Offwell
Honiton EX14 9SR
UK
Exeter: Body-oriented CPD Weekend Group 2018 (Weekend 2 of 4 with Michael)
These workshops, designed for counsellors and psychotherapists from across the approaches, are an opportunity to work with and learn from two of the most experienced trainers at the forefront of bringing embodiment into psychotherapy.Rather than grafting the body onto established practice as one more eclectic technique, Nick and Michael have been working towards a non-dualistic embodied way of being and relating in the therapeutic relationship. This series of CPD training events provides an ideal container for your continuing professional development, rooted in your own embodied process. For full details regarding this unique venture in Britain's Southwest, click the button to see the dedicated page. It is likely that the group will continue in 2019 with another series of four weekends.
Relational modalities in the context of attachment & character structure theory
An experiential-theoretical CPD Weekend with Michael Soth
Grounding different therapeutic approaches to habitual patterns of relating in bodymind process
There are significant philosophical and theoretical differences between the various traditional models which we use as therapists to name, describe and conceptualise the intersubjective field in the therapeutic relationship, and the client's early developmental blueprint for the relational patterns we co-create with them.
The diverse traditions (psychoanalytic developmental theory, attachment theory, character structure theory, intersubjectivity, relationality) each have their assumptions, conceptual frame, jargon terms, and particular gifts and shadow aspects in disclosing or occluding certain areas of the complex field.
How these 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.
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, 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
We will compare & contrast:
- attachment theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth, Holmes)
- character structure theory (Reich, Lowen, Kurtz & Johnson)
- intersubjectivity (Atwood & Stolorow, Orange)
- psychoanalytic developmental theory (including Kleinian and object relations)
BOOK SOON:
The weekend coming up on June 23/24th is a unique introduction to the overlaps and differences (and possible synergies) between three different models which therapists commonly use to make sense of their experience in the therapeutic relationship: attachment theory, character structure theory and relational modalities.
All three 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 three 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.