethical prevent us from being therapoetic?
We’ll then address being in the taboo:
- The taboo is relative, but often includes the immoral, the unethical, the forbidden, the unforgivable, the irreverent, the unsayable, the unacceptable – in others and in ourselves
- Where do we deposit those thoughts and feelings we would never share?
Day 2 – Extreme Experiences
Extreme experiences include:
- Violence, imminent danger, psychosis, sociopathy, non-negotiable fundamentalism, the uncanny/anomalous
- Are such situations ‘beyond treatment’?
Day 3 – The Impossible and the Aftermath
The impossible are those situations with ‘no way out’, including:
- chronic pain, inconsolability, intractable addiction, terminal illness, a life sentence, nihilism
We’ll also examine the aftermath of our journey together and days yet to come, exploring ways to take care of ourselves both pre-emptively and for our rest and recuperation.
Who Should Attend
There is no requirement to have taken either or both of the preceding workshops in this series. These 3 half-days are open to all psychotherapists and counsellors who practice – or who want to practice – phenomenologically and to others who are interested in an approach that is far away from the medical-engineered model. It is also open to any professional who works with humans and who is interested in finding out about how to ‘become the clearing’ for their clients, customers, students, children.
The Details
Dates: Thur 7 , Fri 8 and Sat 9 NOV 2024
Time: Please join at 8.45am to iron out any technical issues
Workshop: 9am to 12.30pm AEDT ( break times will be accommodated)
Location: online via zoom (registrants will receive an invitation to participate and all the details they require in advance of the date)
Cost: $420 (flat rate in AUD)
CPD Hours: 9
note to registrants:
if you have registered for other CEP international events in 2024, the registration form will show checked boxes for those. Just check the box for this registration – you do not need to uncheck the others.
Todd DuBose, Ph.D is a Distinguished Full Professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, and is the coordinator of the humanistic-existential orientation/specialization at the school. He is also a licensed clinical psychologist in Chicago, has over thirty years of clinical experience, and seventeen years of teaching, supervision and consultation. He was also a former chaplain, and holds degrees in contemporary continental and comparative philosophy of religion (B.A., Georgia State University; M.Div., Union Theological Seminary, NYC) and in human science clinical psychology (Ph.D., Duquesne University). He integrates these traditions in a clinical specialization of caring for others in existential and spiritual crises during encounters with the impossible, or “no way out” situations, and limit or boundary events (violence, loss, trauma, transitions, psychosis, nihilism). His research and scholarship also takes this integrated approach to critique ideologies of standardized practices of care that intentionally or unwittingly leave out someone and/or their alternative views about such posited categories as science, evidence, method, empiricism, data, outcome, truth, reality, suffering, care, person and “the good life”. He is the winner of numerous awards for his teaching and scholarship and is known globally for his ongoing teaching, supervision and presentations on existential-hermeneutical-phenomenological approaches to therapeutic care.
Contact: Todd DuBose, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology: tdubose@thechicagoschool.edu