Consciousness-in-Action Around the World

The last few months have been quite interesting: meeting people, making new friends, reconnecting with old ones, exploring possibilities for extending the work of consciousness-in-action around the world. Quite literally. Well, just about, anyway: developing relationships with colleagues and co-conspirators from Vancouver (British Columbia) to Hawai’i to Palmela (Portugal) to Salvador (Brazil) to Copenhagen (Denmark) to Amherst (MA) to Gainesville (FL) to San Juan (PR) to Greensboro (NC) to Washington (DC) to St. Petersburg (Russia) and back home again. This is not counting the many new friends from other places throughout Latin America, the US, Europe, and here in Puerto Rico that have joined my Consciousness-in-Action group on Facebook. [I haven't been in touch with my Integral Without Borders friends from South Africa in a while, and don't yet know anyone in Asia nor Oceania -- which would then have made it around the whole world.]

It is quite exciting to hear from people who have read my book and are moved by it in some way. Even more so, to see how antiracism trainers weave my diagrams on internalized oppression into their workshops; to hear how university faculty use the book as required text in their graduate counseling and social work courses; or to work with activists to design retreats and organizing initiatives using the framework to inform their analysis and the process model to shape their vision. I am truly impressed, though frankly not surprised, by how this approach resonates with people in such different fields of endeavor and spheres of action.

Having just held the Consciousness-in-Action/Social Psychosynthesis workshop in Amherst a little over a week ago, I am especially pleased to have begun to make explicit some of the connections between these two approaches. In effect, I believe I was able to demonstrate that consciousness-in-action is consistent with Roberto Assagioli’s vision of Psychosynthesis applied to the social dimension. I expect to continue to develop these applications in the months and years to come.

By the way, those familiar with both Assagioli’s and Ken Wilber’s works will be interested in reading Integral Psychosynthesis, a paper written by Kenneth Sorensen, a psychotherapist in Denmark. English-reading psychosynthesists will also appreciate the repository of Assagioli’s papers in English on Kenneth’s site. Thank you, Kenneth, for your site and for your important contribution to the field. An American friend in Portugal told me your paper is circulating throughout Europe and hopefully it will get some attention in the US as well.

Soon I hope to be sharing news about my upcoming trip to Saint Petersburg, Russia, where I will be participating in the 2nd International Conference “Self and Other: The Sacred Space for Dialogue” sponsored by Harmony Institute of Psychotherapy & Counseling.

Within the conference’s theme of “diversity, difference and otherness,” I will be offering Social Identities, Culture, Self and Other: An Integral Transformative Perspective, a workshop/presentation based on my book. Here we will examine how social group identities—–racial, class, gender, cultural, nationality, etc.—–become internalized as “self,” how social power and cultural dynamics shape our relationships to “others,” and how consciousness-in-action can help transform how we dialogue across differences and effectively address issues of diversity.

The invitation to participate came out of my training and organizing among spiritual psychologists and Psychosynthesis psychotherapists and counselors interested in social transformation. Both the directors and staff of Harmony Institute in Russia and a couple of their private US sponsors have become familiar with my work over the past several years. My Russian friends are very interested in the relevance and potential applications of my integral process model to current realities in their country.

Meanwhile, I am very excited about the opportunity to visit Russia and present my model and the work of ilé to the international audience gathering there. I am also very curious about the issues and dynamics of oppression that are most evident there, including racism and recent racially motivated crime, and classism in a post-Marxist society.

So, stay tuned for this and other exciting developments I hope to be able to share in the coming weeks.