LIBERATION ACADEMY
An educational training, enrichment and healing program meant to cultivate the next generation of decolonized mental health professionals. The academy admits graduate students and early career professionals in psychology, psychiatry, therapy, social work, and other allied fields. The vision of the academy is to bolster a transformative movement within the field of mental health. Participants will receive political education, training on various forms of holistic healing, and a peer group of social-justice-oriented practitioners from around the country.
Welcome
About Liberation Academy
While the lack of diversity, intersectionality & political consciousness within the field of mental health is becoming increasingly apparent, the field itself has yet to demonstrate an urgency to address or change this dynamic. The field of mental health seems satisfied to work at margins- developing “cultural competence” tools or hiring one “token” clinician of color or exploring neurological sources of “unconscious bias”. However, the calls for justice, reparation, and transformation echoing in the streets right now will eventually make their way to clinical training programs and therapy centers all over the country. This call will be an invitation for the field of mental health to reckon with its colonial underpinnings- a predominantly euro-centric, hyper-individualistic, and bio-medical approach to healing. And as the need for mental health becomes ubiquitous in this society, we will need an entirely new generation of healers.
White-identified practitioners- who constitute the vast majority of clinicians in the field- have an important role to play in the decolonization and transformation of the mental health sector. Through healing colonial wounds, undoing the conditioning of whiteness, and tapping into lost ancestral connection, white practitioners can help to usher in a new set of possibilities for healing and growth in the field.
For this reason, we are opening up a new section of Liberation Academy focused on supporting white-identified practitioners on their healing journey.
If you are a white-identified graduate student or early career professional who is interested in supporting the movement to decolonize mental health, we would love to have you participate in our Liberation Academy beginning in February 2021!
Applications are due January 11th!
Participants of Liberation Academy will connect virtually each month to learn from healers and teachers from a wide spectrum of traditions and modalities.
Topics covered this year will include:
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The history & Impact of Whiteness in Psychotherapy & Western Mental Health
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Somatic Exploration of Whiteness and Cultivation of Liberatory Embodiment
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Healing of Racial Trauma through Energy Systems
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Ancestral Reconnection, Restitution and Ceremonial Remembering
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Releasing Guilt, Shame, Judgement
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Holistic Integration & Visioning of a New Culture and Future
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AND MUCH MORE!
Liberation Academy is for people who are either currently in graduate school or are early career professionals within psychology, psychiatry, social work, therapy, counseling & other allied healing fields.
This section of Liberation Academy lasts 6 months beginning in February 2021 and concluding in July 2021.
Application due on January 11th!
For any questions, please email us!
Participant Levels
COMET
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Access to monthly teachings offered by master healers across several different modalities and traditions. Instructors will provide introductory overviews of their healing tradition and answer common questions. Teachings are recorded so participants may watch them whenever is most convenient for their schedules!
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$35 per month
MOON
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Access to monthly teachings
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Access to live interactive workshops with healing practitioners who will guide participants to develop a personal practice as well as offer essential tools for use w/ clients. Participants also will be provided with resources for further study!
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$65 per month
SATURN
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Access to monthly teachings
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Access to live interactive workshops
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Inclusion in a peer support group intended to provide a healing space & opportunities to build a movement toward decolonizing mental health!
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$125 per month
Leadership Team
Erin Caitlin Sweeney, MA
Politicized Healer, Educator & Group Facilitator
Erin Caitlin Sweeney (she/her) is a politicized healer, educator & group facilitator living in Huichin, the unceded Ohlone territory now known as Oakland, CA. Erin offers 1:1 ancestral healing & remembrance work for folks of European descent aka white folks with an antiracist and decolonial lens as well as workshops and classes. She’s passionate about the intersection of healing and social justice and believes that when we look inward with accountability, honesty, and compassion we can bring healing to ourselves, our ancestors, and show up rooted for collective liberation.
Sage Hayes, SEP, LMT, RYT
SOMATIC HEALER & ALCHEMIST
Sage Hayes (she/he/they) white bodied practitioner of somatic alchemy and working towards collective healing / liberation. Grew up and currently living on unceded territories of the Wampanoag / Narragansett native peoples. Is supported by Italian / Swedish / German / Scottish lineages of birth and adopted families. Perpetual explorer of justice in the body.
Sage is a lead teaching assistant with the Somatic Experiencing Institute and integrates biodynamic craniosacral therapy, systemic constellations, dance, intuitive practices and somatics. An educator, a community organizer, a healing arts practitioner - Sage is inspired to midwife nervous system supremacy into evolutionary and collective embodied practices of nourishment, connectivity, rest and liberation which serve the all / we.
*Program is developed and co-facilitated by Genesis’ Founder Nova Ren