I am delighted to announce I will be holding two new groups, hosted by the Wilbury Clinic in Hove, this coming autumn…
OVERVIEW:
- Monthly Groups on Mondays, 4pm – 6pm, at The Wilbury Clinic
- Designed for qualified therapists seeking facilitated learning, connection, and reflective spaces
- Reading Group – exploring phenomenology and humanistic practice
- Group Supervision and Personal Development – using the Enneagram as a lens
- Practical info at the end of this page
A little context on how these two groups came to be…
Experiencing Wholeness
Many of you might know that I am currently keeping myself out of trouble by writing a second book; like the first, this is intended to be a practical book for therapists; and while I will always be a writer who uses one’s own experience, this book will be in the format of a classic textbook. The focus of the writing also shifts: from a Buddhism-informed therapy to a textbook on the Humanistic approach to therapy.
My motivation to write a textbook is twofold. Firstly, having written my way to an understanding of weaving a Buddhist practice into my work, I now wanted to work through something similar: how I have come to see Humanistic practice (and in my career to date, “what works”). Secondly, having been an educator of trainee therapists for some time now, I wanted to reflect on my experiences of teaching on counselling and on psychotherapy programmes (and what that tells me about “what works”).
As with all weaves, strands come together; and with reflection on those two motivations what has occurred to me is the importance of phenomenology in the move from counselling to psychotherapy activity.
What bears emphasising as you read that last sentence is that the humanistic tradition has roots deeply embedded in a culture of counselling (one only need read the history to understand the benefits of using this descriptor and thus moving therapy out of the remit of the medical profession and institutions). What is not being argued here is that counselling is done by counsellors, and psychotherapy is done by psychotherapists – let’s not conflate verb and noun! Rather, and this moves to the second strand of motivation, the shift between the two activities is about the ‘something more’ (if we use James Bugental’s language); you and I might say something like psychotherapy is a practice of depth or intensity; and it might deal with more complexity in our client presentations. We might add that psychotherapy tends to be longer, because some of that ‘depth’ is about re-organisation (or deconstruction) of ‘self’, or how we come to experience who we are (rather than a pre-occupation with a situation or “problem” with the world ‘out there’). The latter is often referred to as ‘first order change’, as opposed to the more fundamental transformation associated with ‘second order change’. In the humanistic paradigm, transformation is knowing our wholeness; and to know we must be able to experience it…the task of the phenomenological method.
For brevity, I am making some sweeping statements which I hope you will forgive. I obviously expand on these in “Humanistic Psychotherapy: experiencing second order change”, the current working title.
Most of my time outside of private practice work and teaching tends to be directed toward writing; and what with the close of another academic year space brings not only progress (I am hopeful for a first draft by summer end) it allows more immersion in the theory and philosophy that underpins the humanistic approach. Anyone who knows me well will know my ‘little professor’ can get dangerously inspired! I am spending as much time annotating my book writing journal with “future ideas” as I am fingers on keyboard writing about the current ideas. I ran those ideas past the practice manager at the Wilbury clinic where I work. As someone possessing an equally burning passion for their work, before long we had two developments to put into place: both starting this coming autumn…
Offering 1: A Reading Group for Therapists – Phenomenology and Practice
In my experience, trainee therapists get really inspired by the philosophy of existentialism; understandably so – as the writings of Sartre, De Beauvoir and the like speak to the fundamentals of the human condition. Yalom coined the phrase “givens of existence” to describe the features of death, freedom, isolation, and meaningless that resonate deeply with our knowing. However, it is an easy trap to get giddy in the ideas. We might resonate and yet how do we reverberate? How do concepts become percepts? Enter the likes of Merleau-Ponty and the band of phenomenologists. The humanistic tradition is existential-phenomenological, and yet the latter can get overshadowed – sometimes because of the draw of the existential practitioners and writers; and yet often because trainees aren’t confident in the move from thinking to living “the things themselves”!
This reading group aims to plug that gap. Taking one paper each month, we will look at key principles in the humanistic philosophy and make them palpable. We will examine notions such as embodiment, experiencing, knowing, lived-experience, self-ing and subjectivity; first coming to know these for ourselves (as we are the instrument of an effective psychotherapy), and discussing these together so we might in turn facilitate the direct experiencing of our clients.
Offering 2: Group Supervision & Personal Development for Qualified Therapists
Like the reading group, this offering hopes to lend learning support and community for the practitioner. After the success of “Through the lens of the enneagram”, this facilitated supervision group will use the enneagram map to land us in the territory of our clients’ lived experience. As a practitioner passionate about phenomenology, I have not found a better lens to support my humanistic approach. The enneagram speaks to both partners of the existential-phenomenological frame: what are our patterns when faced with the givens of the human condition; and how do we live these out personally, relationally, and in our work.
The two hour format will give us the opportunity to not only explore our own client caseload but also to listen to others present enabling a discussion as to how to use the enneagram system and how it dovetails into the humanistic paradigm. In the teaching environment we often break down the lived-experience into “self, other, relationship”: the enneagram helps us identify what I might bring through my Type process; how that intersects with the client’s Type process; and what relational dynamic that sets up. The relationship between a Four client and a Six therapist looks-feels different to one between a Four and a Two for instance: the shape of the hook and eye is helpful to know!
Practicalities
Both groups will run monthly at the Wilbury Clinic in Hove. They are designed for qualified therapists who are looking to ground their practice in phenomenology as our tradition asks. It is our intention to create a community of learning often missed when we qualify and our cohort disperses; one that is both intellectually stimulating and experientially holding. The groups will be intentionally small, with a maximum of 10 participants each, to ensure spaciousness for depth, reflection, and meaningful connection
Reading Group
- Schedule: Monthly Mondays, 4-6pm, starting 15th September
- Commitment: Minimum 6 sessions (6 months) of a year-long offering
- Fees: £20 per session for Wilbury Community (£30 for external practitioners)
Supervision Group
- Schedule: Monthly Mondays, 4-6pm, starting 29th September
- Commitment: Minimum 10 sessions (1 year excluding August and December)
- Fees: £20 per session at Wilbury Clinic (£30 for external practitioners)
For more information, please do drop me a line using the contact form
To book, email Toni Goodall, the clinic manager at the Wilbury clinic therapies@thewilburyclinic.co.uk