“Dr. Chalquist’s transformative ideas are nothing short of brilliant. His work and teachings are critical to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world. He has always had a profound impact on his students. I highly recommend his books and any opportunity to attend his workshops or classes.”
– Rebecca Elliott MA, Executive Coach and Consultant
Gathering Online
No technology can duplicate the interactive learning field we enjoy in person, but webinars can bring together learners and teachers across great distances without consuming natural resources or large chunks of our time. In a well-structured webinar, distance is no barrier to deeply transformative learning.
real-time interactivity
A friend of mine who has been both a mayor and a city council member uses public service as a transformative practice. His number one rule is: “Show up!” When we show up together, we learn remarkable things about ourselves, each other, and how we can reimagine being together. Depth psychology, myth and folklore studies, ecology and ecopsychology, storytelling, peace studies, conflict resolution, history, Systems Theory, and many other fields give us powerful lenses for exploring many possibilities that change self-perceptions, relationships, work habits, and even worldviews as we move from disciplines and knowledge fields to their direct application.
Systemic Change
Systems and Complexity Theory offers powerful tools and maps for understanding the intricate systems in which we live and work, from dyads to families to neighborhoods, businesses, and entire nations. Learn how to work beyond stucknesses and repetitive interactions, how systems come to self-organize, and what emergent possibilities await as new relationships form around novel patterns. Besides, it’s a lot of fun to try out systems experiments on your family…
It’s All Storied
Learn how and why storytelling can provide more power, motive, and memory than most methods of instruction or persuasion. Why do stories stay with us so much longer than lectures? What are the implications for conflict resolution? Mentor and leader development? What is involved in how to craft a story well, how to create effective space for it, how to prepare and work with an audience? What can story tell us about the heights and depths of human nature?
Power of Folklore
Buried in myths, fairy tales, legends, and folk tales glitter pockets of wisdom and lessons learned over thousands of years of keen human observation from every culture on the planet. Find out how the images, plots, and motifs from folklore return to life every day in the news, at work, at school, in our relationships, and even in symptoms and dreams. How do we work with this dynamic? What do the old tales offer, and how do we learn to creatively elaborate them in ways that move them forward?
Power of Place
My doctoral work focused on how the places where we live and work operate powerfully on the psyche, with the contours of the land emerging in the contours of how we are with each other. The study of these subtle relationships is now known as terrapsychology. Here we see why we land in certain places, why some help our efforts while others hinder, and why we remain always in ongoing conversations with our surroundings.
Ecotherapy
A lot of research attests to significant boosts in health, happiness, and wellbeing when we get back in touch with the natural world. Did you know that soil bacteria can ease depression? That just an open window can speed recovery from surgery? Learn about how plants, animals, and landscapes act as our mentors and therapists, regrounding us in our minds and bodies as we recall our place as fellow creatures of the animate Earth.
Practical Peace
Years of work as a counselor to men (and some women) arrested for crimes of violence and as an instructor to psychotherapists and advocates for victims gave me insight into the core forces of human destructiveness. Seeing possibilities for how to work with these forces increased my faith in human nature. What helps us move from anger and violence toward reconciliation and peace? How might aggression give way to assertion?
Earthrise!
Is the image of Earthrise just a colorful photo, or might it signal a worldwide reorientation toward participatory, networked, inclusive ways of being? Was mythologist Joseph Campbell correct when he told Bill Moyers that Earthrise is a mythic image for our time? If so, where might this take us if we align ourselves with this vast planetary shift in collective consciousness?
Personal Myth
In a letter to a colleague, C.G. Jung identified the story of Faust the alchemist as his “life myth.” But in Jung’s hands, the tragedy transmuted into a tale of wonder, discovery, and depth. What myths do we walk into or bring along with us? How might we find out, and what shadows and strengths come with the unfolding story? What can we learn from examining the myths of well-known people?
Tales of California
I spent eleven years studying the history, culture, and physical territory of the state of my birth, a journey of immersion into the myths and legends gathered throughout the Golden State. The very name “California” emerges from a work of fiction. What can the images and stories and facts of California tell us about the soul of this place? How might they change our perceptions of every place?