The Institute for the Study of Spiritual Violence

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Flash Announcement: We are seeking funding for a major study of "Showing Up!"

Background: While doing in-depth work with 152 inmates at the Sonoma County jail, we identified “showing up” as a major event in the lives of both females and males. We asked inmates to identify persons who had shown up in their lives.

We found significance in the event when even one person, a grandmother and/or individual other was identified by the inmate. Working from this identification, we witnessed individuals making major adjustments in how they lived their lives.

In our study, we wish to interview as many persons, as possible, from many different types of groups as we possible, and help them identify persons who showed up for them.

We want to take the results of our study and publish them to accomplish two things: (a) to identify for the public the importance of showing up – in their own lives, the lives of their loved ones, and in the communities that they are a part of, and (b) to identify the types of events and/or other significant elements that are present when showing up occurs.

Spiritual Violence is . . . our experience of something “doing violence to our spirit!”

OUR MISSION is to explore the dynamics of spiritual violence — in the hope that we can learn more effective ways of dealing with the experience of spiritual violence in the world and in our daily lives.

(1) UNDERSTANDING

Question: What is Spiritual Violence? Question: What are typical ways that people understand Spiritual Violence in their lives? And, how effective are these ways? Question: How can we develop better understanding of Spiritual Violence in our lives?

(2) RECOVERY

Question: What Tools are available for assistance with recovery? Question: What Strategies can enable people in recovering from their experience of Spiritual Violence? Question: How can we Motivate people to become interested in Recovery? Question: How can we inform people that they can recover from acts of Spiritual Violence?

(3) PREVENTION

Question: What are the Best Strategies for Preventing Spiritual Violence? Question: What can we Do to Reduce the Impact of Spiritual Violence? Question: How can our work with Spiritual Violence help reduce the amount of pain and suffering in the world today? We welcome research proposals. We are available to assist you in any way that we can with the focus and/or design of your research proposal.

Please send proposals to:

The Institute for the Study of Spiritual Violence 6366 Commerce Blvd. Suite 308 Rohnert Park CA 94928

Peter M Skaife Telephone: (707) 773-7739