Detail from Imprint of History / Impresión de Historia By Claudia Bernardi Fresco on paper, 30" x 60", 1997. From the collection of Deborah Cullinam

A Conference with
Susan Griffin, Robin Kelley, David Bona, Aaron Kipnis, Helene Lorenz, Mary Watkins, and Pacifica Depth Program
Students & Alumni

October 15–17, 2004
Santa Barbara, California

“We forget that we are history. We have kept the left hand from knowing the right…. We are not used to associating our private lives with public events. Yet the histories of families cannot be separated from the histories of nations. To divide them is part of our denial.”
—Susan Griffin, A Chorus of Stones

Americans are said to suffer from social amnesia, quick to forget the cultural past, hungrily turning toward the future as a site for potential acquisition and individual fulfillment. Psychotherapy has largely colluded with this amnesia, encouraging us to work with our individual histories as though they were detached from culture and nature, as though healing was only a matter of individual work. Traumatic cultural and ecological events, however, leave footprints on the soul. Depth psychology asks us to attune to symptoms, footprints, as a way to open what has been repressed and unworked about the past so that we may more creatively engage the present and future. Liberation psychologies ask how the forgetting of our cultural histories has affected us as individuals and communities, determining in part how we treat each other and the natural world. Using depth and liberation psychologies we will follow individual and cultural symptoms to the histories that need to be retrieved, told, and integrated, exploring how we can create the necessary social spaces to invite their stories.

This conference will feature Susan Griffin, Robin Kelley, David Bona, Helene Lorenz, Aaron Kipnis, Mary Watkins and Pacifica Depth Program students and alumni who are on the forefront of radical imagination, expanding our capacities for rethinking past, present, and future. Workshops on the use of liberation arts and dialogue will be offered to train participants on how to open social spaces to host cultural and ecological memory. Activists on the front lines of this restorative work will speak about work in their communities, allowing us to witness the theories and practices of liberation psychologies and arts in the making.

The Conference is co-sponsored by Pacifica Graduate Institute's Community and Ecological Fieldwork and Research Council of the Depth Psychology Program and the Public Programs Department.

Conference Program
The conference will be held at La Casa de Maria on Ladera Lane in Santa Barbara, a residential retreat center located on 35 acres in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains. The center has lodging and dining facilities as well as a swimming pool and hiking trails.

Registration and check-in for the conference will be held on Friday afternoon from 4:00-5:30 pm. Meals are provided to encourage ongoing dialogue and exchange through small working/discussion groups that will continue to meet throughout the conference. We encourage you to participate in the on-site meal plan. Following the Saturday evening dinner, the program will begin at 6:30 pm. The conference will end on Sunday at 12:45 pm.

Saturday's program includes three sessions with multiple concurrent presentations to choose from. Space in each of the presentations is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please indicate your choices on the registration form.

Conference Schedule