The Mission
The Mission of The Virginia Satir Global Network® is to “further the creation of healthy and just relationships, based on the teachings of Virginia Satir.” Her teachings declare that a healthy and just relationship honors the self, the other and the context. Satir Global supports and promotes acceptance and inclusivity. All are welcome regardless of age, race, creed, nationality, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation and any other forms of inequity.
Essential Honoring Values
Values that she taught as being instrumental in honoring each of these include:
- Being connected with your Spirit/Self and relating from that energy in order to see, hear and understand others, as well as yourself.
- Valuing yourself and others as being worthy of love.
- Having an awareness of your behavior, beliefs, expectations and feelings in order to be able to choose to respond in ways that honor yourself, the other and the context.
- Opening to greater understanding and acceptance of yourself and others.
- Viewing yourself and others as equals in personhood, no matter what differences there are in age, roles, etc., such as child and parent, wife and husband, student and teacher, patient and doctor, employee and supervisor.
- Celebrating your uniqueness, and that of all others, and at the same time honoring your sameness with all others in terms of common human feelings.
- Believing that change is possible.
The Aims of the Network for carrying out our mission are as follows:
- To provide an inclusive forum to support and encourage the creativity of individuals, groups and institutes in the use, sharing and development of the Satir Growth Model.
- To promote global networking of individuals and groups who espouse the teachings of Virginia Satir.
- To support efforts to transform systemic oppression and inequality.
- To provide education about the Satir Growth Model via courses, conferences, presentations and resources.
VSGN By-Laws: Section 1.3. Purpose
- (a) The primary objectives and purposes of this Corporation shall be to develop and transmit ways to enhance self-esteem and to increase interpersonal communication and psychosocial skills of persons and systems on the local, national and international levels, including but not limited to those service agencies presently involved in health care delivery.
- (b) The Corporation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for charitable and educational purposes within the meaning of 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (hereinafter the “Internal Revenue Code”).
Links related to the biography of Virginia Satir
- Virgina Satir Wikipedia
- Satir Annotated Bibliography This bibliography was produced by the Satir Institute of the Pacific (www.satirpacific.org)
Who is Virginia Satir?
When Virginia Satir talked about her life and who she was, it was usually to make a point in her teaching. This was because she genuinely enjoyed talking about herself and incorporated this into what she was doing most often: working. Her work was such an integral part of her life that inevitably she acted as if the two were one. Virginia shared herself and her stories with great feeling and enthusiasm. In her book Your Many Faces Virginia spoke of the diverse makeup of human beings, emphasizing the importance of accepting all of our diverse characteristics as who we are. She taught that by embracing what we see as our negative traits, we can effect transformation. To illustrate this point, Virginia shared her characteristics, associating them with historical and fictional figures. This is how she explained it:
When I divide these adjectives into positive and negative, the positive list comes out compassionate, sexy, wise, loving and funny, all faces I would be proud to claim to the outside) world. The adjectives selfish, overburdened, and stubborn would be those faces that I would label negative. Formerly, before I understood what I know now, I would try to banish all traces of those characteristics I considered negative.
