A series of three CPD Zoom workshops, for therapeutic practitioners from across all modalities, with Michael Soth

Each session includes some theory, a supervision demonstration and discussion

Sunday afternoons Feb 9, Mar 9, April 6, 13:00 - 16:00 UK time

Integrative CPD learning for practising therapists from across all approaches, developing principles of relational groundedness when confronted with severe psychopathology, without succumbing to objectifying and pathologising therapeutic manoeuvers

In this brief series of three online workshops, we will work together towards establishing a frame, an overview and some fundamental principles for engaging with clients whom you find disturbing, and whose way of relating, attachment style, trauma or extreme states make it hard for you to establish a working alliance.

Most likely you are wondering whether there's anything beneficial you have to offer, and whether you, your therapy, or therapy in general are a suitable match for the client. You question your competence and whether what you can and are doing is helpful, or potentially damaging, to the client or to both of you. This is typically the moment when your therapeutically-trained mind will start to make sense of the vicissitudes of the relational field, which you find yourself in, via the medical notions and labels we have acquired from psychiatry.

Beyond the limited usefulness of dubious psychopathological and diagnostic categories, what are your options for relating both on a human and professional level, in a way that does justice to the person in front of you, both their suffering and  their potential, as well as protecting you from overreach, damaging entanglements and ultimately complaints?

In these few short hours, we will not attempt to establish theoretical clarity in what is historically a conceptual minefield across the profession. Rather, we will try to find relational ground in our own embodied sense of disturbance, whether that manifests as, for example, mental confusion, professional inadequacy, traumatising imagery, strong emotion or somatic countertransference. We will experientially encounter - through supervision demonstrations that involve the whole group - a few typical examples of client-therapist situations, volunteered by participants. These will serve as illustrations and reference points for our learning, exploring how the perennial dilemmas and paradoxes of the therapeutic position can be inhabited and navigated, when we get pushed beyond our comfort zone.

However, we will not ignore the thinking and the theories of the therapeutic traditions altogether, but use them as imaginative material for associations that deepen our understanding of our internal process within the therapeutic position. Your commitment to the course will include a few selected readings and other background materials that you need to study in preparation, and which will give us a foundation for some shared language among participants. This should make our work together more precise and efficient, and more helpful in you applying your learning to your everyday practice afterwards.

Format of the workshops

Group composition and configuration

These workshops have been initiated and requested by Michael's colleagues in Oxford, UK, through the professional referral network and community he helped to found in 2015, OTS (Oxford Therapy and Self-Development). Therefore, the group will include a significant number of participants who know each other and have worked with each other before. But all therapists, from across the approaches and modalities, and from all kinds of geographical locations, are invited to join in this rich learning opportunity. Through Michael's previous teaching connections, it is likely that the group will include therapists from Pakistan, Greece and other countries. We can expect that participants will bring quite different levels of previous experience to these workshops as well as familiarity with a wide and diverse range of therapeutic approaches - we will try to do justice to this and attempt to try and turn that problem into a productive feature of our work together.

How to get the best out of working online

Michael has experimented for quite a few years now with the online format of Zoom for shared group experience, in a way that maximises spontaneous and embodied engagement. Although there may be a significant theoretical element through slides and hand-outs, even in the online workshops Michael's emphasis is on experiential work, often in the middle of the group, sometimes in smaller breakout groups, often through role-plays of client-therapist situations. Michael has been running similar CPD workshops since 2012, both in person in different locations as well as online, with different frequencies and formats. Like all other groups that Michael facilitates, this proposed group will be cross-modality, aiming to stretch across humanistic and psychodynamic traditions, and embracing - what he calls a broad-spectrum - integrative perspective. That means he aims to draw fluidly from all the disciplines and approaches of the psychological therapies, and their accumulated gifts, knowledge and wisdoms, and that your particular approach and style will be welcome.

Proposed format of this workshop series

Although Michael's workshops usually include significant degree of unstructured space and emergent process within the group, for the purpose of these workshops and the topic we need to be focused and structured.

Each session will include an initial discussion of theory and basic principles which we will then use as a foundation for observational tasks during the supervision demonstration that is to follow in the second part. Participants are invited to volunteer a particular case during the week preceding the session via email, setting out the issues, headlines and complications of the work. From the variety of client-therapist situations offered, Michael will have selected one that seems most promising both for their clinical richness as well as for the learning opportunities they appear to offer for the group. Michael will aim to facilitate the supervision demonstration in a way that allows for stops and starts, i.e. timeouts during which the group is invited to help reflect on the process of the supervision, before we go back and continue. This should offer significant opportunities for all participants to become involved as well as giving us a chance for paying attention to parallel processes.

The third part of each session will allow for questions and answers, integration and discussion and further shared learning, through reflecting together on the demonstration.

Respect and confidentiality

We want to be mindful of the delicacy of the proposed format, in terms of the volunteer's direct exposure to the group, and the client's indirect exposure as well. It is important that we all observe confidentiality, and commit to a shared undertaking that nothing from the workshop will be indiscreetly shared with others, other than your very own personal-professional responses to the material.

Fees - UK

Early Bird before 1 Dec 2024: £140

OTS Members: £90

Recipients of mailchimp newsletter: £140

£175 full price

Fees - Europe

Early Bird before 1 Dec 2024: €160

Recipients of mailchimp newsletter: €150

€200 full price

Fees - Greece/Pakistan

Early Bird before 1 Dec 2024: €100

Recipients of mailchimp newsletter: €100

€150 full price

Fees - US

Early Bird before 1 Dec 2024: $180

Recipients of mailchimp newsletter: $180

$250 full price