Thursday, OCT 27

FOCUS:
Social Healing: Insights from an emerging field

FEATURED GUEST
Dr. Judith Thompson, Co-Director of the Social Healing Project

Judith Thompson has been engaged in projects promoting social healing for over twenty years, working primarily with survivors of war and political violence. As part of her doctoral research for the Union Institute, she recently convened a three day dialogue hosted by the Center that brought together 25 people from all over the world to explore the question, "How does compassion arise in the process of social healing?" In 1984, Thompson co-founded Children of War, Inc., an award-winning international youth leadership organization that supported the vision and leadership of young activists from 22 war-torn countries. Thompson has also helped to develop social healing programs in Israel/Palestine and Cambodia and, for the past few years, has worked closely with indigenous elders from North, Central, and South America who are seeking to support worldwide social and ecological healing through their traditional ceremonies. She is currently co-producing a film entitled "From Victims to Visionaries" about those victims of violence who chose not to take revenge and what motivates that choice. Thompson is a longtime board member of the Center for Psychology and Social Change affiliatedwith Cambridge Hospital, co-chairs the Spirit and Human Rights initiative funded by the Fetzer Institute, and is on the Advisory Board of One by One, Inc., an organization dedicated to bringing second-generation Holocaust survivors together for dialogue and healing. Ms. Thompson was recipient of the Bunting Peace Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies and the International Peace Prize of the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation