Let’s Experience: A Workshop to Integrate Our Collective Trauma
What happens to our bodies and minds when we absorb anguishing events of the world that occur on a daily basis? And how might we take steps to process both as individuals and as a collective? Join Dr. Albert Wong, the Director of the Trauma Certificate Program at Somatopia, for an educational and practice-based workshop that outlines the mechanism of trauma and illustrates how we can move from fragmentation to an integrated self and community. Trauma therapy from an embodied perspective invites us to reconnect with the oft-forgotten “felt sense” of the body and use its wisdom to guide ourselves towards wholeness. Using an embodiment lens, this workshop will share some of the underlying principles of trauma therapy and provide an opportunity to experience tools that restore ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities.
Albert Wong, Ph.D.
Dr. Albert Wong is the Director of the Trauma Certificate Program at Somatopia and a leading educator and clinician in the field of somatics. He was residential staff at the Esalen Institute for five years and served as the Director of Somatic Psychology at John F. Kennedy University. A Marshall Scholar, he has been featured on PBS, in Time Magazine, and in the book The American Soul Rush. He was educated at Princeton, Oxford, and the University of Tennessee and is the recipient of numerous national awards (Westinghouse Science Talent Scholarship, Goldwater Scholarship). He maintains a private counseling and consulting practice centered around somatic psychotherapy and is the founder of the online somatic education platform, Somatopia: www.somatopia.com.
About Reimagine and “From Collective Trauma to Transformation” Series
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and–at our own pace– actively channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth. www.letsreimagine.org
For those reading the news or feeding on social media, articles and videos depict harrowing events that traumatize local communities and larger societies across the globe: mass shootings, the pandemic, environmental injustice, racism, war, natural disaster, and more. And all too often, many of us experience these shared adversities directly. These current events can stir up transgenerational or ancestral trauma such as U.S. slavery, the Trail of Tears, the Holocaust, and 9/11. Communities are suffering; but at the same, groups are experiencing growth and learning. In this three-part series, we’ll understand aspects of collective trauma that are common across painful events. And through the stories of mental health professionals, activists, and trauma survivors, we’ll explore how creative expression, acts of service, and spirituality can help us navigate a pathway forward.
