This group is for experienced therapists only (practising for 10 years or more), and has had a consistent core group of participants for the last few years (since 2012), meeting 6 days per year, usually for a whole weekend (10.00 - 17.00 both Saturday & Sunday). There is a 'pool' of currently 12 participants, and 4 more places are available from October 2019.

The group consists mainly of integrative psychotherapists with a relational orientation, many of whom had a humanistic training initially, many years ago. Over the years the culture of the group has evolved, from an emphasis on CPD and supervision to include increasingly personal and group process. The format over a typical weekend varies creatively between working in the whole group, sessions in the middle of the group, small group work, with Michael facilitating in collaboration with the emergent processes in the group. Occasionally, Michael will give some theoretical input relevant to the process, or summarise the emerging themes.

Dates in 2020:
28 & 29 March
4 & 5 July
10 & 11 October

Dates in 2021:
20 & 21 March
19 & 20 June
2 & 3 October

Dates in 2022:
5 & 6 February

As an experienced practitioner, you are likely to recognise that …

• a good working alliance is a paradoxical process: it needs to be robust enough, so it can break down; it needs to break down in order for it to strengthen and deepen (in order to have a strong therapeutic position we need to be able to also lose it);
• breakdowns of the working alliance with certain clients draw out of you a disproportionate amount of engagement as well as requiring additional attention in supervision - this constitutes a fertile edge for continuing professional development;
• your conflicts and dilemmas with these clients are not just a function of your lack of skill or your supposed incompetence - your difficulties are in some deep way a necessary part of the process (in other words: there is a relational purpose inherent in the impasses and enactments that become constellated and co-created in the therapeutic relationship);
• your client’s relational pattern has an uncanny knack for ferreting out shadow aspects of your therapeutic position (as well as that of the therapeutic tradition(s) you belong to);
• your own woundedness, as a person and as a therapist, will be touched and activated as the relationship deepens, and thus becomes an essential ‘eye of the needle’ through which the process needs to pass;
• much of our traditional theories and techniques does not adequately prepare us for the depth and intensity of these struggles and difficulties.

How to access the transformative potential of impasses & enactments?

This weekend is based on the proposition that there is no way out of enactments, but only a way into and through them. Our starting point will be that the very trappedness, stuckness and conflictedness we get to feel in the therapeutic position contains the seeds of transformation, both for the client and for the therapeutic relationship as a system.

To increase our chances of dealing with impasses, breakdowns and enactments successfully, we want to make sure we have a maximum of resources at our disposal, and that we draw on all of the following:

Integration of widest possible range of approaches (broad-spectrum integration):

The different approaches have profoundly different ways of perceiving, conceptualising and working with similar kinds of dynamic. Each therapeutic tradition has certain sensibilities and developed particular expertise, and we do not want to deprive ourselves of ideas, concepts, tools and techniques available within our field which we are unfamiliar with.

Holistic bodymind awareness and embodied engagement:

The bulk of all difficulties in the working alliance emerges and is perpetuated on levels of nonverbal communication. By bringing a differentiated awareness to those bodymind processes which modern neuroscience describes as essential, but subliminal, a whole new realm of perception, understanding and intervention becomes available to us.

Relational sensitivity to unconscious dynamics on multiple levels:

Michael has developed a unique extended model of ‘parallel process’ that can help us attend to and apprehend the dynamics of relational patterns across the various dimensions of the therapeutic relationship (what he calls the ‘Fractal Self’). Exploration and application of this model and its relevance to your practice constitutes one ingredient in the work of the group.

Integration of all relational modalities (including ‘medical model’):

Based upon and extending Petruska Clarkson’s model of relational modalities, we can go beyond attempts at integration via diverse theories and techniques, and arrive at a multiplicity of relational modalities which are all valid aspects of the whole that is the system of the therapeutic relationship. Michael has developed Clarkson’s model further, by integrating the ‘medical model’ as one valid modality, and conceiving of them in dynamic tension in the here and now of the therapeutic relationship.

Diamond model of relational modalities:

Based on the recognition that the therapist’s conflicts (in the countertransference) parallel the conflicts in the client’s inner world (character conflicts) and in the transferential field, we can conceive of the working alliance in constant oscillation between the poles of rupture and repair, enactment and containment/transformation of enactment. Surrendering to the ‘intersubjective mess’ that is the therapeutic relationship involves entering the enactment without taking refuge in theory or technique or categorically taking sides in the various polarities that arise (e.g. one-person versus two-person psychology assumptions).

The post London, Ealing – Ongoing Professional Development Group for Experienced Therapists appeared first on INTEGRA CPD.

