This workshop will explore how anxiety is hitting the roof in our practices
and world precisely because we so often fail to address the underlying or
primal anxiety that fuels greater and more destructive anxiety.  That which I
term “life-enhancing anxiety,” is a level of anxiety that enables us to live
with and make the best of the depth and mystery of existence. Or to put it
more concretely, it fosters our capacity to live more on the edge of wonder
and discovery rather than terror and overwhelm.  In this presentation, I will
elaborate on the above and provide a series of exercises that can optimize
our capacity for life-enhancing anxiety both in our practices and in the
communities in which we live.  I will also provide a demonstration of such
optimization both at the level of therapy and bridge-building dialogue
between people who are culturally or politically estranged from one
another.  I will raise the huge problem of how to really “meet” each other
and ourselves in the encounter with differences within ourselves and
others, and underscore “presence” as key.

6 CEUs pending

Registration will open this spring.

For further information contact Beth Swain at beth@ehnwpdx.org

KIRK J. SCHNEIDER, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and leading
spokesperson for contemporary existential-humanistic and existential-
integrative psychology. Dr. Schneider is past editor of the Journal of
Humanistic Psychology, adjunct faculty at Saybrook University and
Teachers College, Columbia University, and president of the Existential-
Humanistic Institute (EHI).