Engaging with Our Ancestors for Intergenerational Healing

This workshop is being hosted live online only and will not be recorded to maintain the privacy of all attendees. Instructions on how to join will be emailed to registrants shortly before the workshop start date.

If you need to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@ciis.edu at least one week prior to the workshop start date. For more information, explore our Frequently Asked Questions.

Our ancestors are always with us. Whether or not we see them, feel them, or believe in them, much of who we are and what we do in this world is influenced by our ancestral team. 

Connecting with our ancestors may also mean that we connect to histories, legacies, and trauma that can be passed down—from our ancestors to us. Psychologists identify this as intergenerational trauma. Cultural violence and attempted extermination can be forms of another type of trauma, historical trauma. These traumas affect our biology, personality, patterns, beliefs, and even our self and collective care practices.  

Learning about and healing these traumas takes a whole host of practices, including forms of ancestral work—from ancestral lineage healing to elevating and helping our ancestors cross. Prior to working with our ancestral lineage, it is crucial to understand more about where we come from, who we are, what our people may have gone through, what has helped our people survive and thrive, what traumas may need to be attended to, and what practices and beliefs might we want to return to. 

In this workshop, psychologist and founder of Decolonizing Therapy, Dr. Jennifer Mullan invites you to consider—through a psychospiritual lens—what coming home to ourselves and our roots might look like. Dr. Mullan offers explorations into the ways our relationships with our ancestors can impact us on a personal, familial, and collective level. Dr. Mullan guides participants through a mix of lecture, meditation, personal reflection, visualization, writing, and narrative therapeutic techniques to facilitate healing in a group shared format.  

Sustained ancestor work can help heal intergenerational patterns of family dysfunction and can be a powerful ally in transforming historical trauma related to colonization, gender, war, and more. By working with spiritually vibrant ancestors, one can start to understand and transform patterns of pain and abuse, and gradually reclaim the positive spirit of ourselves and our lineages.  
 
Engage with ancestor work to encourage introspection, greater clarity, and a deeper sense of meaning in life.

Dr. Jennifer Mullan , affectionately nicknamed “the Rage Doctor” by peers and clients, Dr. Jennifer Mullan (she/her) is trained as a Clinical Psychologist and is a published author. She currently serves communities as a Consultant, Therapeutic Coach, Ancestral wound worker who seeks to unpack the oppressive legacy of modern mental health practices, particularly for Queer Indigenous Black Brown People of Color (QIBPOC). She has been featured in Allure, GQ, The Today Show, Cosmopolitan, The Calgary Journal, and was selected by ESSENCE Magazine to receive the 2020 Essential Hero Award, in the category of Mental Health.  

Dr. Mullan believes that un-learning and embodiment is an essential component in addressing the profound effects of systemic inequities and intergenerational trauma on people’s mental health. Through her Collective Group Healing work and Decolonizing Therapy practice, she creates safe spaces for people and organizations to heal, and guides people from all walks of life to unpack the oppression that has been unconsciously passed down—intra-psychically and socially—and continues to live on in our bodies today. Dr. Mullan helps people return Home to themselves.  

As a vital element of her current practice, Dr. Mullan believes it’s essential for mental health professionals to question the relatability of the mental health industrial complex—ultimately, to reassess their education and “whom they are serving?” To further advance this work, Dr. Mullan founded Decolonizing Therapy, LLC in 2019, and since, has built a significant social media platform, including 140,000 Instagram followers, and growing.  

Dr. Mullan earned a Doctorate of Psychology in Clinical Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies; a Master’s degree in Counseling & Community Agencies from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology & Elementary Education from New Jersey City University.

CIIS students, staff, and faculty receive discounts on all events. CIIS Public Programs Members receive a 20% discount on all events. Contact us for more information at  publicprograms@ciis.edu.