About the format the group

This group has been ongoing since 2015, at a frequency about 4 or 5 days per year. It is semi-closed, to allow for continuity and group cohesion. That means participants form a ‘pool’ of a maximum of 12 group members, with the aim of attending as many days as they can, though not everybody is expected to join in every time. The dates are planned and set a long time in advance, so usually we have at least 10 people present at each of the days, although occasionally the group ends up smaller (8 to 10). When people drop out of the ‘pool’, Michael may invite new group members to join. The 'pool' has been closed for a couple of years, but as of September 2022, two places are now becoming available. Since Michael's move to Central America, the group has re-formed and re-committed to a a more structured online format (meeting regularly bi-monthly on a Saturday), with many members increasingly familiar now with Michael's teaching. Joining the group would depend to some extent on such familiarity with relational principles, including enactment and parallel process.

Dates for the next couple of years:

2022
17 Sep 2022
19 Nov 2022

2023
28 Jan 2023
1 Apr 2023
3 Jun 2023
16 Sep 2023
11 Nov 2023

2024
20 Jan 2024
23 Mar 2024

An ongoing, integrative group

This group, led by one of the most experienced integrative trainers in the UK, 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 as well as challenge from the group. You will have a reference point as well as resources and teaching to support your further development.
Participants find the ongoing and continuing relationships in the context of a stable group, as well as Michael's input, support, supervision and mentoring, more effective for their continuing professional development than occasional one-off CPD events.

Towards an embodied holistic 21st-century psychotherapy

All the work of the group will have a strong emphasis on the bodymind connection and embodiment, extending our awareness beyond verbal communication. A significant number of participants bring some training and experience of various body-oriented therapeutic approaches to the group. By grounding everything that happens in the therapeutic dynamic in the corresponding psycho-somatic processes (in both client and therapist and the relationship), we will be applying cutting-edge principles of modern neuroscience regarding right-brain to right-brain attunement, implicit relational knowing and multi-modal communication.

Integration on the basis of relational modalities

Embracing the validity of different kinds of therapeutic relatedness, we will attend to the therapeutic relationship as a multi-dimensional space where different modalities of relating reveal and open up different therapeutic avenues and possibilities. Michael is building upon models of relational diversity and multiplicity by Petruska Clarkson and Martha Stark, and has developed these further into what he calls his ‘diamond model’, recognising the paradoxical nature of enactment as central to the therapeutic endeavour. This will form a theoretical backdrop to the work of the group, allowing integration of humanistic, psychoanalytic, behavioural, systemic and other traditions.

The therapeutic relationship - systems within systems

We can think of client and therapist as forming a semi-closed system which – as we know – can be paralleled in the supervisory system (parallel process between therapist and supervisor). In a similar way, therapy is nested within other systems past and present which constitute its context and both restrict and resource the process. Thinking systemically – what Michael calls the ‘Fractal Self – will be a background perspective which may occasionally become part of the teaching, drawing on complexity theory and various systemic theories and approaches.

Fluid, experiential ways of working – integrating theory and practice

Working with the general notion of the ‘reflective practitioner’, we will try to integrate individual and group process as well as experiential and theoretical learning and clinical reflection. We will value different learning styles and use different formats and structures flexibly, in response to the group’s unfolding needs. There will be space for you to bring the issues and dilemmas arising in your practice, and address these in terms of specific clients as well as general theoretical themes. Experiential supervision - in small groups as well as fishbowl large group format - through embodied role-play of significant and 'charged' client-therapist interactions are a central element of the learning process.

Developing your own unique style and approach – the ‘wounded healer’

Unlike your original training, this group is not beholden to a particular approach and its paradigm and assumptions. You can work, learn and practice within your existing modality, or you can stretch, expand and explore other approaches, without any obligations or loyalty issues. We will be working from an inclusive integral-relational perspective, but the priority is for your learning to always stay relevant and applicable to your own style and modality and evolving practice.
Recognising that it is your self that the work hinges upon (and not much else), we will aim at helping you develop an idiosyncratic therapeutic presence that ‘suits’ you and matches who you are as a person and your life. Inevitably, this will include your own history and pathology, so discovering what the archetype of the wounded healer means to you and embracing it as well as inhabiting it as a therapist will be one of the opportunities which the group offers.

Format and times

Since 2020 we have been using Zoom to meet online. The group has now begun to meet occasionally face-to-face without Michael, in a peer format in London. We start at 11.00, and take a 45-minute break around lunch.

The post Ongoing Integrative CPD Group appeared first on INTEGRA CPD.