BA in Individualized Studies Program
I’m a psychotherapist, a movement therapist, a teacher of movement arts, and an asker of questions. I wonder about everything. What is the nature of the self? What is the meaning of life? I love especially the questions that open up into deeper questions and hold us in that tension between our yearning to experience the world as meaningful and knowable, and our yearning to experience it as infinitely mysterious.
In the 1960’s and ‘70’s, I put a pack on my back and hitched through Asia, the Middle East and Europe looking for answers. What I found were more questions. I settled in Paris for 8 years – a city that thrives on questions. Then 25 years ago, I left Europe and the city and moved to rural Vermont to join the movement for sustainable communities and social justice, and to study psychology. For the past 15 years I’ve been a practicing psychotherapist – a profession that is in love with questions.
In my work as a therapist, I am constantly surprised, for I find our multi-layered human psyche to be endlessly fascinating. I’m amazed at how our experience of being a person changes throughout our lives – and even from moment to moment! The questions I am now researching in psychology are: How to use body awareness and expressive movement as a way to more deeply understand our experience? How do psychotherapy, spirituality and the imagination intersect? And, what are the ways that psychotherapy can work more on the front edge of social change? The tools I use in my practice are: expressive therapies, self-state therapy, Jungian psychology, depth psychology and body-oriented psychology.
When I teach Tai Chi, Aikido and Authentic Movement, I explore how we can directly connect to the life force that runs through our bodies and the Earth. In Montpelier, Vermont I founded and direct The Movement Center, where classes in various movement disciplines are taught. And out in the country on a hillside, my dream has come true of living on a small farmstead with my spouse, raising goats, chickens and vegetables. Here on this little piece of Earth, I find myself wondering about spirit of place and the human spirit, and what happens when they intersect. And what happens when they don’t. I have been on the faculty at Goddard for 11 years. I love working with Goddard students, for like you, experiential learning has been a life-long passion for me. I enjoy helping students find ways to use the world around them as the classroom. I also love the challenge of working with students who have a lot of different interests and want to find ingenious ways to cross the traditional discipline boundaries.
The fields I’m interested in and enjoy working with students are psychology, of course – especially the questions I’ve mentioned above - spirit of place, history, and the study of cultures. Also, I have to tell you that I am deeply disturbed by the current world situation – its escalation of war and dominance. What gives me hope? The people around the world who work for peace and justice give me hope, as does the global solidarity movement. And all the folks, like you, who don’t stay with the easy answers, who celebrate the imagination, and who do things that really matter to you and to the world.
Educational Background and Credentials: Formal Education: Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor; M.A., Psychology, Norwich University, 1990; Graduate work in Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1966-67; B.A., Far Eastern Studies, Earlham College, 1965. Life Learning: The most important learning experiences for me have taken place outside of the university. I have learned from people and their stories in many different places from an Appalachian coal mining camp where I lived as a community organizer to the rainforests of Borneo where I had the privilege of being invited into tribal villages. In the last fifteen years, I have learned from the honesty and openness of my clients in my therapy practice. And, of course, I learn from you, the students and faculty members of the Goddard community.
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Sara Norton, MA