Stepping Down and Moving Forward

Entry for 31 Oct 2021:

  

Today my 15-year position as professor of counselling at the University of Strathclyde comes to an end.  I’ve been tailing off for several years now, a slow wind-down.  First I went from 5 days a week, actually more than full time, to 3 days per week, but distributed in a feast or famine kind of way: a month full time while I was in Scotland, alternating with a month in California, notionally working one day per week in Zoom meetings with colleagues and students. That worked well and produced some important writing projects.  However, it fell apart went the pandemic started, stranding us more or less by choice in Scotland full-time.  After that, a year ago, I cut back to two days week, planning to fully retire on this date.

 

However, I’m not going anywhere right away!  Instead, what happened was the two year EmpoweringEFT@EU project, funded by an EU Erasmus Plus grant. This was developed by Carla Cunha and colleagues at the University of Maia in Portugal, during the early days of the pandemic last year, as an initiative to develop training for EFT supervisors and trainers.  Carla gathered a collection of us, including Laco Timulak (Ireland), Lars Auszra & Imke Hermann (Germany), Rafa Jadar (Spain), and Joao Salgado (Portugal).  Most of us (myself included) were quite surprised when it actually got funded, and I found myself suddenly responsible (with various colleagues) for two of its key pieces, essentially curricula for training (a) EFT supervisors and (b) EFT trainers. The result is that I’ll be continuing to work one day per week for the next year for the University, supported by the Erasmus plus grant in an associate researcher position.

 

I’m actually very pleased to have this additional transition period.  It’s a fun project, which is producing quite a nice and useful framework for training EFT supervisors and trainers. We were slow starting, because we first had to develop a competence framework for EFT therapists as a basis for the frameworks for EFT supervisors and trainers. The supervisor framework is also almost finished, and we are making good progress on the trainer framework.

 

So this seems like a good time to do some more blog entries.

 

March 2021 Scottish Institute for Emotion-Focused Therapy Network meeting

We are pleased to announce the March 2021 Scottish EFT Network meeting.

Using Zoom technology, we will be continuing with our successful 4-hour format.  If you are interested in attending, please email Robert to request an invitation, which will be sent out in advance and at the time.

Date: Saturday, 20 March 2021

Time: 13.00 – 17.00 (UK time)

Special Features:

**Video: Les Greenberg Balancing Spiritual and Practical Needs in the Decision to Divorce (Session 2 of 6)**

**Emotion-Focused Counselling in Action Book Launch Event**

Place: Zoom: Please email Robert to request an invitation

Timetable/Approximate Timings:
13.00: Brief check-in/update on your practice, plus Scottish EFT Institute update (50 min)

14.00: Video (60 min)

15.00: Book Launch: Emotion-Focused Counselling in Action, plus Social time/networking: Have a cup of tea/coffee and a snack while you talk with others in the community; we will make break-out rooms available for those who prefer smaller conversations  (30 min)

15.30: Skill practice or small group supervision (60 min)

16.30: Processing (30 min)

Upcoming Scottish EFT Institute Network Meetings

22 May 2021

18 Sept 2021

20 Nov 2021

22 Jan 2022

 EFT Network Meetings are sponsored by the Scottish Institute for Emotion-Focused Therapy (SI-EFT).  They are currently free and open to everyone who has completed at least one level of EFT training and is interested in developing their EFT practice.  They meet five times each year. You do not need to be based in Scotland or the UK in order to attend.

-Robert, Lorna, Ligia, Joan & Richard (SI-EFT Board)