We are all interested in
the essentials of effective therapy.
But what are the essentials?
How can we learn them?
We all trained to increase our effectiveness and continue
to attend workshops, read journals, explore new and
different techniques, hoping to be able to be effective.
Mostly effectiveness is a some time thing; something of a
mystery which can leave us hopeful or disappointed, or even
blaming a client for their lack of responsiveness, lack of
readiness or resistance.
We are all concerned with effectiveness, but we seldom
question effectiveness itself.
At the Centre of Effective Therapy [CET] and The Milton H
Erickson Institute of Tasmania, Gabrielle and i have been
inspired by the contributions of Scott Miller, Bary Duncan,
and Bruce Wampold and their highlighting the importance of
attending to the individual client and their strengths,
resources and experiences. They have written convincingly,
inviting us to shift our focus away from our favourite
theory or school; away even from us assessing the progress
of therapy ... and ... onto
the client - their theory of change,
their assessment of progress.
We value this contribution as a foundation, and are
refining ways of exploring how we can best translate these
ideas into day to day clinical practice.
It's a delight that what Erickson was doing and encouraging
50 years ago is now being validated at a time when
accountability is foremost. Miller & friends are
quantifying a process which was previously based on
trusting our intuition and experience.
Appreciating the importance of attending to
the client so they can best connect
with their own resources is a beginning, but is
insufficient. It compels us to question
"How can we DO that?. What skills, what sensitivities can
we develop to assist this process?".
Erickson said the three most important skills for us to
create effectiveness are "To observe, to observe, and
to observe!". We can appreciate this, but
how can we learn to observe usefully? In this workshop we will
explore
how we can get to the experience of doing
this.
In
“The Essential Therapist” we are concerned with the
experiences underneath, what’s happening behind
effectiveness. We are not interested in yet one more
additional technique to produce effectiveness.
We claim that effectiveness is not a thing to acquire, to
have more of, to gather information about, rather,
effectiveness, we claim is a new inclusive way of being
which involves all dimensions of our experience – our
senses [looking, listening, intuiting], our emotions, our
intellectual concepts, our embodied life learning, our soul
– our whole selves!
In
“The Essential Therapist” we will explore together
how we can generate the actual experience of effectiveness,
to do more than understand effectiveness; so we can have
effectiveness as a place to counsel from, a way of being
effective, that will increase our sensitivities and
contribute to our clients, and also ourselves.
We have defined some of the key skills for us to learn and
refine, including:
• connecting clients with their resourcefulness,
• creating expectancy for a change,
• listening, including observing, sensing, intuiting,
• generating authentic trust [within the client and in
their relationships],
• dealing with beliefs - helpful and unhelpful
• and self care for the therapist.
As an example, we claim that it is insufficient to know
that listening is important. We say that it is also
required that we know how to listen. It is our observation
that listening is one of the taken-for-granted skills in
counselling, and one which requires our serious attention.
Of course, we are not claiming that we will create mastery
in this time, but we promise that participants will have
recurrent opportunities to increase their sensitivities so
they can own and make use of what they learn.
Dates: July 13 - 17, 2009
Each day 9.00 am - 3.00 pm
Venue:
CET The Coach House
336 Elizabeth Street
North Hobart 7000
Cost: $990 [$495 for past and present
students]
If you're interested,
you're invited!
Registration
[essential]:
Name
Address
phone
email
Contact:
Rob McNeilly, 0433 273 352, rob@cet.net.au,
www.cet.net.au
Gabrielle Peacock, 0418 549 421, gabrielle@cet.net.au,
www.cet.net.au
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