Dr. Chrysoula K. Fantaousakis follows a humanistic approach in which she integrates insights from psychological theories of human development, cultural practices of social discourse, and traditions of mindfulness and wholehearted living. She interweaves insights across these domains into a distinct and fluid art of positive psychology as a cultural practice.
During the last few decades Dr. Fantaousakis has been teaching in highly diverse communities that have been a valuable source of self-awareness, compassion, and connectivity. She applies her expertise to introduce mindful and wholehearted living strategies into a practice that trains the heart and mind and cultivates possibilities of emotional healing, self-awareness, and compassionate autonomy.
Dr. Fantaousakis earned her doctorate in human development at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and she studied the social formation of cultural cognitive competencies across diverse communities. The intimate relationship established between ways of communicating and modes of perceiving and thinking motivated her to further explore the dynamic interplay of social and personal factors in human development. She continued to study the social formation of self-narratives in children’s art-making experience. The spontaneous interaction and communication she observed in the art room clearly revealed that children were not merely “making art.” Rather, they were producing stories that were creating a culture of meaning that was helping them make sense of their world and themselves in it. Their pictorial and linguistic narratives included emotional, social, perceptual, and intellectual elements that captured powerful human qualities such as compassion, empathy, appreciation, connectivity, and insight. The mindful and wholehearted qualities which children’s narratives revealed motivate Dr. Fantaousakis to implement mindful and wholehearted experiential learning in the classroom at the college level.
Dr. Fantaousakis is currently a professor in the school of psychology at Kean University in Union, New Jersey where she teaches at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Also, off campus, she lectures and facilitates workshops in mindful and wholehearted living practices. Her desire is to bring principles and practices of mindfulness to schools, rehabilitational and recreational settings, and community centers as well as institutional agencies that support underserved populations.
As a mindful educator, in a highly diverse community, Dr. Fantaousakis continues to witness the disruptive void created by the abstract-academic emphasis schools follow. She advocates for mindful educational practices that motivate learning by actively engaging students to create culturally relevant niches of meaning. Academic content then engages students at a personal level and emanates possibilities of understanding and self-awareness that can be deliberately transformative.
She experiments on the effectiveness of mindful learning in her own classes and modified her teaching methods and the resources she uses. She initially introduced mindful learning in a course on understanding self and other that mainly focused on self-reflection and gradually transitioned to courses that were more theory based. The outcome was astounding. Students’ learning experiences were purposeful, deliberatively transformative, and self-empowering.
As an advocate Dr. Fantaousakis also desires to bring principles and practices of mindful and wholehearted living to issues of social injustice, equity and inclusivity to underserved populations. She has a long history of advocacy on racial, gender, disability, and civic equity. She has been appointed to serve as the legislative coordinator of the National Federation of the Blind of NJ, an advocate at the state rehabilitation council of NJ, and as a mentor and motivational speaker for the clients of the commission for the blind in NJ.
Dr. Fantaousakis desires to be part of a transition team that creates a culture of meaning which recognizes and values the powerful qualities of our humanity, that is, consciousness, insight, empathy, connectivity, and the value of “we.” To this end, she gives presentations, teaches classes, offers workshops, and leads group activities on the topic of mindfulness and wholehearted living. She creates context-specific activities that can serve the community inside and outside the classroom. She provides training and support activities in educational, interventional, rehabilitational, and recreational settings as well as institutional agencies that support underserved populations. The areas in which she provides these services include: a) innovative and mindful pedagogical practices, b) Mindfully Engaging Learning, c) Mindful Parenting Practices, d) Emotional Wellness and Physical Health, and e) Self-Authenticity and Compassionate Autonomy.