Search for Meaning

The next continuing education book group, “Meaning-making in a Pandemic: Trauma-informed Strategies,” reading Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” will take place over four Thursdays (4:00 – 6:00 pm): March 3, 17, 31; and April 7, 2022. 10 CEUS through National Association of Social Workers.

WE ARE IN A TIME OF WORLD CRISIS. Many therapy clients struggle with mental health symptoms worsening due to threats to their health and safety. Many clinicians are needing support to stay emotionally present with them while confronting their own anxieties. Experiences of crisis are known to produce profound personal transformation. But many of us cannot see it yet.

This clinical consultation group, which I’m nicknaming “Searchers,” is for clinicians who are seeing clients during the pandemic, with its associated economic, racial, and climate upheavals, and wanting a forum for mutual support and sustenance, energy renewal, and self-reflection. It is designed to place our fears and uncertainties within a larger perspective of meaning-making and transformation and to facilitate a renewed sense of purpose. Each meeting participants will read 30 pages of the classic Holocaust story, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, and discuss the core existential questions that emanate from his experience, relating them to their mission as a helping professional and their work with clients. Frankl was a psychiatrist who endured four years in Nazi death camps and later applied his experiences to his work with clients.

LOGISTICS: Four two-hour online discussions (March 3, 17, 31; April 7, 2022). 10 CEUs through NASW Oregon. CEUs can be pro-rated for practitioners who cannot make every meeting.

TESTIMONIALS

“It was a real gift to be able to share this strange experience of living through these stressful times with other experienced therapists, all of us mystified in one way or another. So reassuring! And the grounding in Frankl’s work was crucial. It was a balm to be able to re-read his inspiring words, to draw from the strength of his example, and to see how it might apply to this moment.” Laura Martin, Licensed Clinical Social Worker

“Wayne’s unique combination of optimism, poetry, music, and meaning exceeded my expectations for this conference.” Sharon Sielschott, Licensed Professional Counselor

“The right consultation series at the just the right time! [It] played a significant role in 2020 ending as well as it possibly could.” Ari Kloke, Licensed Clinical Social Worker

“This was a good experience of bringing clinicians together for thought-provoking conversation, sharing, and community-building.” Kyle Higgins, Licensed Clinical Social Worker