Existential-Humanistic Northwest January 2026 Lunch & Learn

Welcome to the Existential-Humanistic Northwest January 2026 Lunch & Learn:

January 23, 2026 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Online only

Contemporary Western culture elevates the autonomous individual as the architect of their own destiny. Self-reliance is celebrated; dependency is pathologized. The result is a subtle, but pervasive pressure: if life is not working, the solution must lie in trying harder, thinking better, or making different choices. Within this framework, clients often experience struggle as personal failure — and therapists can unintentionally reinforce this narrative by overemphasizing agency, motivation, and insight.

This workshop challenges the assumption that personal agency is the primary engine of change. We will examine how trauma narrows the field of possibility, how safety must be co-regulated before autonomy becomes accessible, and how community, institutions, and resources (or their absence) shape the very conditions in which agency can be exercised.

Participants will engage in reflective exercises, case consultation, and practical strategies that reframe agency as distributed, co-created, and nested within systems. We will discuss how to speak about responsibility without shame, how to support empowerment without placing impossible demands, and how therapy can honor limitations without giving up hope. By shifting from “How do I help this client change?” to “What conditions allow change to become possible?” we invite a more compassionate and effective clinical stance — one that understands resilience as relational, healing as communal, and personal growth as inseparable from social context.

About the Facilitator

Carol Swanson, LCSW, ACSW has been in private practice in Portland, OR for over forty years. She cofounded the Portland Gestalt Therapy Training Institute and has trained therapists in Europe, Australia and the US. Her current interests are studying philosophical resources for humanistic clinicians. Although semi-retired, clinical work is still rewarding work along with living outdoors in her garden, on her bike, her kayak, or on the trails.