Ongoing CPD Events

I provide embodied psychotherapy CPD opportunities throughout the year by organising various workshops in the south-west. The workshops are designed for body psychotherapists and other practitioners interested in embodied relationship. They will include discussion, experiential work, and supervision.

If you would like further information about any of our workshops then please contact Clare Brook at clare_brook@yahoo.co.uk. Alternatively follow this link to the online booking form.

  • Sat
    08
    Sep
    2018
    Sun
    09
    Sep
    2018
    10 am - 5pmEast Devon

    This weekend is for anyone who wants to strengthen and develop their ability to work in a relational and body-focused way with clients. It should be suitable both for people who have trained in body psychotherapy, and for those from other modalities who simply have an interest in and attraction to this style.

    Although there will be some theoretical discussion, and some teaching of skills, the central aim is to help you develop your practical understanding of how you can take a relational and embodied stance that best suits you. If we work in a way that is comfortable for us, this will also be the most productive for our clients.

    The workshop will therefore be experiential and practical in its focus, offering opportunities to work in observed dyads and to reflect on what happens there, and also time for group supervision and probably for demonstrations. It is open to any interested practitioners.

    Nick Totton I am a body psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor with 35 years experience. I founded the post graduate training in Embodied-Relational Therapy (www.erthworks.co.uk), and also the one year Wild Therapy training (www.wildtherapy.org.uk). I have written a number of books, including Psychotherapy and Politics (Sage), Body Psychotherapy: An Introduction (Open University Press), and Embodied Relating: The Ground of Psychotherapy (Karnac). I have a grown up daughter. I live in Cornwall with my partner and grow vegetables.

    To book a place on this workshop please contact Clare Brook at clare_brook@yahoo.co.uk. Cost of the workshop is £220.

  • Sat
    06
    Oct
    2018
    Sun
    07
    Oct
    2018
    10 am - 5pmEast Devon

    Morit has been teaching Integrative Body Psychotherapy and trauma work for the past 20 years.

    She brings 30 years of experience of clinical practise to her teaching and draws upon approaches including Somatic Trauma Therapy, EMDR, Biodynamic Massage, Sensorimotor Therapy and a Systemic approach to Family Constellations and Transgenerational Trauma.

    Her integrative approach combines knowledge and experience gained at the Chiron Centre for Body Psychotherapy, Metanoia Integrative Psychotherapy MSc, the Maudsley Hospital and the Oxford Stress & Trauma Centre as well as Far Eastern Complementary medicine.

    We are pleased to be able to offer this second CPD event to counsellors and therapists seeking to take the next step beyond basic trauma therapy by integrating diverse approaches, and bringing an embodied and relational perspective to trauma work.

    The environment at The Wheelhouse offers a welcoming space for those seeking to increase their knowledge and expand their confidence and we do this through creating a stimulating and accepting environment.

    Please contact Clare Brook at clare_brook@yahoo.co.uk to make a booking. Cost of the workshop is £200.

  • Sat
    01
    Dec
    2018
    Sun
    02
    Dec
    2018
    10 am - 5pmEast Devon

    The presenting past

    The majority of humanistic and integrative approaches these days relies on developmental theory in the way that psychoanalytic traditions have always done. We see the client's current problems in their adult life as intricately linked to life-long habitual patterns that originated in childhood. We see the client's capacity for engaging in life as an adult as a function of their developmental wounding and importantly as a function of their defences against it, which were established early on and continue to influence or dominate their present reality; in the words of a famous psychodynamic textbook, we could summarise this widely established focus on developmental injury across the various therapeutic approaches as the 'presenting past'.

    Differences & contradictions between the models

    However, there are significant philosophical and theoretical differences between the various traditional models which we use as therapists to name, describe and conceptualise the client's early developmental blueprint for the relational patterns we co-create with them in the intersubjective field of the therapeutic relationship.

    The diverse traditions (psychoanalytic developmental theory, attachment theory, character structure theory, TA, intersubjectivity, relationality) each have their assumptions, conceptual frame, jargon terms, and their particular gifts and shadow aspects in disclosing or occluding certain areas of the field of relating between client and therapist. How the myriad complex aspects of the field do or do not enter the therapist's stream of consciousness depends to some extent on the theoretical lenses we use.

    To widen our awareness and make it as unbiased and inclusive as possible, we can ground our observations of the relational dynamic in the detail of bodymind process, much of it non-verbal, some of it subliminal.

    Grounding different therapeutic approaches to habitual patterns of relating in bodymind process

    This weekend is dedicated to clarifying both theoretically and practically the differences, contradictions and overlaps between the various traditional languages and models, by attending to their fundamental ideas (e.g. attachment styles, working models, co-creation, character styles, self-states and mutual recognition, habitual patterns, etc) as bodymind processes.

    This may allow us to build an integration that creates a productive synergy between these different traditions and diverse theoretical frames. Although theoretical principles will be involved, we will stick to the basic ideas rather than go into abstract or historical detail - the overall aim of the weekend is to keep it practical and applicable.

    Learning Objectives

    This could include a process of comparing & contrasting:

    • attachment theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth, Holmes)
    • character structure theory (Reich, Lowen, Kurtz & Johnson)
    • Transactional Analysis developmental theory (ego-states and scripts)
    • psychoanalytic developmental theory (including Kleinian and object relations)
    • intersubjectivity (Atwood & Stolorow, Orange)

    We will attempt to ground the key notions of these theories in embodied, experience-near terms. And we will explore how these different ideas both help and hinder us in apprehending the fullness and systemic wholeness of the relational dynamic between client and therapist.

    The weekend is a unique introduction to the overlaps and differences (and possible synergies) between the different models which therapists commonly use to make sense of their experience in the therapeutic relationship. This inclused especially attachment theory, character structure theory, TA and relational modalities. All these theories aim to help us in making sense of the client's relational pattern and behaviour in the therapeutic relationship. All of them have two-person psychology elements and can be used in that way; but all can also be used in a more one-person psychology diagnostic fashion, by focusing mainly on the client's pattern of attachment and relating.

    In this CPD weekend we will enhance the usefulness of all these models by thinking of about the inherent bodymind processes which we have observed as therapists before we can even apply any of the models - we will try to ground our use of the models in our phenomenological bodymind observations, of the client and of ourselves (and as these are traditional models, that includes the fact that they were used in connection with observations of transference and countertransference).

    We will explore how these models complement each other and become more powerful in combination. And we will also look at the limitations and shadow aspects of each, and how as therapists we might end up using them in a way that blinds us to enactments, complications in the working alliance and impasses in the therapeutic process.

    For booking information please contact Clare Brook at: clare_brook@yahoo.co.uk.

A selection of comments left for Judy Shaw after our latest workshop:

“A warmth that is so unique in training courses. It has felt a welcoming and supportive environment to support our learnings.”

“Very lovely nourishing space … and very great food! Thank you.”

“A welcoming and beautiful learning environment with good positive energy.”

“Abundance of welcome and provisions as usual.”

“Very good venue, comfortable and warm. The food was second to none. I have a feeling of being well nourished and welcomed. Would always suggest to any interested others Judy’s workshop.”

“Your space is very comfortable; I love this venue.”