Growing Up Mennonite

About this training

Mennonites hold a unique distinction in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They embody both a religious identity and a cultural identity—deeply interwoven, recognizable, and yet evolving. A few generations ago, Mennonite families were navigating the tension between tradition and assimilation, simplicity and modernity, community expectations and emerging individuality. Today, many find themselves fully integrated into mainstream American life, often hardly recognizing the worlds their grandparents inhabited. Yet the imprint remains. Beneath family stories and cultural customs lies a profound historical layer. The Anabaptists—ancestors of many Mennonite communities—experienced various levels of trauma in their early formation in Europe, including persecution, displacement and loss. These experiences, which led many to emigrate to the United States and elsewhere, continue to echo through generations in patterns of humility, caution, resilience and tightly knit community identity. This all-day retreat-style training, led by Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP, offers the distinct opportunity to explore these themes with depth, compassion and experiential insight in a retreat-style setting. Although raised Roman Catholic, Karen has spent years befriending, teaching, observing and working therapeutically with people of Mennonite and broader Anabaptist heritage, having lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, since 1973. With respect and sensitivity, she brings a perspective shaped by long engagement with the community—along with the embodied healing tools of psychodrama, sociometry and Family Constellations. This program is created both for participants with Mennonite or Anabaptist roots who are helping and healing professionals as well as those helpers and healers who do not have Mennonite heritage but work with this population therapeutically or in another way of helping. You will learn: -The foundational messages about obedience, belonging, modesty, nonresistance and service common in Mennonite families. -Identify how assimilation and cultural change have shaped the generational stories as well as how assimilation and cultural change along with generational habits and themes of resilience, caution, or suppression. -Recognize common themes such as loyalty, forgiveness, conflict avoidance, community surveillance, faith transitions, and leaving the tradition. -Build skill and confidence in the use of action methods and experiential approaches in supporting people working through personal narratives and wrestling with identity, belonging or generational expectations. Participants – both Mennonite and non-Mennonite – will learn how to employ experiential tools from psychodrama and Family Constellations to deepen understanding, direction and clarity for themselves and others. Through these methods, we will: -Bring cultural narratives to life through role exploration and embodied storytelling. -Illuminate family and ancestral dynamics through the basic Orders of Love from Family Constellations. -Explore themes of separation, loyalty, forgiveness, individuation and spiritual identity. -Use action-based insight to open new possibilities for healing, integration, and professional effectiveness.