Spring 2019 Newsletter Highlights
Dear EA Canada Members and Friends,
Greetings from sunny and warm (well, it’s getting there :-) Abbotsford, BC, from where I am writing to provide you with an update on the Existential Analysis Society of Canada. I hope that this message finds you well.
Annual General Meeting, February, 2019
I would like to take this time to give you a brief update on our society by reviewing some of what was shared with the membership at our most recent AGM, which was held on February 28, 2019.
First of all, I am pleased to be able to say that we have a great deal of dedication and stability on the board of the society. We were sad to bid farewell to Janelle Drisner, who resigned in September, 2018, and to Mark Busby, who resigned in January, 2019. Both Janelle and Mark left us to attend to other work and family activities in their lives, but remain closely connected to the society and active in assisting us with the preparation of training materials and website (Janelle) and with keeping our society current with respect to the BC Registry (Mark). We thank both Mark and Janelle for their past efforts on the board. We are deeply grateful for your service and wish you well as you devote your efforts to other ventures in your lives.
Apart from these two resignations, the board has remained the same as the previous year. This year we have the additional benefit that the board members are also maintaining the same portfolios as last year. This means, concretely that the following is the EA Canada Board for 2019-2020:
Elizabeth Chan Communications
Ernest Chen Secretary
Beth Daley Training Committee
Derrick Klaassen Chair, Translation Committee
Janelle Kwee Research & Publications
Ama Oduro-Kwachie Treasurer
Mihaela Launeanu Training Committee, Translation Committee
Kari-Ann Thor Liaison to the International Society for Logotherapy & Existential Analysis
Xavier Williams Communications
I would like to share a few highlights about the AGM with you, especially with respect to ongoing training efforts, research and publications, and anticipated activities and volunteer opportunities for the coming year.
EA Training Opportunities
We are pleased to let you know that members from EA Canada are currently involved in drawing together and launching 3 new training cohorts. This is an unprecedented number of training groups that we have had so far in Canada and we are so pleased to see the ongoing interest in expanding the EA training here both on behalf of trainees and trainers.
Rochelle Chapman, M.A., R.C.C., and Beth Daley, M.Ed., R.C.C., with assistance from Janelle Drisner, MA, have launched the first EA training group outside of British Columbia this March. This training cohort takes place in Edmonton, AB. It currently remains open to accepting additional trainees, so if you are interested in participating in training and reside in AB (or are willing to travel there), please be in touch with Rochelle asap. She can be reached at:
rchapman@existentialanalysis.ca
or 604-813-1270.
Kari-Ann Thor, M.Ed., R.C.C., Karin Steichele, M.A., C.C.C., and Rochelle Chapman, M.A., R.C.C., are offering a new training opportunity in Vancouver, BC. An Introductory Seminar for this training group will take place on May 3-5 and on June 7-9, 2019. The Introductory Seminar is a great opportunity to explore whether you might be interested in participating in the full training. If you are interested, please contact Kari-Ann at:
existentialanalysis@icloud.com
or 604-253-5450.
Finally, the first training group in the Fraser Valley is scheduled to begin on May 2-4, 2019. Training seminars will take place on the campus of Trinity Western University in Langley, BC. There are a few more spots open in this group, so if you are interested please contact Derrick Klaassen at dklaassen@existentialanalysis.ca.
Trainers for this group are Mihaela Launeanu, Ph.D., R.C.C., Janelle Kwee, Psy.D., R. Psych., & Derrick Klaassen, Ph.D., R. Psych.
Research and Publications
Although most of the original publications by Alfried Langle and Viktor Frankl, for example are in German and the official journal of the GLE “Existenzanalyse“ also is published exclusively in German https://www.existenzanalyse.net, we are continuing to make strides in terms of English-language publications and presentations. It would go beyond the scope of this newsletter to highlight all such efforts, but let me offer just three brief examples.
Janelle Kwee, Psy.D., R. Psych. serves as the co-editor of the English and Spanish language journal, Existencia http://online.fliphtml5.com/ultx/iigj/#p=4.
