EHNW Fall Workshop: Kirk Schneider “Awakening Life-Enhancing Anxiety in our Profession and World: An Existential-Depth Approach”

Keynote Speaker: Kirk Schneider, PhD

Host: Existential-Humanistic Northwest (EHNW)

Date/Time: Saturday, October 4th, 2025 | 9am-5pm Pacific Time Zone

This workshop will explore how anxiety is hitting the roof in our practices and world precisely because we so often fail to address the underlying or primal anxiety that fuels greater and more destructive anxiety. That which Kirk terms “life-enhancing anxiety,” is a level of anxiety that enables us to live with and make the best of the depth and mystery of existence. Or to put it more concretely, it fosters our capacity to live more on the edge of wonder and discovery rather than terror and overwhelm.

In this presentation, Kirk will elaborate on the above and provide a series of exercises that can optimize our capacity for life-enhancing anxiety both in our practices and in the communities in which we live. He will also provide a demonstration of such optimization both at the level of therapy and bridge-building dialogue between people who are culturally or politically estranged from one another. Kirk will raise the huge problem of how to really “meet” each other and ourselves in the encounter with differences within ourselves and others, and underscore “presence” as key.

6 CEUs pending

Hybrid Event

Virtual via Zoom 

In-Person Location: George Fox University, Portland, Oregon

Registration Options >>

For further information contact Beth Swain at beth@ehnwpdx.org

Kirk J. Schneider, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and leading author and spokesperson for contemporary Existential-Humanistic and Existential-Integrative psychology. Dr. Schneider is past editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, adjunct faculty at Saybrook University and Teachers College, Columbia University, and president of the Existential- Humanistic Institute (EHI).