The 2017 Cascadia Holistic Peer Counseling Beginning Course 

Course Description

Holistic Peer Counseling can function as an “emotional yoga” giving you the ability to know when your internal state needs loving attention and training you in communication skills that help you “BE with” emotions and dis-spell trance traumas from the past.

Looking for a way to create a sense of belonging that is secure and stable? Wanting to have regular reliable support network for your feelings? Needing a way to distinguish between when you are being “attacked” and when you are triggered from a past trauma? This is a radical peer counseling system that involves magick, brain science, grass roots psychology and embodiment practices that heal and promote community.

I am dedicated to teaching this class as an essential component of one of the Living Love Revolution missions; namely, to resource vibrant subcultures of social change activists throughout Cascadia who are connected through the value of love and are creating sustainable community relations that extend beyond humans and into their lived environments.

Where is it ? & When is it? & What is involved?

This Course involves 10 evening sessions and one weekend intensive. It will be taught live in SE Portland at 5234 SE 54th Ave on Tuesday nights and in one weekend intensive. The dates are as follows: Tuesdays Jan 10th, Tuesday Jan 17th, Jan 31st, Feb 14 & 28, March 14 & 28th,  April 11, 18  & 25th.

Weekend Intensive will be  10am-5pm Saturday & Sunday April 8 & 9th.

Tuesdays at 7-10pm: Class participants in Portland are welcome to begin arriving at 6:30pm to socialize and snack, Class will begin promptly at 7pm with short mini sessions that end at 7:15pm.

Participants will be encouraged to develop a 10-20 min daily grounding practice and to spend 30 min-1 hour a week in healing  exchanges. Report backs taking approximately 5 min will be written up after each healing exchange. We will be focusing on building oxytocin generating exercises, practicing open honest communication and developing skillful loving techniques for conflict resolution into your existing communities. Participants are asked to prioritize attendance and must not miss more than 3 sessions. Certificates of completion will be available for those who attend all sessions and complete all counseling sessions trades.

Course participants in remote pods must be gathered and have downloaded the Zoom application and have it functioning 15 min before class starts at 6:45pm

I will teach two FREE Introductions to the Course Tuesday Jan 10th & Tuesday Jan 17th

Both introductory sessions are free and the delivered teaching material will be very similar. Experienced CHPC students: you are welcome to attend and bring your friends who are new to encourage them to register for the course.

The “anchor” class will be in Portland and there will be online pods in the following places:

Kennewick, WA with Jennifer McCann

Seattle, WA with Punzel & Kat Camp

In Columbia Gorge at Windward in Wahkiacus, WA anchored by Lindsay Hagamen

Our new student Fallow is anchoring a pod in Bandon, OR

An Olympia pod is gathering and it is totally possible to do a pod anywhere with wifi bandwidth & computer with camera.

A person in the Onalaska, WA Vipassana Center is also looking for people to join them in a pod there. Pods participate by Zoom remote video chat and must be composed of 2-6 people.

Call 206-612-3511 for direct response from instructor Teri Ciacchi

 

How to Register for CHPC 2017

Here is the easy two step registration process:

1) Fill out this registration form:

2) Send some amount of money between a minimum of $20 and a maximum of $600 to Reverend Teri D. Ciacchi using one of several methods:

a) Pay via card online or in person

b) send a check in the mail to Teri D. Ciacchi 5234 SE 54th Ave Portland, OR 97206

c) Arrange to have  a short visit with me to work out a cash and/or work trade arrangement

Call Teri now 206-612-3511 with your registration questions.  Live class in SE Portland is now open for registration.

What Does This Course Cost ?

This class is valued at $600 and you may pay what you can afford between $100-$600 in total. Each person who takes the class must pay a minimum of $100. The minimum registration for the class is $20. On the registration form , you will be prompted to enter the amount you are paying for the deposit (between $20 -$100) and your plan for paying the rest of the class cost. If you are not able to pay all of this amount in $, You can create a gift economy trade. See below for a more thorough description of gift economy trade, how I understand it and what I am looking for.

WHAT IT IS:
Cascadia Holistic Peer Counseling is a system of holistic healing that allows you to know when you need to have attention on your inner experience in order to stay healthy. It teaches you to do self care and, ask for help consentualy. It enables you to know how to witness others when they need help and to give them the space and resource of time and attention so they can be restored to their bodies’ own inherent healing processes.

In Cascadia Holistic Peer Counseling training you will learn all of the following safe and effective peer counseling skills from Holistic Peer Counseling:

Exquisite Listening: how to listen to & connect with yourself & others

Holding Outer Spaciousness: develop the skill of neutral witnessing

Foundational energetic boundary work: experience where you end & begin & be able to set intentional boundaries

Creating inner spaciousness: become a resource for self-reflection & understanding

Understand what emotions are: learn how they function and how to feel them fully

Learn how to “be with” feeling states without either self-repression or the repression of others

Identify patterns: of stuck energy & old emotional trauma & Learn to free yourself from their trance

You will also learn the foundational principles of Dan Seigel’s Interpersonal Neurobiology teachings,http://drdansiegel.com which will enable you to:
Apply cutting edge science from recent research in neurobiology to your own self care

Create a meta plan for your recovery from the dominant culture and its programming

Become able to distinguish personal trauma from social oppression & deal with both

Commit to ending horizontal hostility by becoming a resource of love for your communities

Co-create a community of peers committed to living in Cascadia and evolving with the planet toward a more loving way of being a human.

