3-year Certificate Program

Core Seminars

Each of the nine carefully designed seminars includes a balance of experiential exercises, lectures, artistic response, movement, individual contemplation, and the richness of human relationship. Within each seminar, sufficient time is created to ponder, digest, wrestle with, and integrate the rich content and experiences. Between seminars, live online conferences and “Between Queries” allow deeper understanding to ripen.  Alterations to the curriculum can occur but this shows the general flow of concepts and experiences. 

Re-membering Psychology through Relational Anthropos‑Sophia *

Placing anthroposophy within the historical development of psychotherapeutic perspectives; from Freud to the DSM and beyond; challenges to soul and spirit in the context of contemporary culture and psychology, and how to respond; satisfying the demand for “evidence-based” research; soul-development dynamics; Pathos and Spiritus; seven adult learning processes as framework for the entire course; the Counselor’s Mandate; ontological security as key to the development of the “I”; the myth of Old Saturn and the Thrones: the soul at the threshold as the crisis of our times; who is Sophia?; who is Anthropos?

* This module may be taken as a stand-alone seminar.

Sacred Wound, Primal Wound

The four-fold human being and the elements; birth to seven years (the first septennial); sacred wound; empathic failure and primal wound; the pre-personal self and the child of self; trauma, cumulative trauma, dissociation as response to trauma; attachment theory and attachment disorders re-visited; existential anxiety and its origins in the human story; transference and counter-transference in counseling and in all relation­ships; levels of consciousness; sensory experience in the young child; introducing primitive ego defenses; creating context for Oedipal dynamics.

Childhood’s Trials and Accomplishments

Erik Erikson’s polarities as guide to developmental stages; 7 years to 14 years (second septennial); integrating psychosynthesis models: basic principles of conscious/unconscious; repression barriers as shadows and as guardians; exploring sub-personalities as instruments of the “I”; “the 9-year change” as gateway to earthly maturity; sense psychology in relation to volition; introjection and projection as developmental necessity; developmental predispositions to obsession, compulsion, fixity, eating disorders; doubles, shadow.

Search for Identity and Authenticity: Who am I?

The years 14 to 21 (third septennial); understanding origins and manifestations of gender and sexuality; the emerging soul functions of thinking, feeling, willing—in their somatic contexts; core beliefs; idols, idylls, and ideals; depression and bipolar; self-harm and suicide; addiction.

The Karma of Materialism and the Karma of Soul‑care: Soul at the Edge

The problems of spiritual bypassing, repression of the sublime, and induction; “Karma”—freedom or necessity; negative life processes; what are “beings”?; destruction, its necessity and its excess; the power of doubt, fear, and hate; case presentation.

The Self

Tolerating ambivalence; victimology: betrayal, violence, victim, perpetrator- a new approach to these knots; the power of forgiveness; crisis of identity and crisis of meaning; Non-being versus Being; the years 21 to 42 (the Sun phase); the heart and other organs as psychological processes; the experience of “I” between past and future; seven planetary types; depression and bipolar disorder.

Beyond the Self 

Initiation or pathology: the two thresholds, the path inward and the path outward; transition from self-actualization to self-realization; destiny and the call to a vocation; confronting the moral imperative; the elements reconsidered; psychopathologies in relation to organology; celestial connections: astrosophy in relation to psychosophy; Theosophy: the wisdom of divinity; Mystery of Golgotha.

Consolidating the Seven-fold Map of the Human Being

Seven-fold map to include levels of life processes, organ systems, evolution; negative life processes, elements, ethers, etc.; planetary seals as dynamic healing tools; translations from psychological mainstream to Anthroposophic psychology (e.g., NVC, CBT, anxiety, depression, dementia); case presentation.

Summarizing into the Twelve‑Fold Understanding of Human and World

Space as twelve-fold; all systems (2-fold, 3-fold, 4-fold, 7-fold) understood in the context of the twelve; ennobling personality; personality disorders introduced in relation to the three planes of space; more translations; capstone projects; “Re-membering Psychology through Relational Anthropos-Sophia.”

NEW! 
Additional on-line sessions between each seminar

In between the seminars, we will host live internet conference calls (Zoom or something similar) wherein materials will be reviewed, questions of clarification can be asked, and some new materials presented. We prefer face-to-face real-time meetings with participants. However, the internet format can be very useful for concept-building, for putting questions to faculty from the last seminar, and for hearing from others about their areas of expertise. Each call is expected to include 20 minutes of presentation by a faculty member, then 20 minutes of discussion (and, of course, these parameters can vary). On-line learning can be helpful, and we will train you in how to work with the distortions and deceptions of this medium, in order to achieve maximum benefit.

You can request our Reading List by emailing Admin(AT)AnthroposophicPsychology.org.