Central VA IONS Community Group Meeting November 18, 2017

Richmond IONS Elena Mustakova-PossardtFeaturing a talk by Dr. Elena Mustakova-Possardt

Where: River Road Church – Baptist, 8000 River Road (NW corner of River and Ridge Roads),

When: Saturday, November 18, 2017, 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, followed by potluck lunch at the conclusion of the program.

Central Virginia IONS Community Group Program Title:

“A Systemic Approach to Health in a Troubled World.”

Our November 18, 2017 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.

Dr. Mustakova addressed our group in September 2015 and is back by popular demand. As previously, her talk will focus on 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 may 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.

Our homegrown epidemics of mass shootings, gun violence, suicide, opioid addiction and the extreme and unsustainable polarization of our social, economic and political systems are among the many ways this syndrome is manifesting itself in our own culture.

In 2015 Dr. Mustakova explored the implications of understanding a healthy life in terms of physiological, relational and social coherence. Now she will offer an integrated systemic framework within which to consider what a balanced approach to health may look like for ourselves, our families and our society in our deeply divided and dysfunctional modern world.

Dr. Mustakova is in great demand as a speaker both in the U.S. and abroad, and we are very pleased and grateful to have her for a return engagement as our November 18 guest speaker.

About Dr. Elena Mustakova-Possardt, Our Richmond IONS Presenter:

Dr. Mustakova 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 devotes full time to private practice, and has over seventeen 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.

About Central VA IONS Community Group:

To find out more about Central VA IONS Community Group (Richmond IONS), please CLICK HERE.

To find out about our upcoming meetings, please CLICK HERE.