The Psychosomatic Experience of Communism in România: An Interview with Pacifica’s Mădălina Bortes, A Fulbright Semifinalist

Posted by Angela Borda on Apr 29, 2021 11:00:00 AM

Mădălina Bortes, M.A. is currently at Pacifica in the Ph.D. in Depth Psychology program with a specialization in Somatic Studies. Her work covers “the psychosomatic experience of communism in România.” She has been nominated as a semi-finalist in the Fulbright program, and I’m delighted to be speaking with her.

Angela: Thank you for talking with me. How does your personal life story and background intersect with communism in România, and what inspired you to take that as your research topic?

Mădălina: It is a true pleasure. Thank you for asking me to do this. I was born in Sibiu, România, a very culturally vibrant city in the Transylvania area. It is one of those cobblestone streets, pastel-colored houses, and human-sized windows kind of a city. I was born just after the revolution, so I did not experience life in România during communism, and I did not hear about communism while growing up, there or in the U.S., which is where we moved after I'd finished the second grade. Communism was not an avoided topic, as it can be for some people; it was simply never mentioned. The absence of meaning-making, or the absence of “lustration,” as some post-communist scholars note, fascinated me. Whenever I spoke with anyone who'd experienced life in România during communism, such as my family members and their friends, I was awestruck by the great degree of flippancy they expressed about their lived experience. Everyone mentioned electricity limits, perpetually long lines, canned food for breakfast, and a lifestyle that resembled the days after a particularly severe natural disaster. However, no one seemed very affected by what they'd lived through, for ten, twenty, even thirty years; and more than this, everyone offered the same response to my naive question of how it was that they'd genuinely believed such a lifestyle was normal, was the only way of living. Everyone I'd asked said, "It was all we knew," and this greatly intrigued me.

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Posted in: Connecting Cultures, somatic bodywork, depth psychology, Somatic Studies

A Revision of One’s Calling: A Journey through Embodied Experience

Posted by Krystyna Knight on May 9, 2018 1:26:24 PM

A Revision of One’s Calling: A Journey through Embodied Experience. A blog post by Melissa Nazario, based on an Interview with Elizabeth Wisniewski, D.C. by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

Listen to the full audio interview with Elizabeth Wisniewski here. (approx. 28 minutes)

In her first summer fieldwork as a student of Pacifica’s Ph.D. Program in Depth Psychology with Specialization in Somatic Studies, Elizabeth Wisniewski, a doctor of chiropractic, yoga instructor, and reiki practitioner, guided students through a blindfolded yoga meditation and painting class, followed by group process. The students, she said, found it scary and uncomfortable at first, but after about twenty minutes, they noticed that they were no longer competing with others in the class, nor competing with themselves to get into some crazy asana or pose.

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Posted in: somatic bodywork, Pacifica Students, Pacifica Graduate Institute, somatic

Embodied Activism

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Oct 11, 2017 12:22:21 PM

A guest post by Somatic Studies Specialization Chair Rae Johnson

Reflect. Engage. Resist. Transform.

As current social conditions galvanize even more of us to do the work of dismantling oppression, it can be difficult to know exactly where to begin. For those of us who bring a somatic perspective to our work in the world (and even for those who don’t), it can be helpful to understand how the body is implicated in social justice work, and how to engage our bodies in the process of activism. This post incorporates key ideas from many social justice theorists and somatic practitioners, and distills them into three key areas: doing your own work, working for others, and working with others.

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Posted in: Social Justice, somatic bodywork, somatic, the body

Embodied Alchemy®: Tending the Vessel

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Jul 23, 2017 10:06:51 PM

A guest post by Tina Stromsted, Ph.D., Dance/Movement Therapist, Jungian Analyst

“What makes alchemy so valuable for psychotherapy is that its images concretize the experiences of transformation that one undergoes in psychotherapy […] Alchemy provides a kind of anatomy of individuation.” ~ Edward Edinger

How do we evoke the light in the dark body? How do we embody the soul spark, bring it to consciousness, and live it more fully in our daily lives?

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Posted in: Pacifica Events, somatic bodywork, alchemy

Elemental Movement

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Apr 7, 2017 3:00:27 PM

In a quiet studio in a downtown yoga center, a group of women and men are lying on the floor in a circle, arranged like the spokes of a wheel. In the center of the wheel are four objects – an earthenware bowl full of stones, a basin of water, a candle, and a feather. The faint scent of greenery hangs in the air. Over the distant mechanized drone of city traffic, the living human sounds of breath and sigh can be heard.

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Posted in: Pacifica Events, somatic bodywork, meditation

Elephants, Ethnography, and Somatic Psychology: On Trans-Species Fieldwork with Elephants

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Jan 18, 2017 2:42:45 PM

A guest post by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

When Jonathan Erickson entered the M.A./Ph.D. program in Depth Psychology with a Specialization in Somatic Studies at Pacifica, he probably never imagined he would end up working with elephants in Cambodia as part of his curriculum. Admittedly, he has always been interested in highly intelligent animals, and he had encountered the Elephant Valley Project in Cambodia[1] during some prior travels in southeast Asia. Elephant Valley focuses on conservation and rehabilitation of elephants, maintaining a highly ethical stance. Eco-tourists who flock to the area are not allowed to ride the elephants, for instance, as the elephants are not there to serve humans, but rather to live their lives in peace, notes Jonathan. When it came time for Jonathan to conduct requisite summer fieldwork in the Somatics program, he found himself contemplating what it would be like to conduct his doctoral fieldwork in a sanctuary where elephants were treated with respect, and it seemed like a natural fit.

