AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SPEAKERS

Steph­en Buck­bee is from Escanaba Michigan. He retired from Bay Col­lege where he taught in the social sci­ence divi­sion. He became inter­ested in Satir while employed as a social work­er in the 1970’s. In the mid 80’s he had the oppor­tun­ity to have her as a teach­er. In 1988 he was invited to join a group called „Avanta“ which is now known as the Vir­gin­ia Satir Glob­al Net­work. He is also a mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Human Learn­ing Resources Net­work and retired from the fac­ulty of the Ban­men Satir China Man­age­ment Cen­ter. He is cur­rently serving on the board of The Vir­gin­ia Satir Glob­al Net­work. He is a Licensed Mas­ters Social Work­er and a Licensed Pro­fes­sion­al Coun­selor in the State of Michigan and a part­ner In BDD Train­ing Asso­ci­ates. He a mod­er­at­or for the Satir Glob­al Net­work Web Site, the VSGN Face­Book account and is devel­op­ing online courses focused on Satirs process.

Michael Dupont is a part­ner in BDD Train­ing Asso­ci­ates, an adjunct instruct­or at Bay Col­lege and the men­tal health/​substance abuse coun­selor at Bay Col­lege. He is a retired ther­ap­ist from Path­ways Men­tal Health Cen­ter in Escanaba, Michigan. He has a M.Ed. in Coun­sel­ing and Guid­ance from North­ern Michigan Uni­ver­sity. Mike is a Licensed Mas­ter­’s Social Work­er and a Licensed Pro­fes­sion­al Coun­selor by the State of Michigan. Michael has over 40 years of clin­ic­al exper­i­ence in the men­tal health and sub­stance abuse field. Michael has been licensed as a Cer­ti­fied Advanced Addic­tions Coun­selor by the Michigan Cer­ti­fic­a­tion Board for Addic­tion Pro­fes­sion­als. He is a past board mem­ber of the Satir Glob­al Net­work. He is a clin­ic­al mem­ber of the Satir Insti­tute of the Pacific.

Madeleine De Little MTC., RCC., CCC. has been a stu­dent for twelve years of Satir Trans­form­a­tion­al Sys­tem­ic Ther­apy. She is cur­rently the research chair of the Satir Insti­tute of the Pacific in Canada and a fac­ulty mem­ber of the Ban­men Satir China Man­age­ment Centre. Her stud­ies of the latest devel­op­ments in neur­os­cience and trans­form­a­tion­al change have led her to devel­op a unique mod­el of sand tray ther­apy and write a book, Where Words Can’t Reach – Neur­os­cience and the Satir Mod­el in the Sand Tray (NSST). Madeleine has been an ele­ment­ary and high school for 28 years and con­tin­ues to be a ther­ap­ist in private prac­tice and an inter­na­tion­al train­er in her mod­el of sand tray work. Madeleine has taught NSST in Slov­akia and the Czech Repub­lic since 2008 and the par­ti­cipants are some of the most exper­i­enced users of NSST in the world. Madeleine has writ­ten a book entitled „Where words Can’t Reach: Neur­os­cience and the Satir Mod­el in the Sand Tray.“ This book is now pub­lished in Eng­lish and Man­dar­in and the Eng­lish ver­sion is avail­able in hard copy and as an eBook on Amazon. The research for her Ph.D. focused on the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al impact on stu­dent ther­ap­ists learn­ing and prac­ti­cing this mod­el of sand tray ther­apy. Madeleine is a Mas­ter Thera­peut­ic Coun­sel­lor, a Registered Clin­ic­al Super­visor and a Cer­ti­fied Cana­dian Coun­sel­lor. She is the recip­i­ent of the „2021 Cana­dian Coun­selling and Psy­cho­ther­apy Asso­ci­ation Coun­selling Prac­tion­ers Award“.

From his earli­est years, Dr. Spen­cer Wade was keenly inter­ested in both the nature of con­scious­ness and how indi­vidu­als nav­ig­ated their lives giv­en the many choices Life had to offer. The tarot’s “Fool” card cap­tured his teen­age ima­gin­a­tion as a guid­ing image to his early adven­tures: he was nev­er cer­tain where they would lead yet some­how always felt secure that all would go well. He even­tu­ally trav­elled to uni­ver­sity to become a Registered Nurse, as he was fas­cin­ated by the human exper­i­ences inside of hos­pit­als, where his own work included bed­side attend­ance caring for many ill and dying indi­vidu­als. As a Head Nurse at a major can­cer treat­ment hos­pit­al, his chosen voca­tion gained fur­ther dir­ec­tion with oppor­tun­it­ies to engage more broadly with­in the psy­cho-social and spir­itu­al dimen­sions of exist­en­tial fear and des­pair. It was dur­ing this time that he saw so clearly how our self-con­struc­ted “false” iden­tit­ies col­lapse under such heavy psych­ic pres­sures and also how indi­vidu­als can, in times of great tri­al, find open­ings and con­nec­tions to Life and Spir­it (i.e., “the heal­ing jour­ney”). Dr. Wade even­tu­ally returned to uni­ver­sity to com­plete his PhD, where he researched and con­duc­ted struc­tured can­cer groups, after which he began his career as a Registered Psy­cho­lo­gist, treat­ing indi­vidu­als suf­fer­ing from phys­ic­al, emo­tion­al, psy­cho­lo­gic­al, and spir­itu­al injur­ies fol­low­ing a motor vehicle acci­dent. He also has trav­elled his own heal­ing jour­neys, includ­ing that offered by fol­low­ers of Vir­gin­ia Satir, which provided the scaf­fold­ing for his inner work and for how he shows up in the world. This jour­ney also for­ti­fied an ever-evolving found­a­tion for explor­a­tions into “shared con­scious­ness” or how we are each a part of some­thing much great­er than ourselves. Dr. Wade is pivot­ing his private prac­tice focus towards sup­port­ing those who are nav­ig­at­ing grief, while main­tain­ing a lov­ing and engaged rela­tion­ship with his part­ner Barb and hav­ing an act­ive pres­ence with his soon-to-be-eight grandchildren.