Events

Thomas Moore will offer a one-hour presentation, followed by a book signing.

Whether you are a mental health or medical professional, your main job is to heal wounded hearts, minds, and bodies. This symposium will focus on the calling to help people in physical, emotional, and spiritual trouble. Participants will reflect on their own spiritual journeys and explore ways of meditation and contemplation. They will learn the difference between soul and spirit and see how they can blend psychological counseling with spiritual guidance. The shadow elements in psychotherapy and spirituality will be examined both personally and theoretically. The role of dreams and the arts in therapy will also be explored. Finally, participants will consider ways to care for themselves spiritually and emotionally and prepare themselves as persons for the deep work of psychotherapy.

In this symposium, Dr. Moore will offer a way to practice therapy with a rich and positive philosophy of life while including paradoxes and challenges. Participants will explore the fundamentals of archetypal psychology and how it offers deep insight into healing. Participants will view filmed interviews of healers in order to obtain a complete picture of the qualities needed to be a healer. The “shadow” side of being a counselor or medical professional - problems of eros, power, money, belief, insecurity, and burn-out - will also be addressed.

Spirituality and Health Conference, Albuquerque, NM

8/17-24/2012
Faculty of Astrological Studies, Exeter College, Oxford, UK

Southern Methodist University Counseling Department, Dallas, TX

2ND Osler Symposium - Doctoring in the 21st Century: Embracing the Challenge
In the ordinary Western mindset, a doctor takes care of the body and others tend to the psyche and spirit. But you can’t split a person into parts that way. A patient’s spirituality is always implicated in illness, maybe more so there than in other parts of life. Patients often look to the doctor for spiritual guidance, correctly understanding that you really can’t tend a human being’s suffering and leave out the spirit. A doctor may think that the spiritual is not within his purview or that she isn’t qualified to address it. In this session, doctors will be encouraged to find it in themselves to speak to spiritual concerns of patients at least in a small way, and guidance will be offered to help doctors prepare themselves for this aspect. Thomas Moore will call to mind physicians in other cultures who are necessarily spiritual guides, too. Besides, if a doctor were to speak to the spirit and soul as well as the body, the doctor would have a much richer experience and would be less likely to suffer a setback in morale. In other words, it would be good for patients and doctors. This session is meant to inspire and educate doctors in this exciting area of medicine.

Wisdom House, Litchfield, CT