A training and in-depth supervision weekend with Morit Heitzler

This next event in our series with Morit is CPD that includes both training and in-depth supervision. The depth of this weekend training is a key benefit as is the opportunity to be part of an ongoing group making connections and offering continuity from one workshop to the next. You can receive trauma-related teaching and supervision input whilst also learning from other participants' experience relevant to the themes and issues emerging during the two days. Each day will be a mixture of CPD somatic trauma training, clinical supervision of actual cases presented by participants, as well as some role play of case vignettes.

Please see the event flyer here.

A three weekend course with Michael Soth
The notion of 'relational modalities' originated in the early 1990’s with Petruska Clarkson, and was one of the most coherent manifestations of the paradigm shift towards two-person psychology. However, whilst it usefully shifts the ‘talking cure’ towards the ‘relating cure’ (thus organising the therapeutic profession around the principle that “it is the relationship that matters”), what is lacking in this formulation of relationality is the bodymind connection.
That particular lack of embodiment then tends towards lending all the diverse kinds of therapeutic relating - and the search for meaning through them - a decidedly mental-reflective bias across the talking therapies. Without embodied presence, we can reflect on relational dynamics until we are blue in the face, it’s unlikely to engender sustained bodymind process and development, let alone holistic transformation. Embodied trauma and character defences are unlikely to yield towards recovery or wholeness through the dominance of insight. Circular, disconnected thinking, intellectualising, rationalising and plain dissociation are then given too much weight in the therapeutic process, depriving it of spontaneity, authenticity and emergent process, as well as the felt sense of depth and coherence.

Relational modalities complementing learning on character: embodied and relational
These 3 weekends are going to be alternating with Nick Totton’s parallel course on ‘Character’, complementing the learning there and following it through into the vicissitudes (as they call them in psychoanalysis) of the therapeutic relationship. When we extend that notion of ‘character’ to ourselves as therapists when at work in the therapeutic position, we recognise it as our 'habitual position' – those habitual ways of being and relating, thinking, feeling and behaving as therapists which limit our flexibility between the various relational modalities. Both courses together will capture and circumscribe some of the fundamental principles of embodied-relational psychotherapy.

Please see the flyer for more detail.

This weekend is the first in a series which aims to work towards a comprehensive understanding and practice of breathwork, drawing from the diverse traditions and trying to integrate them on the basis of a holistic bodymind psychological understanding. Specifically, it will include to some extent mindfulness, meditative and yoga breathing, but focus on the lesser known approaches like Grof's holotropic breathing, rebirthing, vegeto therapy, and an integrative relational form of breathwork developed at the Chiron Centre focussing on bodymind and relational ‘charge’. We will work with and without touch, with and without focus on the breath, experimenting with various styles and stances from allowing (biodynamic ‘impinging from within’) to challenge (bioenergetic or vegetotherapy).

Format of the weekend:
As all of these techniques depend upon the moment-to-moment engagement with the body’s spontaneous and involuntary processes and subliminal communications, role-play and simulations (which are usually a regular feature of experiential CPD learning) are of limited usefulness in this context. Therefore, an important part of the learning will be live sessions which participants will have with each other, in pairs or triads, or in the middle of the group. For the duration of the course, we will together build the safety and relational container necessary for such work to become possible in an authentic way.

There will be several assistants to support the group:
As traditional breathwork tends to ignore and neglect the intersubjective aspects and unconscious processes occurring between client and therapist, in order to maximise relational awareness, we will invite a significant number of assistants to support the group and learning process at every level. We are expecting a group of about 20 to 25 participants and between 5 and 10 assistants.

Please read the flyer for more information.

This next event in our series with Morit is CPD that includes both training and in-depth supervision. The depth of this weekend training is a key benefit as is the opportunity to be part of an ongoing group making connections and offering continuity from one workshop to the next. You can receive trauma-related teaching and supervision input whilst also learning from other participants' experience relevant to the themes and issues emerging during the two days. Each day will be a mixture of CPD somatic trauma training, clinical supervision of actual cases presented by participants, as well as some role play of case vignettes.
Please see the flyer for more information or contact: clare_brook@yahoo.co.uk for bookings.

The second part in this three weekend series with Michael Soth
The notion of 'relational modalities' originated in the early 1990’s with Petruska Clarkson, and was one of the most coherent manifestations of the paradigm shift towards two-person psychology. However, whilst it usefully shifts the ‘talking cure’ towards the ‘relating cure’ (thus organising the therapeutic profession around the principle that “it is the relationship that matters”), what is lacking in this formulation of relationality is the bodymind connection.
That particular lack of embodiment then tends towards lending all the diverse kinds of therapeutic relating - and the search for meaning through them - a decidedly mental-reflective bias across the talking therapies. Without embodied presence, we can reflect on relational dynamics until we are blue in the face, it’s unlikely to engender sustained bodymind process and development, let alone holistic transformation. Embodied trauma and character defences are unlikely to yield towards recovery or wholeness through the dominance of insight. Circular, disconnected thinking, intellectualising, rationalising and plain dissociation are then given too much weight in the therapeutic process, depriving it of spontaneity, authenticity and emergent process, as well as the felt sense of depth and coherence.

Please see the flyer for more detail.