June is Bustin‘ out all over
Artwork by Ilene Serlin
It feels like the world is bursting out of COVID confinement, with airports showing record numbers of travelers and superblooms dazzling the landscape. I, too, celebrate the welcome sunshine and colorful gardens…while at the same time scared and in pain about the darkness in today’s world.
What is there to do at such a time?
One thing I was privileged to do was to accept an invitation to spend three weeks in Lisbon on a grant sponsored by the American Embassy’s EDI program to train volunteers working with multicultural refugees. The workshop was called DansaGestalt: Heal in Motion: Trauma Processing and Social Integration of Refugees through Dance Movement Therapy Work. The reception and hosts were warm and enthusiastic, and we are completing the supervision and documentation stage now. I fell in love with Fado, the beautiful and tragic national music, that helped all of us find the strength in grieving.
The drawing above is a watercolor I did while enjoying a port wine in a Lisbon café.
Another workshop, through Seda Guney and the Turkish Arts Therapies Association, entitled Culturally Sensitive Dance Movement Therapy for Fostering Recovery from Grief & Trauma, helped support caregivers find their own resilience.
Other workshops included a presentation on the work in Portugal for the Society for Humanistic Psychology Mid-Winter Meeting (Division 32), and one through Inspirees Education Group, Dance Movement Therapy Summit. Culturally Sensitive Dance Movement Therapy for Grief and Trauma Recovery.
Resilience and Self-Care
Read the article here.
Healing Cancer through the Arts
In May, my friend, dance therapist and fellow cancer survivor, and I shared how art helped us heal, both by regularly dancing together on Zoom and creating art and story. The creative process, especially when shared with others, can vitalize and enrich the healing process.
Healing Cancer Through the Arts
with Ilene Serlin and Dove Govrin
Date & Time: May 7, 2023, 3 – 5 pm
Where: Gallery at Congregation Kol Shofar, 215 Blackfield Dr., Tiburon
Talk by the Artists: 3 pm, followed by gallery tours in small groups
RSVP: Ilene Serlin iserlin@ileneserlin.com, or Dove Govrin dove@dragonartsstudio.com
Ilene Serlin and Dove Govrin, both Kol Shofar members and dance movement therapists, have used the power of the arts to help others heal. This time, however, it was their own cancer journeys that they faced and used the arts to heal. Their journeys took place during the same year and they met several times a month to dance, sing and focus on healing together. This program will share their stories with their artwork documenting their healing journeys.
The arts can bring form and meaning to an overwhelming experience. Such was the case with cancer, such was the case with COVID.
Pandemic Providers
At the start of the COVID epidemic in March 2020, a group of psychologists from the Trauma Division of the American Psychological Association gathered online to ask what we could do to help relieve the trauma we were seeing in our offices and in our personal lives. Writing helped many of us give voice to our experiences both as caregivers and as people who were also being traumatized. The resulting book, Pandemic Providers: Psychologists Respond to COVID, has just been published by Springer and we will celebrate at APA.
Learn more at: https://www.firstaidofthesoul.org
This book aims to offer the tools for health providers to mobilize, collaborate and provide effective and compassionate services.
It is available here: Pandemic Providers: Psychologists Respond to Covid
Antisemitism and the Association of Jewish Psychologists (AJP)
Finally, after my own shocking experience with antisemitism in APA, I got involved with other Jewish psychologists. Learning much more about the history of antisemitism in the world, including the Inquisition while I was in Portugal and discovering a surprising amount of Holocaust history in my own family, opened my eyes to the reality of fast-growing antisemitism today. I understood that antisemitism is both a very real threat again, but also that Jews as historic scapegoats, are canaries in the coal mine warning us again about possible fanaticism, polarization and violence in the world today.
Together with a group of colleagues, we have started the Association of Jewish Psychologists (AJP) to raise awareness of antisemitism in our home organization and in academic training programs, and to reach out to other organizations around the world. We have also started a fund to support research on antisemitism, and have many other activities planned. If you are interested in joining, please let me know and I will send you membership information. Here is information about the fund: https://apf.apa.org/apf-announces-establishment-of-the-psychology-of-antisemitism-fund/
Jewish American Heritage Month
We worked with Dr. Thema Bryant to declare May as Jewish American Heritage Month. Celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month is an interview she did on this subject with two of our colleagues.
Antisemitism and social justice talks at the 2023 APA Convention in Washington, DC
In preparation for APA’s annual convention in August, I prepared a number of proposals on the theme of antisemitism and social justice issues. Here are two in which I will participate:
1)Jewish/Black Collaboration Against Racism
Friday, August 4, 10-10:50 AM
Level 3, Ballroom C
Sponsoring Division: 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology
Some recent examples of Antisemitism have come from the Black community, and there have been examples of anti-Black racism from the Jewish community. However, Jews and Blacks have had a strong history of collaboration, most notably during the Civil Rights movement. In 1968 just before Martin Luther King was assassinated, he was asked by Rabbi Everett Gendler about “What effective measures will the collective Negro community take against the vicious antisemitism?” King answered that we should confront injustice wherever it exists: “We are, after all, old friends and lovers, sometimes rivals, with all the affection and bitterness that such a relationship evokes. Black antisemitism is real, so is Jewish racism…But here we are, together in the same boat, as fierce waves of hate threaten to sink our vessels in the ocean of American opportunity.”
We now face the question of whether we can find our way forward as collaborators against injustice once again, and what will that take?
This panel, with representatives from Black and Jewish leaders of APA, will consider these questions together.
Chair: Ilene Serlin
Presenters:
- Jennifer Kelly, The Ties that Bind: Historical Perspectives of the Relationship between Blacks and Jews from the Civil Rights Movement to the Present Day
- Thema Bryant-Davis, Womanist and Liberation Psychologies: Solidarity Strategies for Dismantling White Supremacy
- Beth Rom-Rymer, The Jewish-American Woman’s Experience from the 1950s – 2023: Social Justice and EDI
- Florence Kaslow, Comprehending and combatting Antisemitism, Racism, and Anti-Ethnic Prejudices and Persecutory Behaviors
2)Antisemitism: Deconstructing the Myth of Jews as White
Saturday, August 5, 11:15-12:45
Hospitality Suite, Division 56
Antisemitism is a growing concern here and around the world, with more than 2,100 acts of assault, vandalism and harassment reported across the United States, according to new data from ADL (the Anti-Defamation League). APA’s ethics code and its recently proposed guidelines state clearly that understanding all forms of bias and racism is professionally responsible and necessary. Therefore, this panel will address and invite dialogue about some prevalent myths and misconceptions to enhance our understanding of antisemitism. The first myth is that Jews are white, and therefore privileged and oppressors. The panel will include these questions 1) Are Jews white? 2) Who is indigenous to the Middle East?
One panelist, founder and director of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA), will recount a personal and historical narrative about her journey from Libya. She will cover stories, traditions, and traumatic events among the Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews. The other panelist is the Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and will frame the reflection in terms of the history, psychology and archeology of the Middle East and North Africa.
Chair: Ilene Serlin
Presenters
- Gina Waldman: My Escape from Libya as a Jew
- Asaf Romirowsky: A Scholarly History of Jews in the Middle East and North Africa
For information about APA and to register for the conference, go to
https://convention.apa.org
June Recommendations
- A recent blog by my husband, Jeff Saperstein, gives sage advice about coping with depression: https://www.yourtango.com/self/sneaky-guilt-root-of-depression
- A new book by my former student, Dr. Paul Shane
Hope you find joy and beauty this summer,
Warmly, Ilene
Looking for previous Newsletters? Click on one of these links:
