Annual Conference

In the wake of unprecedented complexity and mounting challenges to human existence, we gather this year in San Francisco to call humanistic Thought Leaders to join in meaningful conversations—to meet and respond creatively to the challenges of our times. Join us and help take the humanistic (r)evolution to the next level. We are calling together the humanistic psychology community as a collective ”Think Tank” to clarify a new cultural story for our times—a story to unite people across our differences and support humanity in its evolution.
(1)  How might we counteract the violent and degraded image of human nature upheld by mass media and the loss in confidence in human society?
(2)  What do we (personally and collectively) need to lean into—to create the future we all want and need?
(3)  What does 21st Century education look like?  How do we rethink education—to engage and empower students with the new story?
(4)  What is the role of healthcare and healthcare professionals in this new story?
(5)  What role do humanistic and transpersonal values have in this increasingly technological and media driven age? 

Resources for the New Story

The world has never been so complex as it is right now. We have been training to help integrate an unsettled and chaotic world that is dangerously diffuse. The human family is in need of a framework to hold this disparity together, and we can help. Here are some of the unique resources we bring as a community of thought leaders, as we gather for meaningful conversations:

The Integral Perspective and Systems Thinking

Systems Thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes and interrelationships -- a shift of mind from seeing through the detail complexity to understanding the underlying structures generating change. Unseen, mental and social structures hold us prisoner, and learning to see the structures within which we operate can free us from previously unseen forces and help us master the ability to change them. Integral thinking is a way of holding multiple systems of reality in creative tension to more effectively manage the complexity of reality and personal and collective development. 

An Understanding of the Role of Art in Education and New Futures Leadership

What forms of education are appropriate for students facing the complexity of the 21st Century? STEM education is often named, given the noteworthy successes of these fields this last Century. Contrast this with engaged education focused on the social and creative arts and learning through direct (vs. abstract) experience. The arts teach students something the sciences cannot – the primacy, uniqueness and range of human experience. Studies show that mindful ritual and the multi-dimensional languages of art – sound, color, music, images, and story-telling – can shift human consciousness in profound ways – reminding us that when we slow down and become playful and mindful, we are surrounded by the resources of time and creative possibility.
 
  Our culture is shaped by the arts and humanities often more than it is by politics. And in difficult times the arts, sciences, and humanities vastly increase in significance. This is one of those times. - Jim Leach, Director of the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities.

A Sense of the Rising Feminine -- The “Relational (Creative vs. Reactive) Mind” 

Responding to the crises of our times from a deep place that connects us to the emerging future rather than reacting to the fear driving current problems. This culture of fear shapes our collective attention, making the world appear mean and dangerous, and blinding us to prevalence of human goodness, and the role of human imagination in shaping our world.

The times are calling us to create a story of possibility and grounded hope – a shared moral story that will help us make a difference and lean into the new and emerging future with existential strength and intelligence.

The Power of Nonviolent Activism and Gravity of Awe-Based Values of Humility, Wonder, and Appreciation for Life

Shifting anti-social norms, social pathology and a civilization of conflict and violence – through NV activism and education.

Memetic History and Evolution

A “Meme” is the cultural equivalent of a "gene.”  A meme is a unit of cultural transmission. Memetic evolution is the evolution of cultural consciousness. Graves, a colleague of Maslow’s was the research pioneer who developed “Spiral Dynamics” - a spiral of cultural evolution that takes us from our collective past to the current memetic groups living within the same culture. This knowledge is very useful in understanding cultural resistance to social change and politics in general.

Neurophenomenological Studies in Mindfulness and Social Intelligence

Welding the intimate, subjectively based descriptions of human experience provided by phenomenology with the measurable, “objectively” based studies conventional neuroscience can shed light on two pillars of humanistic transformation--mindfulness and social intelligence.

Conference Host: The Institute for Holistic Health Studies, Department of Health Education, San Francisco State University