in English (with expert simultaneous Greek translation) More Info & Booking: website: https://upliftingevent.com/ More info for participants from Greece: Dimitris Tzachanis - info@gestaltsynthesis.gr More info for participants from UK, US and elsewhere: Michael Soth 50 years ago, when Fritz Perls demonstrated Gestalt therapy for the first time on television, many people were gripped and inspired by the immediacy, vibrancy and powerful impact of working in the 'here & now'. The idea of attending to the 'phenomenology of the present moment' - rather than focusing on the past, the history of the biography, the roots of adult experience in childhood development - profoundly changed the way we thought about what was possible in therapy, and how long it had to take. But now, 50 years later, for many people interested in self-development and therapy, 'being here and now' has become an 'old' idea, no longer fashionable - apparently over the last few decades the idea has lost its revolutionary and revelatory appeal. Of course, to the eternal now, our silly fashions and disenchantments are of no concern - the present moment just continues, undisturbed by our lack of appreciation of it. Of course it's an 'old' idea, thousands of years old. But apparently, humanity still hasn't got the point, after all this time - how much continuous present has to pass before we wake up and get the message? Humanity - and much of the therapeutic field - seems to be as busy as ever repeating and regurgitating the past, or hankering after a future that is supposed to be more fulfilling than the present. All the while, the potential of the present moment is being aborted by our frantic and misguided efforts and our refusal or incapacity to let go into the 'here and now'. Our busy minds are lost and forgetful, clinging onto the past and grasping towards the future, missing the only moment in which life can be found. With virtual reality and artificial intelligence threatening to take over, connecting with the vitality of flesh-and-blood bodymind intelligence in the 'here and now' seems more important than ever, doesn't it? So maybe we have to revisit and re-appreciate the old idea of 'being here and now'? For the purpose of self-development, the 'here and now' is the alpha and omega. No change has ever happened in the past, and no transformation will ever occur in the future, however desperately we are seeking. But how can our awareness milk the present moment for its sweet nectar, how can we fully surrender and extract from it everything it offers and has always offered? How can we attend to the full potential of the emergent process in the 'here and now'? Outside of Buddhist teaching and mindfulness where attention to the present moment is one of the foundational pillars of practice, in the field of psychotherapy the significance of working in the 'here and now' has been declared and demonstrated most strongly and explicitly by Gestalt therapy. But as a therapeutic approach that is now more than 70 years old, Gestalt has its limitations. The more we understand what these limitations are, and by complementing these with models, ideas and techniques drawn from other therapeutic approaches, the more we are able to reinvigorate the practice of Gestalt therapy with its original promise. Many people saw that promise manifested in Fritz Perls' famous TV presentations, where he demonstrated his work in the 'here and now' with volunteers from the audience. Many modern Gestalt therapists are very critical of Perls, arguing that he set a bad example for what they consider the essence of Gestalt. The paradoxical principle of change Like few other therapeutic approaches, Gestalt is known for its focus on vibrancy, immediacy and experiential engagement. This is what many people are looking for in effective therapy - a method they can experience as having immediate, 'here and now' impact, that can be verified tangibly, subjectively. It does not require speculation or discipline or belief. As the client, you do not have to sign up to anything, you are not required to believe or take on board anything that's not immediately obvious from your own experience. That doesn't mean it's easy - on the contrary: the more that Gestalt invites us into the 'here and now', the more we discover a fundamental - and to some extent disturbing and frustrating - paradox, discovered and formulated by Gestalt therapists 50 years ago: change happens when we accept what is. This apparently simple and innocuous phrase is a rabbit hole, or maybe a wormhole, into the mysteries of the 'here and now'. This online weekend workshop is an attempt to approach some of these existential mysteries through active, experiential exploration, by drawing on the wisdom and creativity of Gestalt as demonstrated by Fritz Perls, whilst maintaining also an awareness of the criticisms and dangers that have been brought against it. It is an opportunity for you to access the best that Gestalt has to offer in terms of making your 'here and now' experience the centrepoint of everything, and entering its transformative paradoxes. Will it make a profound difference to your life and change you? Yes, if you can accept what is, in the here and now! This will be an online Zoom weekend, organised in Greece for Greek participants, but taking place in English with simultaneous Greek translation, so English-speaking participants from across the planet are invited. We can expect that participants will bring quite different levels of previous experience to this workshop as well as familiarity with different kinds of therapy - we will try to do justice to this and attempt to try and turn that problem into a productive feature of our work together. 