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Posted in: nature, somatic bodywork, Ecopsychology, animals

Mindfulness, Compassion, and Social Justice; An upcoming training at Pacifica

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Nov 9, 2016 3:01:23 PM

A guest post by student/alumnae Hala Khouri, M.A.

Graduating from Pacifica’s M.A. in Counseling Psychology Program in 2004 gave me a foundation that has nurtured my work since then. Today things have come full circle. This year, not only have I begun the Community Psychology, Liberation Psychology, and Ecopsychology Specialization of the Depth Psychology Program, but also the non-profit organization that I co-founded in 2007, Off the Mat, Into the World ®, will be offering a training intensive entitled, Mindfulness, Compassion, and Social Justice at Pacifica this December, 2016.

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Posted in: Pacifica Events, Social Justice, somatic bodywork, leadership

Gurdjieff Movements Intensive in Jirisan, South Korea

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Oct 28, 2016 4:35:35 PM

A Faculty Spotlight on M.A. Counseling Psychology's Core Faculty Member Avrom Altman

After an incredible journey last winter to Goa, India for an eight-day Gurdjieff Movements Intensive, professor Avrom Altman set his sights on Jirisan, South Korea. In Jirisan, Avrom taught a seven-day Gurdjieff Movements Intensive from August 9th through August 15th. Many of the 37 participants are group leaders and/or teachers of the Gurdjieff Movements in their respective countries.

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Posted in: somatic bodywork

Remembering the Role of the Body in Culture, Trauma, and Everyday Dynamics: An Interview with Dr. Rae Johnson

Posted by Erik Davis on Aug 1, 2016 11:30:20 AM

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, The Power of Myth

If you’ve ever had the experience of being fully in your body, you can likely relate exactly to what Campbell meant when he referred to the “rapture” of being alive. I remember hiking through a rain forest in Belize a few years ago in a mighty tropical rainstorm, boots sliding on slick, wet, red clay earth as I grasped at vines to pull myself up embankments. My leg muscles felt infinitely powerful as they worked in perfect harmony with deep rhythmic breaths that seemed to form in perfect accord with the sound of the rain beating giant fronds all around me. I felt lithe, powerful, sleek—almost panther-like—I remember thinking at the time. And, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. I was truly fully embodied in the midst of one of the most powerful places in nature that I have ever been, and I have never felt so euphoric, nor so alive.

This powerful image of my felt experience while in the jungle re-appeared instantaneously for me when Dr. Rae Johnson reminded me of this powerful quote by Joseph Campbell when we recently sat down for a conversation together. Rae is a somatic movement therapist, educator, and researcher, and also the Chair of the Somatic Studies Specialization of the M.A./Ph.D. Depth Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA, and she offered some captivating examples of just how transformational embodied awareness can be—especially if it’s grounded in a depth psychological context.

Click here to Listen to the full interview with Rae Johnson (Approx. 37 mins) 

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Posted in: Trauma, Social Justice, somatic bodywork

Yoga Meets Depth Psychology: Union, Consciousness, Healing

Posted by Erik Davis on Jul 11, 2016 4:28:09 PM

A Guest Post by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

“The body is merely the visibility of the soul, the psyche; and the soul is the psychological experience of the body” —C.G. Jung

“Yoga is most often understood as the union of the individual with the transcendental self, with what Jung terms the Self.” —Judith Mills

In recent years, the practice of yoga has made headlines in the mainstream media as parents in U.S. school districts challenged its inclusion in the curriculum at public schools, insisting it amounts to religious indoctrination and that it violates religious freedom.[1] In the U.S. today, while mainstream yoga is largely focused on physical poses and breath work, historically it evolved over millennia in the context of the spiritual and religious traditions of India. As such, it is not a religion, but rather a philosophy that enables mindfulness and a sense of well-being, among other benefits. No matter where you fall in the debate on whether—and where—it should be taught to children, practitioners of depth psychology and those seeking positive transformation appreciate yoga for its powerful potential to heighten spirituality and increase consciousness.

C.G. Jung, who valued yoga for its evidence-based experiential approach, perceived “important parallels” with psychoanalysis. He made a comprehensive study of yoga, delivering multiple lectures over the course of several years focusing on a psychological interpretation of kundalini yoga. He asserted that as yoga, being the oldest practical philosophy of India, is the mother of psychology and philosophy (which are one and the same thing in India) and therefore the foundation of everything spiritual.[2]

Yoga, meaning union in Sanskrit, seeks to create awakening through somatic experience, cultivating states that connect us more wholly with something larger than our ego selves—the ground of being, the web of life, or what Jung termed the “Self”—effecting a transmutation of consciousness that stems from attention to inner experience. The experiential, embodied practice puts us in touch with our physical being and grounds us more fully in the earth, anchoring us to something immutable, even as our breath and movement serve to make us more consciously aware and to shift inherent patterns and blocks we may be experiencing.

 “Yoga teachers are well aware of how the practice of yoga brings awareness through the layers of the body, often dredging up previous traumas and somatic awakenings,” Cheri Clampett, who is a certified yoga therapist with over 25 years of teaching experience, and the co-author of The Therapeutic Yoga Kit confided. “When these two complimentary fields come together, they offer deep avenues of healing for the soma and psyche.”

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Posted in: somatic bodywork