CCMS2061 / INTR2061: No Wellness Without Fairness

All over the world we are witnessing the strengthening of polarized and extremist political and social ideologies reinforcing racial, caste, religious, heteronormative, and neoliberal supremacy that fundamentally threaten human rights and democracy. We seek to engage students who are distressed with the global climate of state-sanctioned violence and propaganda/hate speech, and who are caught between feeling helpless and finding quick and easy ways to “fix” these issues. This course advances the idea that are we are less likely to be politically polarized and more likely to engage in inclusive, compassionate, and ethical action, if we become accountable to our own power conditionings and social positionings. What psychosocial and affective mind-body conditionings are tied to polarization and extremism, and how might we de/recondition to take accountability for and heal from social harm? This course invites students to reflect upon their position within identity-based power hierarchies (e.g., race, class, caste, gender, sexuality, religion, ability) from somatic, personal, collective and institutional perspectives, considering how they condition us and how they can be reconditioned and healed through the development of a critical consciousness and accountability. 

“There is no wellness without fairness,” an idea from renowned community psychologist Isaac Prilleltensky (2007), communicates that personal and internal health is only possible alongside collective health, equity and justice in our communities. Through readings, discussion, and experiential learning in the form of arts-based and contemplative healing practices, and service learning projects in the community, students will cultivate an internal justice consciousness and apply it to ethical social engagement. In partnership with Seven Hills Neighborhood Housing Center (7NHN) in the West End neighborhood of Cincinnati, students will identify areas of personal and professional growth that they can also apply to external equity targets. 7HNH provides a wide range of social services to an under-resourced community in the form of a food pantry, trauma center, housing assistance, political advocacy, and afterschool arts, technology, sports and tutoring programs for youth. Working alongside 7HNH staff, students will find opportunities to apply their interests, skills and personal goals in one of a variety of disciplines including social work, psychology, community health, education, politics, urban development, and/or arts and culture to meet external equity targets.  

During the class meetings, students will reflect upon a range of psychological and social conditionings that exacerbate social injustice, as well as those that hold the potential for equity and healing. Students will be introduced to the HARM-HEAL model (Murthi and Fiol n.d.) alongside other models that center the humanistic ethics of compassion, accountability and justice in our personal, social and political consciousness. The HARM portion of the curriculum identifies the psychosocial conditionings that underlie political polarization (Hating, Abetting) and social disengagement (Resigning, Masking); the HEAL portion of the curriculum identifies processes of reconditioning that allow for accountability and correction (Holding, Emerging), which set the stage for equitable action and inter-community cohesion (Accounting, Loving). Arts-based, contemplative practices and reflection assignments will accompany each part of the curriculum. This curriculum supports the development of emotional intelligence skills like self- and social regulation, emotional resourcing, conflict resolution, and humanistic values like humility, compassion, and accountability in the service of community inclusion and socio-political engagement and cohesion. 

Dr. Meera Murthi is a licensed counseling psychologist trained in contemplative practices (MBSR, MSC) and racial healing (TRHT, Somatic Abolitionism) pedagogies. She is a lecturer at the Osher Center for Integrative Health and Wellness, Dept. of Family and Community Medicine, College of Medicine. 

Dr. Stefan Fiol is an ethnomusicologist who has facilitated courses in Mind Body Medicine and leads programs in health equity and arts education. He is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the College-Conservatory of Music. We are motivated to teach this seminar for our own growth and to address the climate of increased polarization and divisiveness on academic campuses and in our communities. We also want to attend to what we recognize as a worrisome trend in which mindfulness and compassion curricula emphasize internal mind-body work with little to no connection to external ethical action or sociopolitical engagement. t