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. Throughout the weekend, he will offer brief thoughts around some fundamental principles, giving some theoretical frame to our exploration so that we can more deeply attend to each other's experience. But most of the weekend is dedicated to experiential engagement through pair work, small group work and especially to individual demonstrations, reminiscent of Fritz Perls, when Michael will work with volunteers. Most participants find that - whether they volunteer or not - they can identify and have their own issues touched and addressed through somebody else's individual work that resonates deeply. We want to be mindful of 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 workshop. This semi-closed group has been running for several years now (since 2015), with new participants joining the 'pool' of members as places become available. Led by one of the most experienced integrative trainers in the UK, this group will provide an ideal relational container for your ongoing development as a therapist. By immersing yourself in a diverse group of colleagues from different schools and orientations, you will widen your perspective, deepen your practice, draw both inspiration and challenge from the co-created wide-ranging experiential work and have a reference point as well as resources and teaching to support your further development. You can find a detailed description of the format and objectives of this group on the dedicated page. 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 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 in English (with expert simultaneous Greek translation) More Info & Booking: website: https://upliftingevent.com/ More info for participants from Greece: Dimitris Tzachanis - info@gestaltsynthesis.gr More info for participants from UK, US and elsewhere: Michael Soth “Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.” Rumi In this session I will invite you to explore the therapeutic space beyond notions of right or wrong, beyond ideas of best theory, correct technique, practice by the book or manual. I will invite you to use all your faculties, all your knowledge, all your woundedness and sensitivity to get a flavour of your own therapeutic style, that is free to draw fluidly and integratively from the wealth of therapeutic knowledge and expertise humans have accumulated. As C.G. Jung said: “There should only be one Jungian therapist – me.” Everybody else - including you and me - we need to find our own style, rooted in our own relational complexity and embodied in our own history, wounds and limitations as well as gifts and potential. As we can only find this in the moment, rather than through thinking or theory only, this session will weave between experience and reflection, between skills practice and discussion, engaging you with your next step at your growing edge. We may draw from the following themes what seems most relevant and urgent. ‘Nothing human is foreign to me.’ What gets in the way of full engagement? What limits the client’s experience of the therapeutic space? Phenomenological enquiry into the therapist’s internal process: how is the therapist behaving habitually in ways that are, for example, fixed, limited, restrained, unresponsive or overly-giving? Focussing on the therapist’s ‘construction’ of the therapeutic space. ‘Allowing the client’s unconscious to construct me as an object.’ What limits a full and deeply transformative process? Phenomenological enquiry into the therapist’s external effects: how are the therapist’s responses/interventions countertherapeutic? therapy as treatment (‘medical model’) versus therapy as collusive friendship objectifying/pathologising versus colluding/avoidant therapy as relationship objectifying – differentiating – identifying – colluding ‘something desperately has to happen’ – ‘nothing has to happen/nothing to be imposed’ the client’s character conflicts / the ego-Self axis The shattered and fragmented postmodern wholeness Drawing on the gifts and wisdom of the whole field (fragmentation of the field reflects the fragmented modern psyche – the integration of the client’s psyche into wholeness requires the integration of the whole field) The history of schisms and conflicts in the psychotherapeutic field and how it affects us now integration and dis-integration cherry-picking approaches versus full-spectrum integration therapeutic approach cannot be grasped by theory and technique – underlying implicit relational stance Moving beyond a one-dimensional therapeutic position The wounded healer position The therapist’s habitual position – inheriting the wounds of our family ancestors, our therapeutic