Pre-Conference Masterclass Workshop

There are limited places available for the Pre-Conference Masterclass Workshop on Tuesday 6 August 2019 – early booking is advisable.

The Arts and Global Health – Masterclass Workshop with Mitchell Kossak (USA)

The dawning of the new millennium brings with it the need for a new sense of universal responsibility. We are responsible not merely for our own happiness; we affect and are affected by the concerns of all others on this globe. (The Dalai Lama)

We live in difficult and complex times. Living in complex times demands creative and imaginative responses. There is a growing collective resonance that is spreading in the form of applied arts to reach, affect and change how we think, feel and actively change the communities we live in. The fact is that the arts have always been used throughout history to maintain healthy physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing individually and in communities. Art enlivens the human spirit by providing a way to express feelings when there are no words. Artistic practices can be such a powerful tool to stabilize and ground individuals and can lead to more integrative and health promoting experiences. The arts also awaken sensitivity, empathy and compassion and in healthcare settings the arts contribute toward reducing stress and depression and can serve as a vehicle for alleviating the burden of chronic disease. 

In this workshop, working with internationally recognized Mitchell Kossak, participants will utilize principles of creativity, improvisation, rhythm, resonance, and mind/ body connections to embody the power of the arts to transform, enliven and make real change in people’s lives. Guided exercises that use breath, sound, drumming, movement, poetry and art making will be used to attune to deeper energies in order to awaken to the ever present interdependency that we collectively live within in order to help restore a sense of personal alignment, with the hope of affecting our global health.

There are limited places available for the Pre-Conference Masterclass Workshop on Tuesday 6 August 2019 – early booking is advisable.

Mitchell Kossak PhD, LMHC, REAT, is an associate professor in the Expressive Therapies department at Lesley University.  Previously he was the Division Director, 2006-2013 and academic coordinator for the Lesley University Israel extension campus 1999-2006.   He was the President of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA), 2010-2017.  He has been a licensed mental health counsellor since 1994, and a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) since 2009.  He is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Arts and Health and co-director of the Institute for Arts and Health at Lesley University.  Dr Kossak has written about and presented his research on rhythmic attunement, improvisation, psychospiritual and community based approaches to working with trauma and embodied states of consciousness at Conferences nationally and internationally and is the author of Attunement in Expressive Arts Therapy:  Toward an Understanding of Embodied Empathy.  Dr Kossak is also a professional musician, performing for the past 35 years in the Boston area.

Please add this Masterclass Workshop to your registration payment.