Course Description

As a cascade of urgent crises is unfolding — a pandemic and promises of futures ones to come; rising right-wing authoritarianism; racist, oftentimes murderous, violence; the war on trans kids and reproductive rights; climate change — despair and fear ripple through our lives, reverberating in our consulting rooms. What, then, could be the hope-full offer of therapy, surely not the hope of manic optimism or head-in-the-sand denial? Rather, inspired by José Muñoz, this workshop proposes hope as work, work laced with heartbreak and work that always falls short. But such hope, hard hope, can animate an ethical and responsible way to keep going, even as the world keeps falling apart. Our conversation will be anchored in short readings from queer of color critique and women of color feminisms, discourses that have arisen from within the seemingly arid domain of hopelessness.

After taking this training, you will:

  • Be able to discuss the relationship – rather than antagonism - between hope and hopelessness

  • Be able to talk about the difference between hard hope and manic optimism

  • Gain an appreciation for how anti-racist critical theories and practices can contribute to having and holding hope in the clinic and beyond

Instructor(s)

Ann Pellegrini, PhD

Ann Pellegrini, Ph.D., is Professor of Performance Studies & Social and Cultural Analysis and a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. Their books include: Performance Anxieties: Staging Psychoanalysis, Staging Race (Routledge, 1997), Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance, co-authored with Janet R. Jakobsen (NYU Press, 2003), and “You Can Tell Just By Looking” and 20 Other Myths about LGBT Life and People, co-authored with Michael Bronski and Michael Amico (Beacon Press, 2013). “You Can Tell Just By Looking” was a finalist for the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Nonfiction. Pellegrini is the founding co-editor of the Sexual Cultures book series at NYU Press, and is currently completing a new book on queer structures of religious feeling. She and Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou were the recipients of the inaugural Tiresias Paper Award from the Sexual and Gender Diversity Studies Committee of the International Psychoanalytic Association for their co-written essay, “A feminine boy: normative investments and reparative fantasy at the intersections of gender, race, and religion.”

Course curriculum

Continuing Education: 2 CEs Earned

Embodied Mind Mental Health Counseling, PLLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0186.

Embodied Mind Mental Health Counseling, PLLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0645.

Pricing options

Choose a price based on whether you are a professional or student and whether or not you are seeking CE credit.