Congratulations to both Micheala Slipp and Augustine Parattukudi, Associate Chairs in the Department of Psychotherapy and Spirituality, on the following recent accomplishments!!
Micheala Slipp, EdD (cand.) 
Associate Chair, Department of Psychotherapy, Art Therapy
Faculty Lecturer of Art Therapy
And earlier in May, Micheala also will present initial results from her dissertation research at the Canadian Counseling & Psychotherapy Association's Annual Conference in Edmonton, AB. Micheala's dissertation-titled, The Role of Video-Conferencing Clinical Supervision for Rural, Remote and Northern Counsellor in Mitigating Compassion Fatigue-is a mixed methods research project that looks broadly at counsellor patterns of engagement in clinical supervision across Canada, and also looks specifically at how counsellors in rural, remote, northern and rural-indigenous communities are using video-conferencing supervision to mitigate risk of compassion fatigue. Both quantitative and qualitative results will be discussed at CCPA as Micheala explores possible implications for clinical supervision practice across Canada, with a special focus on the distinct features, opportunities, and challenges that video-conferencing technology brings to this practice. The unique challenges offered in rural, remote and northern practice and their implications for counsellor wellness will also be explored.
Augustine Parattukudi, PhD (cand.)
Associate Chair, Department of Psychotherapy and Spirituality
Faculty Lecturer of Integrative Counselling Psychotherapy
Parattukudi, A., & Melville, W. (2019). Understanding the phenomenon: A comparative study of compassion of the West and karuna of the East. Asian Philosophy, 29(1), 1-19. This study undertakes a historical etymological, and philosophical exploration of the terms, compassion and karuna (an Eastern equivalent of compassion). The article includes a short literature review of these concepts and an investigation of the differences and similarities between them. The concluding speculation is that the Western perspective on compassion is founded on an individualistic, self-centered vision, and the karuna of the East is founded on a communitarian, non-self-based vision.
Parattukudi, A. (2019). Enacting the educational world in compassion: A reflection and positioning of how to teach and learn the art of compassion. Journal of the International Society for Teacher Education (JISTE), 23(2), 37-52.
This paper explores teaching and learning of compassion in educational institutions following the theory of enaction proposed by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch (2016). A new model of teaching and learning of compassion, namely, the enactive modelling through non-egocentric responsiveness-embedded stories is suggested through the paper. The study utilizes the multimodal discourse analysis methodology for the investigation of the proposed model.
The study proposes a linguistic practice of the first-person plural (inclusive) as a way to build a sense of community and compassion in classrooms. As linguistic researchers suggest, the way we speak can influence the way we think and experience reality. A semantic shift from focusing on the I to the We (inclusive) can create a phenomenological shift from the self-centred interpretation of reality into a non self-centred interpretation of reality, especially suffering.
Congratulations to both Micheala and Augustine!!