Focusing for Counsellors and Psychotherapists, 11th and 12th November – Online course
Many counsellors and psychotherapists learn something about Focusing in their training but may not feel they know enough to bring it into their work.This short online course will teach you the basic elements of Focusing, both as a resource for the practitioner and as a way of helping clients access their own embodied experience. This online course will take place over two mornings, Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th November, 10.00 am – 1.00 pm each day, and will look at ways in which counsellors and psychotherapists can incorporate Focusing into their work, or incorporate it more fully.
Bringing Focusing, or a Focusing awareness, into client sessions can help the process to deepen and become more embodied. To use Focusing effectively in your work, you need to be familiar with the process for yourself. For this reason the course will be mainly experiential, but there will be time for some theoretical discussion and reflection on your practice. The first of the two mornings we will spend time Focusing in dyads or triads (depending on numbers). The second morning will be orientated more towards work with clients. Participants need to be practising counsellors or psychotherapists, or about to start practising, but do not need to have any prior knowledge of Focusing.
The fee for the course is £75, concessionary rate £50. If you would like to attend but are unable to afford the concessionary rate, please contact me.
'Oughts' and 'Shoulds', 2nd and 3rd December - fOnline course
Do you suffer (and I mean suffer) from what someone described as a 'hardening of the oughteries'? Do you spend your time doing – or not doing – the things you ought be doing and letting the things you want to be doing fall by the wayside? Do you feel there are certain ways that, as a person, a worker in a certain field or even as a Focuser, you should or shouldn't be? In these difficult times, do you think you should be taking some particular course of action or feeling a particular way about what is happening? Many of us are familiar with the dynamics of our inner critics, but often the 'sensible' critics - the ones that are constantly telling us to do this, that or the other for our own good or the good of the world – convince us to identify with them. They may have a lot of right on their side, but if they are trying to make other parts of us do what they want we will remain in conflict.
This online workshop will help you find ways to explore the inner dynamics of those 'oughts' and 'shoulds', making it easier to do both what you want to do and what you need to do from a place of freedom and co-operation rather than coercion or rebellion. Underneath these dynamics there is often a feeling that 'I'm not OK unless I...' or 'I'm not OK because I haven't...' The more we listen to these not-OK places, the more they feel accepted, the less need there is for the 'oughts' and 'shoulds' to take control.
The workshop is open to anyone who has some experience of Focusing and being a Focusing companion. It will run from 10.00-1.00 on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd December. The cost is £75, concessionary rate £50. If you would like to attend but are unable to pay the concessionary rate, please contact me. Please also contact me if you would like an individual refresher session before the workshop.
Focusing Skills Certificate course online, Module 1 – Introducing Focusing
This online workshop will introduce you to the basic elements of Focusing: sensing into the body, making friendly contact with feelings and sensations, letting them describe themselves and sensing for what more is there. It will also introduce you to what it means to be a Focusing companion and listen to someone who is Focusing. It will give you a chance to try out the process for yourself and see what Focusing has to offer.
The workshop will take place over four mornings from 10.00 am -1.00 pm: Saturday 13th January 2024, Sunday 14th January, Saturday 20th January and Sunday 21st January. It is first module of a five-module Focusing Skills Certificate course. NB The Focusing Skills Certificate course is not a professional training, but it is a requirement if you wish to train as a Focusing professional.
The cost is £130 for the four afternoons, concessionary rate £90. If you would like to attend but are unable to pay the concessionary rate, please contact me. There is a £30 discount if you pay for all five modules together.
Focusing Skills Certificate course online, Module 2 – Exploring Focusing
In this online workshop we will deepen our exploration of Focusing and you will learn more about the skills involved in Focusing and being a Focusing companion. You will have a chance to practise Focusing and listening with other members of the group and will also learn more about the nature of the Focusing process, with plenty of time for questions and discussion. The course will help you to develop an interested curiosity about your experience and a greater kindness towards it. It will also help you as a companion to be there with a Focuser in an open and receptive way.
The workshop will run over four mornings from 10.00 am -1.00 pm: Saturday 10th February 2024, Sunday 11th February, Saturday 17th February and Sunday 18th February. The cost will be £130, concessionary rate £90. If you would like to attend but are unable to pay the concessionary rate, please contact me.
Focusing Skills Certificate course online, Module 3 – Going deeper
In this online workshop, the third of the five modules of the Focusing Skills Certificate course, we shall look more deeply into the processes of Focusing and being a companion, refining and building on the skills you have learnt in the first two modules. We will also begin to look at the times when the companion may take a slightly more active role, led by the Focuser's process, and make suggestions that can help the process forward. However, the companion's primary role is still to listen and reflect, and you will have plenty of time to practise this.
The workshop will be held over four mornings from 10.00 am -1.00 pm,: Saturday 9th March 2024, Sunday 10th March, Saturday 16th March and Sunday 17th March. The cost is £130, concessionary rate £90. If you would like to attend but are unable to pay the concessionary rate, please contact me.
Focusing Skills Certificate course online, Module 4 – Parts and 'somethings': befriending our critics
In this online workshop, the fourth module of five for the Focusing Skills Certificate, we will look more closely at the different 'parts', or 'partial-selves' that we often meet when we are Focusing, especially the dynamic of what's often called the 'inner critic' and its relationship to other parts of us. You will discover how to meet these dynamics with more space and kindness, both when you are Focusing yourself and when you are companion to another Focuser, and you will see how they are often not quite what we take them to be. In doing this you will continue to build on the skills you have already learnt as a Focuser and as a companion.
The course willl run over four mornings from 10.00 am - 1.00 pm: Saturday 6th April 2024, Sunday 7th April, Saturday 13th April and Sunday 14th April. The cost is £130, concessionary rate £90. If you would like to attend but are unable to pay the concessionary rate, please contact me.
Focusing Skills Certificate course online, Module 5 – Going forward with Focusing
In this fifth and last module of the Focusing Skills Certificate course we will look further at untangling difficult inner dynamics and also look at ways of bringing Focusing into our lives. There will be time for questions and discussion about the course as a whole and for sensing ways of taking the learning forward.
The workshop will take place over four mornings from 10.00 am -1.00 pm: Saturday 4th May 2024, Sunday 5th May, Saturday 11th May and Sunday 12th May. The cost is £130, concessionary rate £90. If you would like to attend but are unable to pay the concessionary rate, please contact me.