The Haven is a highly reputed seminar center located on Gabriola Island in Canada.
Gabriola is a Gulf Island of extraordinary beauty nestled in the Strait of Georgia, between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland.
This enterprise is being facilitated by musician and innovator Leah Hokanson, Artistic Director of Lulu Performing Arts, who lives and works on the Island.
I will focus initially on offering my course in Cognitive and Creative Therapies that synthesises many aspects of the work I have developed in the filed of arts, psychology and education.
The Course is practical, theoretical, creative, emotional and extremely challenging. It is potentially life changing. It also provides a substantial matrix of tools and techniques that you can use with your own clients.
Many participants in my courses have subsequently made radical changes to their life and continue to make innovative contributions to their field of work.
However, please note that I am not an average teacher or therapist; my life has not been ordinary; and my course is not usual. You should really be prepared for a journey that is entirely safe but at the same time unrelenting in its capacity to mirror your relationship with yourself.
The course comes in two shapes. Both are residential.
- A Five Day Foundation
- A Full Training which lasts 40 Days and 40 Nights
Dates for the first 5 Day Foundation are 26 -30 October 2009.
Opening Fellowship is on the evening of 25th.
The Full Training course leads to a certified qualification in Cognitive and Creative Therapies (CCT). I will soon be launching a new community website that includes an educational platform. That will enable you to earn International Learning Units (ILUs) and a range of qualifications based on the research you publish online. The new site will also include full details about the courses in Cognitive and Creative Therapies.
Please send an email to paul@paulnewham.com if you want notification when the new site is launched.
However, please be aware that the new community site may not be ready until close to the 5 Day Course in October, by which time it will be full. The course will fill up quickly.
To reserve a place please contact Leah by email at:
leahokanson@yahoo.com
The information below outlines who I am and what I teach.
I have worked on the interface between arts, psychological therapies, and education for 25 years. My professional work is inseparable from my personal experience. This has been true from the beginning.
I was among the first generation of people to be born from artificial insemination by an anonymous donor. A violent and troubled alcoholic raised me as his own. I thought he was my father. Then I discovered the truth when I was eighteen. My discoveries launched a life-long investigation into the truth and lies about who we are and who we believe ourselves to be.
During my lifetime, I have been on both sides of the mental health system and am familiar with extreme mental states as a therapist and patient. I know what it is like to be abused and consigned to a psychiatric hospital. I have also longed for the end of life at times. Yet through my struggles, I have discovered what hope lies ahead and how we can all find it.
As a therapist, I have worked with individuals recovering from sexual abuse and torture, as well as those struggling with common emotional difficulties. As an artist, I have directed performances and composed music for the professional theatre. As a trainer, I have led seminars in Europe, East Africa, North America, South East Asia, and Australia. As a teacher, I have taught in universities and schools. As a scientist, I have analysed voluminous data searching for the foundations of human character and identity. As an author I have published major text books, academic articles and popular magazine features. As a man, I have loved the same woman all my life. As a pilgrim, I have searched for spiritual meaning and found it in the convivium between Buddhist philosophy and the life of Christ.
During the past ten years, I have been integrating my late 20th Century work in the filed of creativity and psychodynamics with the principles of Cognitive Science.
Over the last decade, scientific study of the brain through advanced technology has excelled. The slow dawn of the current era is throwing fresh light on our humanity. Contemporary studies of the brain have shattered and buried many previous assumptions about how we make sense of ourselves.
These studies have revealed that we have far more influence over our brain than previously thought. We are constrained not so much by who we are, but who we believe ourselves to be. Our lives are determined not so much by the opportunities presented to us, but by what we believe to be possible.
It is true that we each have limits that are social, physical and economic. However, these limits are far less steadfast than once believed.
Through neuroimaging it is possible to observe the pathways of neural activity which are instigated by mental activities like thinking, and remembering. From this we are beginning to discover the overriding influence of belief. It is not the accuracy of what you think that determines what you do. It is whether you believe something to be true.
Many of our early beliefs subside as we grow up and fall by the wayside. However, many do not. The mind clatters with notions that have become convincing through repetition.
Cognitive Science has shown how the brain defers to this chorus of beliefs when instigating decisions. These beliefs are the mainstay of cognitive authority. Some of them are helpful; others are extremely limiting; and evidence to the contrary is rarely enough to change them. We must sincerely believe something new before we can respond to life in ways which depart from the patterns of habitual reaction we have acquired.
The Course synthesizes aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Neuroscience, Positive Psychology, Expressive Arts Therapies and Psychodynamics. But unlike many other programs in this field, the Course grounds them in a practical framework of exercises, experiments, creative investigations, and artful self-expression.
The Course is practical and experiential because in order to change self-defeating beliefs we have to experience what we previously thought impossible. Only then can we replace them with self-enhancing convictions that steer us towards optimism. That optimism reminds us that the best is yet to be.
The Course provides a context for a journey of self-discovery based on sound techniques that have the potential to help facilitate a personal transformation so you may you build a future based upon that optimism. And it rests firmly on the proven power of imagination and the human capacity for creativity.
Einstein was the first to propose that imagination precedes knowledge in importance and necessity. Now, contemporary neuroscience has validated his hypothesis.
There is not a single act to perform that is not first imagined by the mind.
It is becoming clear that our beliefs are the central contributor to what we think, feel, and do. We act upon what we believe to be true. Yet we also constantly imagine what we believe to be impossible.
As soon as we believe in a certain truth about the world and our place within it, that belief becomes chemically encoded. Mental convictions emerge from physical chemistry.
Nobody has yet managed to identify how the visceral brain gives rise to an ephemeral mind. However, there is increasing evidence to suggest that the mind emerges from a neuroendocrine system strewn across the entire frame of muscle, blood and bone. It is therefore no longer meaningful to separate mental and physical activity. Meanwhile, the soul remains elusive as ever in its inconformity. And the seeds of imagination are germinated in molecules of an immeasurable yet irrefutable material of mind. The essence of our uniqueness resides in the hinterland between physical matter and intangible presence.
The Course helps you navigate that imaginal space. It locates you face to face with your beliefs so you may observe in real time how they shape your unique sense of life as it is lived.
It galvanises your imagination so you may create and recreate self-belief.
The Course paves the way for an experience of genuine cognitive restructuring. It provides you with safe ways to dissemble the obstacles that prevent you from reaching a destiny only imagined.
Between what we believe and what we imagine is the precipice upon which we each keep balance and hold sway in contemplation of our destiny.