Living Arts Counseling Center

Healing the Wounds of History Institute & AlmaQueCanta
Present

Healing the Wounds of History & Holotropic Breathwork



A 4-day intensive exploring our historical and collective legacies through an interwoven drama, expressive arts, ritual and transpersonal process.

Facilitated by
Mireya Alejo, MA, MFT
Armand Volkas, MA, MFT, RDT/BCT

August 4, 5, 6, 7, 2011

Workshop Schedule

Healing the Wounds of History Process
Thursday, August 4, 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Preparation talk required for new Holotropic Breathwork participants
Thursday, August 4, 7 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Holotropic Breathwork Process
Friday, August 5, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Healing the Wounds of History Process
Saturday, August 6, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Integration Through Expressive Arts Process
Sunday, August 7, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Sacred Stream Center
2149 Byron Street, Berkeley, California

Cost: $500

Phone Interview Required Before Payment

For more information and registration contact
Mireya Alejo at mireyaam@gmail.com, (510) 594-4030
Armand Volkas at armandvolkas@livingartscenter.org, (510) 595-5500, Ext 11

Workshop Description

Each of us has been touched by the hand of historical and collective trauma, either directly or indirectly. How do we prevent the rage, guilt, fear and shame of one generation from haunting us and our descendants for generations to come? To be truly understood and integrated, historical trauma needs to be re-told and embodied in a personal way. Holotropic Breathwork and Healing the Wounds of history provide a bridge between personal and collective experience and help people free themselves from complex webs of feeling, heal deep wounds and put ghosts of history to rest.

During this four-day intensive, we invite people from different generations, nationalities, and cultures to gather together and embark on a journey to explore, acknowledge, reflect upon and take steps towards healing their personal and collective wounds.

Healing the Wounds of History is a process in which experiential techniques are used to work with a group of participants who share a common legacy of historical trauma. The approach was developed by Armand Volkas, MFT, a psychotherapist and drama therapist from Berkeley, California. Volkas is the son of Auschwitz survivors and resistance fighters from World War II. He was moved by his personal struggle with this legacy of historical trauma to address the issues that arose from it: cultural identity and self-esteem, victimization and perpetration, meaning and grief. Healing the Wounds of History helps participants work through the burden of such legacies by transforming their pain into constructive action. The model offers an integrative way of working by combining intercultural communication, conflict transformation and ethno-therapy with drama therapy and the expressive arts.

Holotropic Breathwork is a powerful method of using non-ordinary states for self exploration, personal transformation and healing. It is based on insights from modern consciousness research, depth psychology, and various spiritual practices. It was developed by Stanislav Grof, MD and Christina Grof, leading pioneers in the field of transpersonal psychology. Holotropic derived from the Greek holos and trapein, means “moving towards wholeness”. A highly experiential method, Holotropic Breathwork combines breathing, evocative music, focused release bodywork, mandala drawing and group sharing. By activating the unconscious and mobilizing blocked energies, this work gives us access to all levels of human experience and activates the spontaneous healing potential of the psyche.

Armand Volkas, MFT, RDT/BCT is a psychotherapist, drama therapist and theatre director. He is Clinical Director of The Living Arts Counseling Center in Oakland and Associate Professor in the Counseling Psychology Program at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Armand is also Artistic Director of The Living Arts Playback Theatre Ensemble. As founder of The Healing the Wounds of History Institute, he has developed innovative programs using drama therapy and other expressive arts for social change, conflict transformation, reconciliation and intercultural communication. Armand has worked internationally with such groups as Descendants of Holocaust survivors and The Third Reich, Palestinians and Israelis, and Japanese, Chinese and Koreans on their legacy of WWII, Armenians and Turks, on the legacy of Genocide and Tamil and Singhalese in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Mireya Alejo, MA, MFT artist, psychotherapist, astrologer and expressive arts therapist. Her first approach to the healing arts was as a social anthropologist working with “curanderas” in her own country, Mexico; since then this has been her main area of interest. She certified in Holotropic Breathwork and transpersonal psychology with Dr. Stanislav and Chrisitina Grof in 1993 and has facilitated groups in Mexico and internationally since this date. She is a senior staff member of the Grof Transpersonal training. Mireya has participated in Healing the Wounds of History since Spring 2000, with a personal interest in exploring her Mexican-Spanish background. And a professional focus in bringing multi-cultural groups to explore and heal intergenerational collective/historical trauma, through the use of non ordinary states of consciousness-breathwork, ritual and the expressive arts.

JOIN US

FOR A FREE INTRODUCTION T0

HEALING THE WOUNDS OF HISTORY & HOLOTROPIC BREATHWORK

WEDNESDAY

JULY 6, 2011

6:30 TO 9:00 PM

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL STUDIES, SAN FRANCISCO

For more information and registration contact
Mireya Alejo at mireyaam@gmail.com, (510) 594-4030
Armand Volkas at armandvolkas@livingartscenter.org, (510) 595-5500, Ext 11