Date/Time
Date(s) - Sat 14 Dec 2024
10:00 am - 2:00 pm
An on-line event with the Psychosynthesis Trust, booking link here
Creative process cannot be made to happen. But there are methods to facilitate it happening.
Psychosynthesis offers a wealth of therapeutic techniques to facilitate creative process. Assagioli’s first book mentions them in the title – ‘Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques’ – and devotes two-thirds of its pages to the description of these techniques. However, to conflate psychosynthesis with particular techniques is a misunderstanding. As Assagioli writes:
“Psychosynthesis is not identified with any technique or practice…One can know all the principal ones [ i.e. techniques] and still not have grasped the spirit of psychosynthesis. And vice versa. Real training entails both these factors—intuitive understanding of the spirit of psychosynthesis and a sound technical knowledge.” (‘Training’).
Technique is only a means, not an end in itself. Something beyond mere technical proficiency is required. It is possible to have ‘a sound technical knowledge’ of commonly applied techniques ‘and still not have grasped the spirit of psychosynthesis’.
This workshop is about how to align technique with the creative ‘spirit’ of psychosynthesis.
In particular the workshop will explore the importance of creatively adapting techniques to the experiential moment unfolding between therapist and client.
Who is it for?
Open to coaches, counsellors, psychotherapist, qualified from any modalities (open to anyone in training who has completed first year of training).
Learning Outcomes
- Working with the ‘spirit’ of psychosynthesis as an inherently creative process
- Understanding the distinction between ‘process’ and ‘content’
- Distinguishing creative-adaptive process-aims from formulaic-procedural outcome-goals
- How to work with techniques in combination or synthesis
- How to better notice, validate and work with creative process within any given therapy session with the help of a five-stage model
- Understanding of the importance of experiential work to creative process, and how to distinguish this from interpretative-analytical approaches.
- Understanding of what makes a psychosynthesis technique a creative technique (and also what makes them not creative!)
What to expect?
The workshop will be a mix of slideshow presentation, discussions, live demonstrations and practicum opportunities.