Updates
MCEC Intensive Residentials, In-Person Trainings, and On-line Courses
Due to the worldwide Covid pandemic (and the fluctuating, though waning, RSV and Covid variants), MCEC intensive residentals and in-person trainings and seminars had been postponed or cancelled from 2020-2023 . There have been continuing inquiries from across the United States, Europe, and Asia for professional education and personal counseling, as well as hundreds of unique international visitors each month to the MCEC portal. Appropriate referrals were made. Planning of MCEC events in Gainesville, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico are pending. Helping professionals and agencies can request to host a group event at their site by emailing Dr. Ogawa at bogawa@aol.com. On-line courses are being developed for 2025.
Morita Therapy Institute-Melbourne, Australia
Dr. Peg LeVine
https://moritathrapy.net
MCEC has long enjoyed a close collaboration with the Morita Therapy Institute-Melbourne, Australia. As noted by Dr. Peg LeVine on its website: “Our Close Alliance: We have a strong alliance with the Morita Counseling Education Center and Founder-Director, Dr Brian Ogawa (moritacounselingeducation.com). As scholars, practitioners and researchers, Brian and Peg remain committed to maintaining high ethical standards that preserve Morita’s integrity and his operational theory of peripheral consciousness and paradoxical intent.”
Those seeking invaluable training in classical four stage Morita Therapy are highly encouraged to visit the Morita Therapy Institute website.
Morita Therapy and Restorative Justice Training
Gretchen Casey, Restorative Justice Facilitator and Trainer
Amendinitiative. org
In November 2021, I offered a 5-day restorative justice (RJ) facilitator retreat with six trainees: two attorneys, two addiction counselors, and two family members of murdered victims. Each day began with a 2 minute teaching by each trainee on a restorative justice term or concept of their choosing. I would then teach for 2 hours with the afternoon spent practicing and gaining direct experience contacting clients, describing restorative justice, and preparing participants for circle conversations through a series of role plays based on actual cases. Each day students were also asked to notice during the day and describe what they particularly noticed doing and feeling, write them down immediately after, and turn in their recordings each morning. On the third day, we had an hour of silence with each student asked to walk quietly throughout the resident garden and use their range of senses to experience nature. Afterwards, we discussed what caught their attention and what they experienced.
As a restorative justice circle facilitator and trainer, I provide guidance to people who choose to face, speak with, and listen to the other party following a significant conflict. I offer small group, 5-day length RJ and VOD facilitator training in Gainesville, Florida, Including Morita Therapy is a foundational training piece for attendees. I incorporate Morita principles as a way for facilitators to prepare and support both the person who is responsible for harm and the person who has been the target of harm for a restorative justice conversation. Morita Therapy has guided my own wellbeing for more than 35 years and practice of supporting people to live well following victimization. It is the heartbeat of my training others in facilitating and participating Restorative Justice.
Conflict is powerful. Traumatic experiences impact people. Resilience and restoration is built upon noticing, interfacing, and interacting with an environment where there is opportunity for renewal. The principle of "Life is attention" is a significant starting point for any form of intervention. Attention is how connection begins and understanding and rapport evolve. Attention is noticing what helps each of us to live well, in this moment.
When harm has occurred, there is a natural instinct (sei no yokubo or life energy) to protect ourselves psychologically and physically. There is also a need to relate and connect through meaningful and safe human relationships. Encouraging restorative justice participants to clarify and identify purposes they had both before and after a conflict is a practical way people can focus on the full panorama of life and living well in this moment. Restorative and Morita teach acceptance of the reality of the criminal act without submission or surrender (arugamama), as well as the movement toward repair in the wake of daily life’s disruption and sense of loss of control. RJ Practitioners model not fixating/being governed by their own shifting emotions (e.g., nervousness) as they engage with participants, who experience their own impermanent feelings. The goal is to recognize there is no responsibility to regulate what you should or shouldn't feel at any given moment but to immerse in what is most necessary and timely.