ancestors, or cultural ancestors … The therapist’s shadow The dangers of integration Gomez, Stark, Clarkson, Michael’s Diamond model: what kind of therapeutic relatedness? Gomez: humanistic ‘alongside’ stance versus psychodynamic ‘opposite’ stance Stark: ‘one-person psychology’, ‘one-and-a-half-person psychology’, ‘two-person psychology’ Clarkson: working alliance – authentic – reparative – transference/countertransference - transpersonal Michael’s Diamond model: include ‘medical model’ understanding identifications - projective identification – transference and countertransference as systemic bodymind processes the relational paradox: transcending treatment versus relationship dualism = paradox of enactment I-it and I-I relating the bodymind paradox: transcending mind-over-body versus body-over-mind dualism = embodiment/disembodiment paradox the central paradox of therapy: the healing of the client’s wounding is inseparable from the enactment of wounding in and through therapy. integrative/integral relational embodied systemic paradoxical Through including body-oriented ways of working into the talking therapies, we can learn to work with many of these symptoms more directly, more deeply and more effectively (and recognise other situations where the hope of curing illness through psychology is an unreasonable idealisation). This CPD workshop is designed to expand your understanding of the bodymind connection as well as offering a wide range of creative and body-oriented techniques to include in your practice. With some illnesses - like hypertension, chest and heart problems, digestive illnesses, symptoms of the immune system - it is scientifically established that emotional stress contributes to their origin. With many other psychosomatic problems, like all kinds of pain, tinnitus, insomnia, chronic fatigue and many other unexplained symptoms, it is known that the intensity of the suffering can be ameliorated through psychological therapy that addresses the regulation and expression of emotion and de-stresses the mind. Stress is the catchall phrase that supposedly explains the influence of our psychological body-emotion-mind state on illness. However, what is less well understood, is how our bodymind does not just respond to stresses in our current situation and lifestyle, but carries accumulated stress from the past, reaching all the way back to childhood. A holistic and bio-social-psychological understanding of stress needs to include lifelong patterns of the bodymind including developmental injury and trauma (what Wilhelm Reich originally called character structures). Sometimes clients bring psychosomatic illness as a presenting issue to the therapy, sometimes these symptoms actually evolve in direct response to the unfolding therapeutic process, and the therapist gets implicated in them, e.g. “After last session I had a headache for three days!” Direct links to body sensations and symptoms as well as body image come up as part of our work in sessions every day, in so many ways: tangible pains, tensions, trembling and shaking, breathing difficulties (hyperventilation, asthma), the physical side of unbearable feelings like panic, rage, dread or terror. There are obvious somatic aspects to presenting issues such as eating disorders or addictions. And then there are the psychological implications of actual, sometimes terminal, illnesses and psychosomatic symptoms and dis-ease. How do we work with these issues and symptoms in psychotherapy? What ways are available to us for including the client’s ‘felt sense’, their embodied self states, their body awareness and sensations, their physiological experience in the interaction ? This workshop will give you a framework for thinking about the role of the body as it is relevant in your own style of therapeutic work, based upon the different ways in which clients as well as therapists relate to ‘the symptom’. Throughout the workshop, we will use roleplay of actual issues and dilemmas brought up by your clients. We will also identify and practice ways in which you can explore the emotional function and 'meaning' of your client's physical symptom or illness. Drawing on a wide range of humanistic and psychoanalytic approaches (including Body Psychotherapy, Process-oriented Psychology, various schools of psychoanalysis and Jungian perspectives) as well as the holistic paradigm underpinning most complementary therapies, we will weave together an interdisciplinary bodymind approach which is applicable within the therapeutic relationship as we know it in counselling and psychotherapy. Michael has been working with the psychological and bodymind connection of illness and psychosomatic symptoms for many years. In the 1990s he initiated a project called 'Soul in Illness', offering an integrative psychotherapeutic perspective, drawing on the wisdom which the different therapeutic approaches have accumulated regarding illness, both in terms of theoretical understanding and practical ways of working. He has run CPD workshops for therapists on ‘Working with Illness’ many times, and has developed a relational and embodied way of engaging with the client’s bodymind. In 2005 he presented for the first time his model of ‘8 ways of relating to the symptom’, which addresses the client’s own relationship to their symptom, as well as giving an overview of the different stances taken by the therapist in the various therapeutic approaches that correspond to each of the ways of relating to the symptom. These eight ways of relating to the symptom, including the corresponding theoretical understandings as well as methods and techniques for intervention, will form the underlying framework for this workshop. Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool Bob Dylan: License To Kill Narcissism has a reputation for being notoriously difficult to engage with in therapy, for a variety of good reasons, not least because the very idea of ‘needing’ therapy is a humiliating insult to the grandiose self. As one of the key modern ‘disturbances of the self’, narcissism has replaced Victorian repression as the psychological disease of the age, which means that the original theories of our discipline from 100 years ago no longer quite apply. As a dominant collective issue, as exhibited by the celebrity culture all over the world and all over the media, the term ‘narcissism’ has entered pop psychology and lost all precision and meaning. In order to be clinically useful, we need to have a clear, circumscribed definition of narcissism, and its origins and manifestations. Beyond commonplace over-simplifications, the various therapeutic traditions have widely divergent ideas and theories about narcissism, leading to quite contradictory recommendations for therapists. More than many other issues, therefore, narcissism requires an integrative stance, that can draw insights and understanding from the various approaches and combine them, to provide a comprehensive understanding and therapeutic response. Because the narcissist tries to approximate an image of perfection (attempting to manifest a grandiose self), this leads to a chameleon-like disconnection from the body, and an objectifying, ‘perfecting’ treatment of it. For many celebrities, the body becomes an advertisement of the False Self, treated like one more fashion accessory. More than many other issues, therefore, narcissism calls for an embodied therapy, reconnecting the person to pleasurable, ordinary human reality, rather than pursuing the delusions of a disembodied virtual self. Because the narcissist was emotionally ‘used’ by their parent(s), their individuality was never fully seen and mirrored. Therefore, in the moment where we apply a generic diagnostic label and put the narcissist into the same category with many others, we are re-inflicting a lack of individual mirroring. More than any other issue, narcissism reveals some of the shadow aspects and weaknesses of our discipline. In order to make therapy possible, we cannot afford to rely on a reasonable and supposedly realistic ego-ego alliance: we need a working alliance both with the wounded, insignificant self as well as the inflated grandiose self. This course will provide condensed understanding extracted from the various therapeutic approaches, specifically drawing from and integrating the various psychoanalytic, the humanistic-embodied and the Jungian traditions. We will combine the theoretical input with practical, experiential work, based upon vignettes and case illustrations volunteered by participants, to explore how these ideas may be applied in practice. We will be drawing on the following literature: 
Online Zoom Workshop for everybody interested in psychological change
Sat & Sun, 22 & 23 February 2025, 15.00 – 21.00 EET
About therapy in the 'here & now'
Format of the weekend
Some of the possible learning objectives:
An ongoing, broad-spectrum integrative group
Online Zoom Workshop for everybody interested the power of the breath
Sat & Sun, 24 & 25 May 2025, 15.00 – 21.00 EET
About integral-relational Breathwork
Finding your own style within the spectrum of 21st-century psychotherapy
Creating an open, inviting therapeutic space
Creating an effective transformative therapeutic space
The doctor-friend polarity
The client’s conflict: habitual mode versus emergency
A broad-spectrum integration of approaches
The therapist’s habitual, wounded, fixed position
Shifting from therapeutic approaches to relational modalities
Transcending dualisms and binaries into paradox
The fractal self: a chain of nested matrices of parallel process
The bodymind connection in working with psychosomatic and physical symptoms
A weekend workshop in Athens with Michael Soth
Even though counsellors and psychotherapists are traditionally expected to focus on emotional, mental and verbal communications, many clients invariably do bring their physical and psychosomatic symptoms into the session. 
And when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled
Oh, man is opposed to fair play
He wants it all and he wants it his way.
Calendar – Workshop Groups (10 +)MM2014-09-01T16:25:42+00:00
Feb
22
Sat
2025
Mar
8
Sat
2025
Mar
9
Sun
2025
Mar 9 @ 13:00 – 16:00
Apr
6
Sun
2025
Apr 6 @ 13:00 – 16:00
May
24
Sat
2025
May 24 @ 13:00 – May 25 @ 19:00
Jan
17
Sat
2026
Feb
14
Sat
2026
Feb 14 @ 10:00 – Feb 15 @ 18:00
May
2
Sat
2026
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