I am currently a psychotherapist in private practice, Professor in a Master’s in Counselling program, author, and an avid fitness, nutrition, and longevity practitioner. I practice Ki-Aikido and am currently at the green belt level. Having a black belt in a martial art has been for some curious reason a life-long dream.
For the past decade, I have been working on developing and establishing, along with my wife, Dr. Heesoon Bai, and other colleagues, various initiatives to work with psychotherapists, educators, and people in leadership positions. These initiatives concern: leadership training and development; humanization of organizational and educational environments through multi-dimensional generative integration of contemplative practice and process-oriented psychotherapy methods;applying group and organizational theory and practice to educational environments;and providing holistic self-care-development for psychotherapists. We intend to establish an institution to shelter all these initiatives and also develop a well integrated and bonded community of human beings who are practitioners as well as theorists.
I see a widening adaptation gap between the transnational globalized environment the human species have created and the 200,000 year-old human neuro-cognitive structure that, to this day, has much in common with our cave ancestors. This triune brain (reptilian, limbic, and neocortex) is clearly having a challenging time coping with the rapid change process in the world. I would attribute this to the very common human tendency to resort to reactions (not considered responses) to perceived danger–danger that is symbolic and that does not represent an actual physical threat.I see having more skilful ability with habitual reactivity, and cultivating expansive reflective capacity through contemplative inner work practices to be the most urgent task in education and contemporary society today.
What I am most interested in is developing and offering process and pedagogy that addresses the continuum from the individual to the systemic. I believe the need is for a quantum shift in human consciousness and in a short time. I don’t know if this is possible. I see the pursuit of this as a most worthy and ethical venture at this crucial time in human history.
I see as core to our work,practices that encompass a systemic view along with contemplative practice and process-oriented inner work, which can move humanity towards aligning with the natural world and our own awakened nature.I believe that such pedagogy offers optimal possibility for human, other-than-human, and planetary survival and thriving.I have been developing and working with such processes throughout my career. The feedback from my students, and from clients in my psychotherapy practice has been very confirming of my radical and creative approach in terms of facilitating life changing experience for them.
Here is a selected list of books, articles and chapters that I have authored and co-authored since 2008:
Books (Peer Reviewed)
Cohen, A. (2015). Becoming fully human within education environments: Inner life, relationship, and learning (2nd efd.). (Previously, Cohen, A. (2009). Gateway to the Dao-field: Essays for the awakening educator. Cambria.) Vancouver BC: Writeroom.http://www.amazon.ca/Becoming-Fully-Within-Educational-Environments/dp/0987797204/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410580912&sr=1-2
Cohen, A., Porath, M., Clarke, A., Bai, H., Leggo, C., & Meyer, K. (2014).Speaking of Learning: Recollections, Revelations, and Realizations. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.(http://www.amazon.ca/Speaking-Learning-Recollections-Revelations-Realizations/dp/9462097151/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414660672&sr=1-3
Cohen, A., Porath, M., Clarke, A., Bai, H., Leggo, C., & Meyer, K. (2012). Speaking of Teaching . . . Inclinations, Inspirations, and Innerworkings. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.
Journal Articles (Peer Reviewed)
Bai, H., Cohen, A. & Park, S. (In-press). Classroom as dojo: Contemplative teaching and learning as martial art. In a special issue A. Zajonc& D. Barbezat (Eds.), The Journal of Contemplative Inquiry. http://journal.contemplativeinquiry.org/index.php/joci/index
Bai, H., Chang, D., Cohen, A. (2016). When the immeasurable leads: A pedagogical dialogue. Challenging organizations and society. reflective hybrids (COS). Vol. 5, #2. http://www.cos-journal.com/
Bai, H. & Cohen, A. (2014). Zen and the art of storytelling.Studies in Philosophy and Education.Springer, 33(3).DOI: 10.1007/s11217-014-94138
http://link.springer.com/journal/11217
Cohen, A., Porath, M., & Bai, H. (November, 2010). Exceptional educators: Understanding the dimensions of their practice. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal. 4 (2) http://www.kwantlen.ca/TD.html
Park, S., & Cohen, A. (2010). Exploring the Dao-Field: Practicing Alchemy and Philosophy in the Classroom. Journal of Transformative Education. http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jted
Cohen, A., Bai, H., & Green L. (2008). An Experiment in Radical Pedagogy: Enactment of Deep Democracy in a Philosopher’s Cafe. Radical Pedagogy, 9(2). http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue9_2/Cohen_Bai_Green.htmlRadical Pedagogy Web site: http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/currentissue.php
Cohen, A. (2008). Following the breadcrumbs to the end of ultimate meaning. Antimatters, 2(3), 87-94. Retrieved September 1, 2008, from AntiMatters: An open-access e-journal. Web site: http://anti-matters.org/0/main.htm
Book Chapters (Peer Reviewed)
Cohen, A. (2017). Setting Group Culture Development in Motion, Chapter in Fehr, S. (Ed.) (2017). 101 Interventions in Group Therapy, (2nd Edition). New York NY: Routledge.
https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138100381ic
Cohen, A., & Bai, H. (2016). Ancient and Medieval Sources of Therapy.Encyclopedia of Theory in Psychology. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.
Bai, H., Morgan, P., Scott, C., & Cohen, A. (2016). Prolegoma to Spiritual Research Paradigm: Importance of Attending to the Embodied and the Subtle. In J. Lin, O. Qargha, R. Oxford, & T. Culham, (Eds.), Incorporating spirituality in research in Social sciences and education. Charlotte NC: Information Age.
Bai, H., Cohen, A. & Rabi, S. (November, 2014), Post-individualist pedagogy: Relationship as teaching. In Deer, F., Falkenberg, T., McMillan, B., & Sims. L. (Eds.). Education for sustainable well-being: Concepts, issues, perspectives, and practices. Winnipeg, MB: Education for Sustainable Well-being Research Group.
Bai, H. ,Cohen, A., Culham, T., Park, S., Rabi, S., Scott, C. & Tait, S. (2014). A call for wisdom in higher education: Voices of contemplative inquiry. In O. Gunnlaugson, E. Sarath, H. Bai, & C. Scott (Eds.) Contemplative learning and inquiry across disciplines. New York: State University of New York.
Cohen, A., Bai, H., & Fiorini, K. The Self-Cultivation Model of Lifelong Learning: Toward Post-Egoic Development. In C. X. Wang (2014). Adult and Community Health Education: Tools, Trends and Methodologies. (in the Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design (AETID) Book Series http://bit.ly/ZBxiSf). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Cohen, A. & Bai, H. (2014). Suffering loves and needs company: Daoist and Zen perspectives on the counsellor as companion. In D. Jardine, G. McCaffrey, & C. Gilham (Eds.), On the Pedagogy of Suffering: Hermeneutic and Buddhist Meditations. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
Bai, H., Cohen, A. & Scott, C. (2013). Re-visioning higher education: The three-fold relationality framework. In J. Lin, R. Oxford & E. Brantmeier (Eds.), Re-envisioning higher education: Embodied paths to wisdom and social transformation, Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.
Cohen, A., Fiorini, K., Culham, T., & Bai, H. (2013). The circle of leadership integrity within business organizations, in A. Stachowicz, & W. Amann, (Eds.), Integrity in organizations – Building the foundations for humanistic management. Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.