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You are here: Home / Users / Kristin Rosenthal

Kristin Rosenthal

Photo of Kristin Rosenthal

I find the Work That Reconnects to be the most comprehensive spiritual and psychological way to connect us to the source of life, and to each other.
For over 40 years, my work as a therapist was in helping families and individuals heal, and in community work around mental health services, women's equity issues and supporting youth in the LGBTQI realms. I've facilitated retreats, taught short classes, and written years of newsletters. I"m also a forever becoming artist. All of my efforts come from a deep love and joy in the world.
After retiring in 2019, I helped my Unitarian congregation as a core team leader to found our Climate Action Teams, and still serve as a leader there. I have given 5 Active Hope on-line groups, provided many brief on-line WTR events, and participated in many WTR workshops, and trained as a facilitator in WTR Spiral Journey Facilitator Development with Constance, Mutima and Molly.

I live in Virginia part-time, and in Maine the rest of the year.

Why I am called to facilitate the Work

After awakening to the state of the planet after the 2018 IPCC report, I felt bereft and helpless, and in need of spiritual guidance that I wasn’t finding in my life. I stumbled on Active Hope during an internet search, and after reading the book, set up a two day workshop at my local congregation, and then attended a Bioregions conference in 2019. This work has changed me, and given me a structure to understand the complexities of human history, the pickle we are in, a framework for the changed consciousness that humanity longs for, and many beloved companions in this journey. The more I do WTR, the more I love the work, my world and the beings I share it with.

How I see the Work serving the Great Turning

Naming the three stories of our time immediately lights up people’s faces and minds. WTR gives people a path from mourning and hopelessness (or numbing and denial) to actively loving the world, and so creating the possibility of a liveable future. Most of my experience in facilitating this work so far has been on-line, due to covid sequestering; and the depth of the need to connect to other people, and the longing for belonging have moved me deeply. This work fuels the change-makers, and comforts the disconnected by bringing them into relationship with others and with nature. The Spiral is now a way of living my life, and despite the challenges, I am often filled with joy; and when I don’t feel joy, I feel compassion.
I see the Work undoing the harms of dominance and disconnection, and tempering the human inclination towards hierarchies by developing cooperation, compassion, creativity and meaning. We are all in a threshold time, as Joanna Macy has said, and the Work creates a consciousness of the whole and of our place in it.

Audiences I work with

I have worked with inter-generational groups, climate activist groups, people retiring and finding their next chapter, and liberal religious groups, all of whom have found the work rewarding. Some had an “allergy” to the word hope before we began, and through WTR became engaged in spreading the work of reducing harm and creating a possibly sustainable world.

Background & Training

Background & training in the Work That Reconnects

  • Spiral Journey Foundations Facilitator Development Program in the Work That Reconnects (FDP). (2021, 8 days)
    Location: on line
    Facilitated by: : Mutima Imani, Constance Washburn, Molly Brown
    Other information Monthly workshops of 3 hours, 5- 8 hours per week study and writing, 4 hours per month “pod’ meetings, 2 hours per month “buddy” meetings, and extra café webinars
  • Bio Region Facilitators Gathering (2018, 4 days)
    Location: Chapel Hill
    Facilitated by: Beth Remmes, Valerie Sildiker
    : half the time was about facilitation, the other 2 days was “Deep Resilience”, direct WTR experiences.
  • Deep Resilience (2019, 1 days)
    Location: on line
    Facilitated by: Val Slidiker
  • Active Hope for Elders (2019, 2 days)
    Location: on line
    Facilitated by: Constance Washburn
    w Transformative Learning Center

Other relevant training

  • Masters in Counseling (1981, 700 days)
    Location: U of Northern Colorado
    Degree included wellness psychology, multi-cultural work, group facilitation
  • Anti-Racism Dialogue Sessions (2021, 2 days)
    Location: zoom
    Facilitated by: Sue Lamb, Professional Member, NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Scienc
    , 2 hour sessions plus 3 hours per week minimum reading/writing/viewing and one on one conversations, and a short research paper
  • Best Practices of Clinical Supervision (2008, 4 days)
    Location: Alexandria VA
  • Mount Vernon Mental Health Center: leadership (2000, 0)
    Location: Alexandria VA
    Facilitated by: Kris Rosenthal
    I chaired a citizen board promoting equity in mental health services in my county for seven years. I consider this a learning as well as service experience.

Other relevant skills & experiences

I am an amateur artist, with the meaning of amateur as one who loves an area of work. I am a 35 year member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation (MVUC), and have served in many roles from teaching to leadership. I co-founded our Climate Action Teams in 2018, and have brought Active Hope workshops and activities to MVUC. I have lived many places in the US, and identify with people who have been uprooted and must learn to love new places and people. In both my profession and civic citizen careers, I have helped guide the start up of several Great Turning groups, such as Safe Haven, a group for LGBTQI teens and straight teens to hang out together and form community. I have edited newsletters for professional groups and the Climate Action team. All of my life, I have experienced mobility challenges and surgeries, and these have led me to a deep appreciation of self care, persistence, asking for needed help, and a willingness to experiment with adaptation (such as coming down a mountain on my butt when needed).
Currently, I am devoting over 20 hours a week as a volunteer to the Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions in Fairfax County, organizing advocates.
For the last 5 years, I have lived in two communities, one in Virginia out side DC, and a rural area of Maine. In Maine, I restore my balance with time in and by a lake, and in the deep peace of the woods.
In my professional life, I was a family and individual therapist, and had over 30 years of additional training in trauma, play therapy, systems thinking, mindfulness, couples and family therapy, using visualization and much more. I led many therapy groups, both educational and interpersonal. I also supervised and mentored dozens of other therapists, and opened and directed a residency program for my last 10 years of professional life.

Experience facilitating WTR events & workshops

Work That Reconnects workshops I have facilitated

  • Active Hope (2020, 7 days)
    Location: Alexandria VA
    We had 2 live sessions before Covid hit; the rest were adapted to be on line. There were 8 participants. I developed a power point to review the highlights of each chapter. We did exercises from AH and Coming Back to Life. We also used the Spiral in light of the Virus. We used Buddy work between sessions.
  • Active Hope (2020, 2 days)
    Location: Alexandria VA
    7 weeks with 2 hour sessions
  • Presentation of the Three Stories and The Spiral Annual Retreat for Climate Action Team (2020, 1 days)
    Location: Alexandria VA
  • Resilience through Active Hope (2021, 1 days)
    Location: on line
    Facilitated by: Beth Remmes
    This was for Students for Justice, multi-gen, with a theme of Adventure and Resilience. I developed an on-line video library instead of using readings in AH, at the students’ request. We processed the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the Jan 6 insurrection, which gave immediacy to the work. Used buddy work as well.
  • Once You Know, viewing and experiential workshop (2021, 3 days)
    Location: on line
    Facilitated by: Kolya Braun-Greiner
    The first time, we used the format set up by Jo Del Amor; for the next three times, we modified the experiential part

Experience facilitating other events & workshops

I don’t really have “daily work” as I’m retired, but the WTR is now a guiding light in my congregation’s climate action work. I am introducing it in other community groups I’m active in, such as The Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions and The Kennedy Shelter Allies.

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User Info

WTR Facilitator since 2020
Languages served: English
Location: 3236 Woodland Lane, Alexandria, VA 22309, USA
Contact info
  • Email: [email protected]
  • Tel: 703-869-2950
  • Social media: Facebook

The Work That Reconnects Network is a fiscally sponsored project of Inquiring Systems Inc., a tax-exempt 501 (c) (3) nonprofit corporation. EIN 94-2524840. All donations are tax-deductible.

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