The Transcultural Network for Global Psychology and Education was
founded in June 1990 at the Concord Institute in Concord, Massachusetts by
an international group of educators and psychologists. Its purpose was to
support international professional exchange in these two fields generally,
and specifically, with colleagues in Russia and Lithuania with whom this
group had already worked. From 1990 to 1995 the Network and the Concord
Institute sponsored a number of professional exchanges and trainings, in
the United States, in Europe, and in the former Soviet Union, and in one
specific project sent "founding trainers" to train the staff at the Harmony
Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia in Humanistic/Existential/Spiritual
Psychotherapy, Counseling, and Group work. It also sent to the Harmony
Institute training materials, video and audio tapes, and electronic
equipment for training purposes, and an extensive library. Colleagues from
England, Norway, Canada, as well as many parts of the United States, joined
these training sessions as trainers. A newsletter was also published during
this period.
In September 1995 The Harmony Institute, in collaboration with the
Concord Institute and the Transcultural Network, founded The International
School for Psychotherapy, Counseling, and Group Leadership — a three year
post-graduate professional training program for doctors, psychologists, and
teachers in Humanistic/Existential/Spiritual Psychology. The Transcultual
Network, for the next seven years, contributed to the development of the
International School by sending teachers and curricula, helping to raise
funds, and publishing materials of use in the program. It also certified
the graduates of the program in concert with the Concord Institute. A third
organization, the Uniterra Foundation, joined these two, as the receiver of
funds to support this collaborative work. In 2002 the Transcultural Network
was subsumed under the Concord Institute and its work is now carried on
through the cooperation of the Concord and Harmony Institutes in concert
with the Uniterra Foundation.
The International School for Psychotherapy, Counseling, and Group
Leadership, founded in 1995, is the offspring of collaboration between the
Concord and Harmony Institutes. It offers a three year prost-graduate
professional training program in Humanistic/Existential/Spiritual
Psychology for doctors, psychologists, health professionals, and teachers
who have completed their formal academic training and are seeking training
in this particular orientation to their work. There are both internal and
external training programs and the number of students is now 130. Students
have come from all over Russia to attend the International School, for it
provides a unique and needed educational experience to Russian
professionals. The Harmony Institute, its parent organization, provides a
wide range of psychological and educational services, both in St. Petesburg
and in other cities in Russia.
Since 1996 The Concord Institute and the Meta-Senter for Gestalt,
Psychosynthesis, and Confluent Education in Kristiansand, Norway have
co-sponsored an annual summer institute for European health professionals
in group leadership. People from several countries in Europe and from
Russia, Canada, and the United States attend this institute, which is held
in a retreat center on the south coast of Norway. The specific topic
changes year to year, but a growing community of practicioners return every
year to learn more and to enjoy each other's company.
Trainers from the Concord Institute have also taught in Holland,
England, Germany, and Sweden at kindred centers and institutes, and the
director and staff maintain on-going contact with fellow professionals in
these countries. Futher transcultural work is planned as need and occasion
arise, for this work reflects an important aspect of the Institute's
purpose-- the exploration of the application of the basic principles of
Spiritual Psychology transculturally and, eventually, globally.