FB asked my opinion on her, and her practice. Somatic therapies are still very debated. Some studies show them to be effective, but many argue it's still too soon to be sure.
What McZeal seems to be doing is offering what is likely a mostly or all white clientele an Avoid Responsibility for Racism Card. Take my course/workshop/healing and you can be sure you're no longer racist or have a colonial mindset. If it were truly decolonial it'd be for survivors of colonial trauma, vets, boarding schools, inner city barrios and ghettos, rezzes.
She's faculty at Goddard College.
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https://www.goddard.edu/people/amber-mczeal/Biography
Writer, vocalist, sacred scholar, and activist Amber McZeal utilizes sound therapy and guided somatic imagery to engage the knowledge of the body within an interactive and liberatory arts practice. Amber McZeal weaves together somatic practice with social justice and spirituality. Her approach centers imagination as foundational to movements to end oppression and create more humane social relationships.
Education
MA, Somatic Depth Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute
BA, Sound Therapy and Trauma Studies, Goddard College
Areas of Expertise
African Indigenous Epistemologies
Liberation & Critical Community Psychology
Radical Reproductive Justice
Transformative Art Praxis
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Anyone in academia knows it's rare to be hired by a place you studied at, and they wouldn't post a "degree" from a degree mill or even make it past the first round of hiring. Goddard sure isn't a conventional college.
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https://www.goddard.edu/about-goddard/....Goddard College’s program evolved and flourished, and experiments were undertaken, expanded, and then abandoned or segued into new experiments. Students studied for a year in countries around the world, in Africa, Europe, India, the Middle East, and Asia. Interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary studies that supported students’ individual interests and passions made for a dynamic campus life.
Through the 1960s, enrollment swelled to over 1,500 as the American counterculture, back-to-the-land movements made Goddard’s educational philosophy and location attractive to a new generation disillusioned with traditional structures and lifestyles....
In 1963, the Goddard Adult Degree Program was inaugurated with two-week seminars that allowed adults returning to school to earn bachelor’s degrees through independent study with faculty advisors....
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But currently it's got about 160-300 student and plenty of bad reviews and problems from racism to incompetent administration to complaints the degrees are worthless for jobs or transferring to other schools.
https://vtdigger.org/2020/09/28/goddard-college-is-off-probation-finances-and-leadership-shored-up/https://www.yelp.com/biz/goddard-college-plainfield-2http://nobleeightfoldblog.com/wp-content/uploads/Papers/GoddardReview.htmlThis is her research.
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https://www.researchgate.net/project/Decolonizing-the-Psyche-Decolonial-Somatic-Approaches-SeriesDecolonizing the Psyche: Decolonial Somatic Approaches Series
Amber Mczeal
Goal: DTP is an experiential process that centers the cultivation of critical consciousness–C3–coupled with embodiment practices to foster transformation. These practices are intended to disrupt patterns of coloniality embedded in the psyche and body. DTP is a gesture at producing alternative conceptions of being, knowing and doing–beyond the racialized and human-centric conceptions that have distorted relationships with ourselves, with each other and with the more-than-human world.
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Potentially this has noble aims, but how her work arrives there is anybody's guess. And how could a degree mill and working at an expensive almost all white hippie college with lots of accounts of a racist atmosphere lead to that goal?
Now something like this that she's been part of is far better. It does surprise me the others, far better trained and from far better schools, worked with her.
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https://rejoice.ucsf.edu/en/our-peopleOur research team shares a vision of eliminating racial health inequities in the hospital setting. We developed a research protocol to help us explore if quality care and emotional support is being distributed equally among all our infants and families in the NICU. Based on the current scientific literature we are expecting to identify racial disparities in our care. With this in mind, we are hoping to use parent and staff surveys and interviews to help us understand how we can deliver more equitable care. By the conclusion of this study we are hoping to identify concrete implications for change.