Hamman Professional Wellness | Ghosts in our Bones: A Magee Ethics Workshop (Hybrid)

Embedded in our ethical codes is an implicit assumption that we can successfully attain a kind of professional purity. If we follow the rules diligently, we can stay on the proper side of a divide between "ethical" practitioners and "unethical" practitioners. This may lead to two different false assurances – one, that our work is somehow shadowless, without flaw or potential harm to clients, or two, that the codes themselves are sufficient guides to ensure ethical practice. Lurking behind this fantasy of purity is a deeper belief that somehow we can escape our complicity in systems that are always flawed, protective of those with power, and built with old, outdated, or problematic assumptions that have retreated into the fog of history.

Another path – the one eloquently proposed by philosopher Alexis Shotwell in Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times – is an acceptance that we will always live and practice within the tensions between ethical and unethical, helpful and unhelpful, past and present, conscious and unconscious. Rather than endlessly pursuing a perfection that forever retreats from us, we can accept our interdependence and participation in the whole: good and bad, harmful and healing. Using film, lecture, and discussion, we will explore how we can perceive, and welcome, the ghosts living in the bones of our profession, our communities, and our individual lives.

This program is being offered both IN-PERSON and ONLINE.  Please select how you plan to attend when registering.

Recordings will be distributed to registered participants only, and will not be available for individual purchase.

All times are CT. Please contact onlinelearning@junghouston.org with any questions.

Please register early. Programs with four or fewer participants are subject to cancellation, 48 hours prior to their start.

*The Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council (TBHEC) has stopped pre-certifying ANY Continuing Education or Professional Development for mental health providers.  The Jung Center cannot guarantee that the programs we provide will qualify for continuing education or Professional Development, nor can any other agency.  The Jung Center uses high educational standards when selecting to designate events as "potentially appropriate for CEs", and in evaluating the outcomes of our educational services, and we believe them to meet the requirements of state licensing bodies.  To find out more about the TBHEC changes to Continuing Education and Professional Development, click here.

Sean Fitzpatrick, PhD LPC, holds master's degrees in religious studies (Rice University) and clinical psychology (University of Houston Clear Lake) and received his doctorate in psychology through Saybrook University's program in Jungian studies. Sean is a psychotherapist in private practice and has been employed at The Jung Center since 1997. His book, The Ethical Imagination Exploring Fantasy and Desire in Analytical Psychology, is available in The Jung Center bookstore. His research interests also include the intersection of psychology and spirituality and vicarious trauma and the selfcare needs of helping professionals and social service providers. He is a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum and serves on the boards of the Houston Museum District Association and the Network of Behavioral Health Providers. His local and national teaching schedule can be found at his website sfitzpatrick.com.

For more than 20 years, Samphire Savage, MSW, has practiced social work in nonprofit, state government, workforce training, research, program development, and health education/sexuality contexts. Her strengths-based and humanistic approach to supporting client and community growth balances playfulness and accountability. A foster-care alumnus, she is broadly published in the field, with a special focus on foster care and the developmental needs of youth and young adults. Sam identifies as queer, immigrant, and neurodivergent, and she works to create accessible spaces for physically, neurologically, and culturally-diverse bodies.