Àjen Busher
Àjen is a doctoral candidate for the Natural Health degree offered by Clayton College of Natural Health. Her dissertation focuses on the medical anthropological outlook regarding the philosophical and spiritual influences that cause the progression of the healing arts. This work joins with her long held interests in promoting family and community health as well as serves to answer her questions on ways in which progressive spiritual realities shape healthy behaviors of women within a community.
Out of her vision to see her friends, family and neighbors emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually healthy, Àjen is currently engaged in acquiring more knowledge in the areas of health psychology, health care administration, natural health, and spirituality while developing a progressive health education and therapy practice. Each successive milestone to her academic goals will provide her with practical achievements which will help her to expand the services of her business, Androgiennei: a start-up business, which began in 2005 to produce and to promote handmade external body care products as well as herbal teas and tisanes.
Upon Àjen’s successful completion of the doctoral program in Natural Health, she will pursue one more academic milestone; the subsequent acquisition of a doctorate and licensure in Marital and Family Therapy will serve as a capstone to her academic endeavors. This capstone will provide the needed academic and clinical foundation to her business for delivering holistic counseling, holistic health education workshops, as well as horticulture therapies. Ajen’s target population is primarily adolescent females and young women between the ages of 15-35: who have been sexually abused, bullied, and who are suffering from depression or post traumatic stress disorder.
Àjen’s budding interest in the psycho-sociological and in the spiritual aspects of natural health ironically began at the United States’ top ranking medical institution, the Johns Hopkins Hospital. During her time at this world renown medical facility in 2000-2002, Ajen created and facilitated an innovative service-learning program for high school and college students as an independent practicum in conjunction with her studies at Wilmington University where she was advancing towards her MBA in Health Care Administration. Her program was developed through combining knowledge she gleaned through her academic experiences from the certificate programs in Community Economic Development at the University of Delaware, and in Volunteer Management at Carroll Community College. Participants in her program explored community oriented career paths in the health care industry. In addition, her students discussed topics such as: the explicit and implicit benefits of allopathic medicine and that of alternative medicine, the evidences of the different types of corporate culture which are found within the hospital setting, the masculine and the feminine archetypes within the medical profession, and the verities of doctor-patient relationships.
Àjen’s most recent experiences have accelerated her interests in empowering individuals. In 2008, under the auspices of Rising Hope, Inc., which is accredited through Boricua College, she offered the college level courses, “Contemporary Theologies” and “An Introduction to Holistic Health Education” to inmates at a local New York State Correctional Facility.
To support her academic life, she currently is a member of the Board of Trustees for DayStar Ranch, a Bahá’í inspired non-profit organization that employs the modalities of Equine Assisted Learning (EAL) in fulfilling it’s mission to “heal the hearts and minds of people with horses” and she is a process art facilitator for “A Window Between Worlds Program” which is hosted by the Shasta County Women’s Refuge.
To learn more about Ajen and her projects visit her website: www.androgiennei.com.