Featuring a Talk by Dr. Elena Mustakova-Possardt
“Can We Experience Healthy Lives in Our Troubled World?”
Our September program will feature a talk by Arlington author, clinical researcher, developmental psychologist, and spiritually oriented psychotherapist, philosopher and metaphysician, Elena Mustakova-Possardt, Ed. D., LPC.
Her talk will focus on and explore the multitude of existential, metaphysical, moral and spiritual challenges we face in the modern world that often, if not surmounted, impede, impair or undermine our efforts to build healthy lives for ourselves, our families, and our local, regional, national and international communities.
More and more we recognize that our modern world is creating the context for what the World Health Organization has identified since the year 2000 as a Global Social Breakdown Syndrome. This syndrome is ubiquitous and cross-cultural. No socio-economic group, no matter how privileged or well-heeled, is beyond its reach or immune to it.
While we see its most extreme forms today in places like the Middle East and parts of Africa, we also see its effects across Europe and the United States at individual, community and societal levels.
Dr. Mustakova will examine with us the implications of understanding a healthy life on several levels: physiological coherence, as measured by coherent heart rhythms; relational coherence, as measured by coherence of relationships; and societal coherence, as measured by a systemic “social health” approach to creating a framework for mental health and well-being for all.
She brings a unique focus on the nexus between mindfulness as a path to health and dialectical historical understanding as a path to personal empowerment and well-being in an age of anxiety. Dr. Mustakova is in great demand for speaking engagements both in the U.S. and abroad, and we are very pleased and fortunate to have her as our September 19 guest speaker.
About Our Presenter:
Dr. Elena Mustakova-Possardt is an Arlington-based psychotherapist and native of Bulgaria who emigrated to the United States at 29. She has taught clinical psychology and related subjects at five universities in four countries (Zimbabwe, Switzerland, Bulgaria and the U.S.).
Now she devotes herself full-time to private practice and has over fifteen years of clinical experience with individuals, couples and families dealing with anxiety and depression, relational dynamics, addictions, and severe mental illnesses.
As a scholar and educator she has authored Critical Moral Consciousness: A Study of Morality in a Global Historical Context (Praeger, 2003), and recently co-authored a volume entitled Toward a Socially Responsible Psychology for a Global Era. See www.elenamustakova.net for her full bio.