This journal is co-published with our sister EA societies in Chile, Mexico, and Argentina. We are pleased that a variety of trainees, trainers, and members of EA Canada have been involved in submitting their work to this journal. We are also, however, in need of Spanish-English translation assistance, so if you are interested in helping our society in this manner, please be in touch with Janelle Kwee at Janelle.Kwee@twu.ca.
In addition to Existencia, the finishing touches are currently being put onto a publication that emerged from the First World Congress of Existential Therapy, The Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy. The handbook is edited by Emmy van Deurzen, Erik Craig, Alfried Laengle, Kirk J. Schneider, Digby Tantam, and Simon du Plock, and represents a variety of streams of existential psychotherapy, including Daseinsanalysis, Existential-Phenomenological Therapy, and Existential-Humanistic and Existential-Integrative Therapy. We are pleased that a variety of EA Canada members are involved in the publication of the section on Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, including Janelle Kwee, Mihaela Launeanu, Bruce Muir, and Derrick Klaassen. They are joined, of course, by a variety of authors from Europe, including Alfried Laengle, Silvia Laengle, and Emmanuel Bauer.
The above-noted publication was a direct outcome of the First World Congress for Existential Therapy, which was held in London, UK, in May 2015. As I write these lines, many of us are currently in preparation to attend and/or present at the 2nd World Congress for Existential Therapy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in May, 2019 www.2docongresomundialdeterapiaexistencial.com.
Here, too, EA Canada is well-represented with attendance/presentation by numerous members, including, Janelle Kwee, Mihaela Launeanu, Derrick Klaassen, Xavier Williams, Chelsea Pain, Cecilia Ward, Yvonne Oetter, Ernest Chen, and Sara Kuburic. If you are interested, please consider joining us in Buenos Aires.
Ongoing Website & Translation Efforts
EA Canada remains committed to adding to ongoing improvement to English-language training materials and to our online presence. I would like to highlight briefly some goals for this upcoming year.
We are so pleased that Xavier Williams and Elizabeth Chan are heading up efforts to improve our social media presence and revise our EA Canada website. Janelle Drisner is continuing to provide assistance here as well. If you don’t already, please consider following us on Facebook and watch for improvements to our website over the coming year. We are working, for the first time ever, on a logo for our society. If you are interested in assisting us with our online presence, please be in touch with Xavier Williams at communications@existentialanalysis.ca.
See our Facebook site here https://www.facebook.com/EASocietyCanada/
Our website here http://www.existentialanalysis.ca
Additionally, Mihaela Launeanu and Derrick Klaassen are also coordinating ongoing translation of German language training materials into English. For those who do not know, this has been a multi-year project, involving a number of different lay and professional translators, hundreds of pages of texts, and thousands of dollars of cost. We are pleased that we are nearing the end of the first round of translations, after which ongoing editing and incremental improvements to training materials will be needed. We are deeply grateful to many folks who have assisted in translating and editing of materials, and also want to acknowledge pioneer English-language trainers such as Mihaela Launeanu, Karin Steichele, Beth Daley, and Kari-Ann Thor, who worked creatively with training materials from numerous languages and assisted in creating training materials.
Well, I could go on in talking more about the efforts of our society, but am realizing that this already is probably a bit too long for a newsletter. Thank you to all of you who read these lines faithfully and who continue to support EA Canada in word and deed. We are so grateful to you. As always, I would love to hear from you in response to this newsletter. Please feel free to email me at dklaassen@existentialanalysis.ca.
With best wishes,
Derrick Klaassen, Ph.D., R.Psych.
Chair of the Board
Get Connected!
If you would like to be involved in the EA Canada editorial committee by serving as a reviewer, or to be an English language proofreader or translator, please contact me directly at jkwee@existentialanalysis.ca.
Share your feedback with me about what topics you would like to see published, or your areas of expertise and interest, which may inspire a special issue. Also, if you think you may like to write something but would like to exchange ideas informally first, I’d love to talk to you about this, as well.
Warmly,
Dr. Janelle Kwee, R.Psych.
Director, Research and Publications, Existential Analysis Society of Canada
Co-Editor, Existencia: Inter-American Journal of Existential Analysis