WHERE IT IS BEING TAUGHT:
The live class will be taught from Jan 10th- April 25th in 2017 in SE Portland, OR. Pods of people can organize themselves in groups around the required technology (I use a Zoom app that allows for phone only participation but that is not really optimal, full participation in pods requires a computer with video capacity, which means having broadband wifi network for high resolution and good audio and visual display)

When? Twice a month live 3 hour classes  from 7:00-10:00pm PST and weekly peer counseling trades of 30 min – 1 hour total.

Who you will be Supported by:

Reverend Teri D. Ciacchi MSW will be teaching the Live class in SE Portland, OR. Jennifer McCann in Kennewick, WA and Kat Camp in Seattle, WA will be helping me with registration and community building throughout this course.

 

WHAT WILL YOU NEED TO DO TO ACCESS THESE RESOURCES?
This is a 12 session course that meets for 3 hours on a series of 9 Tuesday nights from 7-10pm and one weekend intensive on April 8 & 9th from 10am-5pm each day. Participants will be encouraged to develop a 10-20 min daily grounding practice and to spend 30 min-1 hour a week in healing  exchanges. Report backs taking approximately 5 min will be written up after each healing exchange. We will be focusing on building oxytocin generating exercises, open honest communication and loving techniques for conflict resolution into your existing communities.

 

Value of the Class and How to Register

This class is valued at $600 and you may pay what you can afford between $100-$600 in total. Each person who takes the class must pay a minimum of $100. The minimum registration for the class is $20. On the registration form , you will be prompted to enter the amount you are paying for the deposit (between $20 -$100) and your plan for paying the rest of the class cost. If you are not able to pay all of this amount in $, You can create a gift economy trade.

Gift Economy Trade

A gift economy trade involves you declaring the value and hourly rate of the skill sets you have and want to exchange in a gift economy format that equals the amount you wish to pay between $100- $600 (Call me and I will send you the  instructions for how to do this).I must be interested in the skill sets you offer or the objects you want to trade for a gift economy trade to work. We will keep track of the hours you work and services or trades you offer on a time sheet with your name and contact information on it.

Currently this winter I have some specific skill sets I am looking for to trade.  I am especially interested in people who have tech skills that are involved in sending out monthly mail chip newsletters, posting on FaceBook and sending memes around on Facebook. I am also looking for gardeners to tend my gardens and people who have librarian skills to set my books in some clear order for checking in and out.  I have been inspired by the works of Charles Eisenstein and Amanda Palmer to teach what I want to teach and ask people to pay what they feel it is worth or what they are able to pay or what they are inspired to pay. If this is confusing to you, I can coach you in how to do this. Basically, do not let money stand in the way of your attending this class.

Blessings! Reverend Teri D. Ciacchi MSW 206-612-3511 

 

 

Amara Karuna HPC video

This is a video by my teacher Amara Karuna who I learned Holistic Peer Counseling from in 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X3euHCetX34

There are other people leading Holistic Peer Counseling in Seattle,WA and Eugene, OR

In Eugene/Springfield, OR Amara Karuna is leading Holistic Peer Counseling classes and will be continuing to teach a series of advanced classes with me here in Portland. You can like and join her new facebook group here.

in Seattle: Nekole Shapiro of Embodied Birth, Seattle Holistic Peer Counseling community

If you live in Seattle and you want to take a sister of this class live, I recommend Nekole Shapiro’s on line HPC courses: HPC for Birth, HPC for Bodies, HPC for Sex Nekole Shapiro

A little bit of herstory & context:
Holistic Peer Counseling (HPC) was developed by Teri after she studied Re-Evaluation Counseling (RC) and Wholistic Peer Support with Amara Karuna,(from 1991-1997) and had already received a Master’s in Social Work(1988). RC is a grassroots system of peer to peer counseling that originated in mid 1950’s Seattle at Boeing when the workers decided to take care of a friend of theirs who was having a “psychotic break”, from these humble roots a international peer counseling network was formed. People are encouraged to teach and develop their own communities of peer counselors, to use their own emerged rational thinking to redesign their lives and to help others re-emerge from psychological trauma and socialized oppression. Amara designed her own version of RC adding energy work and meditation and visualization exercises from her spiritual practices. I added the ability to speak openly and authentically about issues of desire and sexual preference as well as creating a safe container for peers within alternative sub cultures.

I stopped teaching HPC in 2007 as I was evolving in other directions. I taught and empowered Jude Davis, India Holden, Kristen Rawson and Jim Barker to teach HPC and they have each evolved their own versions of the work. Nekole Shapiro studied with Kristen Rawson and is now teaching HPC for Birth, HPC for Bodies and HPC for Sexuality. In 2013 one of Nekole’s Students who lived in Portland asked me if I would teach HPC there, I realized I would have to update the old RC version of how emotions work and chose to incorporate Dan Siegel’s Interpersonal Neurobiology, which I personally believe will eventually replace the field of “Mental Health” that I was professionally trained to work within in the 80’s. I have also been integrating the work of Bessel van Der Kolk whose work on trauma and book :The Body Keeps the Score has revolutionized my understanding of how trauma is embedded and embodied.