Wild Mind Training Program

Designed for human development guides from a variety of fields (see examples below), the Wild Mind Training Program (WMTP) is a professional certificate training in the use of the Nature-Based Map of the Human Psyche to support others to cultivate their innate wholeness and to acquire the skills of self-healing. The Nature-Based Map of the Human Psyche is, among other things, a comprehensive inventory of what can be right about a person, a “golden shadow” version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), mainstream psychology’s list of what can go wrong with people.

The cultivation of wholeness is a new paradigm for human development that contrasts radically with psychotherapy and its focus on healing (the elimination or reduction of psychopathology). While wholeness does enable healing — in particular, a more potent form, namely Self-healing — it offers so much more: Wholeness engenders true adults and visionary artisans of cultural renaissance.

Since 1980, Bill Plotkin and colleagues at Animas Valley Institute have been developing nature-based models and practices for cultivating full human potential. Our human psyches possess astonishing resources that wait within, but we might not even know they exist until we discover how to access them and cultivate their powers, their untapped potentials and depths. The Nature-Based Map of the Human Psyche (NBMHP) identifies these resources — which we call the four facets of the Self, or the four dimensions of our innate human wholeness — and also the four sets of fragmented or wounded subpersonalities that form during childhood. Rather than proposing ways to eliminate our subpersonalities (which is not possible) or to beat them into submission, the NBMHP describes how to cultivate the four facets of the Self and discover the gifts of our subpersonalities.

Bill Plotkin's book, Wild Mind: Field Guide to the Human Psyche, presents a full description of wholing and Self-healing.

In the best of traditional psychotherapy, the therapist employs his or her own wholeness to support the healing of the client’s psyche. In wholistic healing, in contrast, the therapist (or coach, mentor, teacher, parent, or clergy) first supports the individual to cultivate the Self, and then coaches the individual to self-heal using the resources of the Self.

In the Wild Mind Training Program there are two levels of training that support the professional in (Level 1) acquiring the core perspectives, practices, and skills in the use of the Nature Based Map of the Human Psyche and (Level 2) additional skills and experiences in employing Dreamwork, Deep Imagery, and Shadow Work to support wholeness and self-healing.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE WILD MIND TRAINING APPLICATION

The objectives of the Level 1 Wild Mind Training Program are to:

• Provide training in the NBMHP model and in the skills of facilitating nature-based wholing and Self-healing
• Support trainees in their personal cultivation of wholeness and Self-healing
• Support the career development of professionals called to support others toward wholeness.

(Note #1) The WMTP is a training in underworld guiding but is not a training program in Soul Initiation Guiding. Learning to guide the descent to soul is the mission of Animas’ Soulcraft Apprenticeship and Initiation Program — (SAIP)

(Note #2) The Level 1 Wild Mind Training Program does not provide training in group facilitation skills. WMTP is primarily designed to support one-on-one guiding using the Nature Based Map of the Human Psyche.

WHO CAN APPLY

The WMTP is designed for professional human development guides (PHDGs) or advanced students or trainees in a human development graduate school or training program. PHDGs might work in fields such as psychotherapy, psychiatry, clinical psychology, professional counseling, ministry, life coaching, ecotherapy, rites of passage, education, and certain realms of mentoring and outdoor education. In most cases, we would expect you to be professionally licensed, certified, or eligible for certification.