Entry for 28 July 2009:
I’m on my way home from my two-day stint at the Second Training the Trainers Research Summer School at the University of Leicester. Last year’s summer school was so successful that we decided to repeat it, following roughly the same plan as last year: Two days on practice-based and case study research with Sue Wheeler and me, followed by another two days on using the research literature and doing qualitative research with John McLeod and Sue, and winding up with Sue and Kaye Richards talking about research supervision on Friday. This year, however, we also had our new draft trainer’s manual to test out.
Once again, the summer school attracted a diverse but passionate group of counselling trainers. Many were in various stages of rethinking their courses in anticipation of approaching changes in the form of the new BACP accreditation standards and the regulation of counselling and psychotherapy. Other were looking for support for their own MSc and PhD research projects, or simply trying to make their research inputs more effective.
After introductions and a helpful update from Sue, I launched into a shorter version on my professorial lecture from last month. The graphics in this talk make it quite appealing, I think. This was followed by the Outcome Monitoring input. After lunch we had the participants break into small groups to try out one of the exercises in the Trainer’s Manual. All of this appeared to go well indeed, and we had several very stimulating discussions along the way, contributed to by the diversity of theoretical orientations, types of training course, and backgrounds of the trainers present.
Today was Case Study Day, but to get there I first had to introduce qualitative change process measures, i.e., the Helpful Aspects of Therapy (HAT) Form and the Change Interview. The systematic case study presentation overwhelmed last year’s group, and I’d done a lot of work afterwards simplifying and clarifying the input so that it would be appropriate for diploma-level input. I discovered that it is still not simple and user-friendly enough, but it is definitely getting there: the presentation went much better than last year, and I was able to figure out how to make it even clearer. All this led to some very interesting discussions about what would be possible at the diploma level. Then, Sue, seeing that some of the participants were flagging, had them break up into small groups to discuss how to implement a student case study requirement. I love it when Sue does that.
So, once again the Training the Trainers Research Summer School was off to a good start. I was torn, as I left them: sorry to miss the energy they brought, but really looking forward to getting home and my upcoming vacation.
This time, on the first day, I made a point of talking about the fact that our site, Vaughan College, is built overlooking the ruins of the social nexus of the ancient Roman city of Ratae Corieltauvorum, today known as Leicester (=the fort on the river Ligore): the baths. These are overlooked by the Jewry Wall (the name is too difficult to explain but has nothing to do with Judaism), which originally separated the baths form the gymnasium next door. As a result, many of the participants made a point of exploring the ruins during breaks. This year, the juxtaposition of ancient Roman ruins and forward-looking practice-based research methods created a satisfying complement. After all, the Roman baths were quite high-tech for their time, and I think the ancient Romans would have appreciated our interest in quantitative and qualitative ways of knowing as well as case study methods. The Romans were nothing if not organized, while at the same time inheriting the Greek tradition of humanism. If summer schools could be dedicated to someone, I’d dedicate my two days to the ancient Roman-Briton city today known as Leicester.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Arran for Glasgow Fair Weekend
Entry for 28 July 2009:
After the EFT Level 1 4-day intensive course was over, I needed to collapse for a day, which is exactly what I did, taking advantage of the 4-day Glasgow Fair Weekend. The next morning, however, we got up early and caught the train to Adrossan for our next Saturday Adventure. From Adrossan, we took the ferry across the Firth of Clyde to Arran.
It was a lovely, mostly sunny morning as we approached Brodick, the main town on Arran. We could see Brodick castle sticking up through the forest on the north side of the bay, and above, Goat Fell disappearing into the low-hanging clouds. We’d been meaning to visit Arran for ages, but it is difficult to do much there in a day, we were unsure about where to stay and how best to get around etc etc. Thus, we went along primarily on a scouting expedition, with a contingency plan of seeing if we could find accommodation and extend our stay. Fortunately, the tourist information place was able to find a place on the other side of the island, possibly the last room for two on the island, which we’d be able to reach by the somewhat infrequent Arran bus service.
Having re-organized our Saturday Adventure into two days, we spent most of the first day at Brodick Castle, with it 47 heads of deer running up the stairwell, a ghastly sight that nearly put us off the whole thing. It’s another magnificently-furnished-originally-military-castle-converted-over-the-centuries-into-a-stately-mansion kind of castle. The Dukes of Hamiliton apparently strongly favoured hunting and sports, the theme of much of the art found within the place, but the kitchen does feature a nice collection of Victorian household gadgets, many of which I recognized from my mother’s kitchen. Brodick Castle also has very nice gardens, but unfortunately much of it is currently suffering from some kind of fungal blight, which put them off limits to our exploration.
On the way back from the castle, I found in one of our guidebooks that there are three standing stones between the castle and the town of Brodick. However, finding the Brodick Stones required some creative trail-following, and Diane expressed grave misgivings about the possibility of our getting lost on the way on a strange island. Fortunately, the standing stones turned out to be not far from the exit road from the castle, although they stood in the middle of a wheat field behind a hedge, making it difficult to get to them. (Scottish law on public access doesn’t give you permission to trample the farmer’s crops…) After that, as we walked into town, we spied a sign advertising meals at the Armadale Hotel, so we made a dinner detour, before continuing on to meet our bus.
The bus rumbled up over the centre of Arran on what the locals call the String road. We were heading for the little village Shiskine, so when we got there we stood up and moved to the front of bus, at which point the bus driver immediately stopped the bus to let us out. We got out, discovered no bus stop within sight, and watched the bus drive away through the rest of the village, which extended for half a mile in front of us. Later, we found out that unlike Glasgow buses, Arran buses stop pretty much wherever you want them, so the driver had just assumed that we wanted off at the near end rather than the far end of the town. We walked along the main road for about 10 minutes, until we came to the B&B that we had booked.
The owner, whose name was Derek, was glad to see us and showed us our room before going off for the evening to a folk music event. We went for a walk around the town, starting up a trail to a nearby iron age fort, but gave up because we were going to run out of light if we continued. We went back to the B&B, I watched the sunset, and then we pretty much collapsed.
The next morning, when we went out to the breakfast room, there was an early morning rainbow across the valley. Another couple, from Edinburgh, was staying at the B&B, and we ended up talking to them for quite a while, before they left; then we talked to Derek for a while, and he filled us in on local byways such as how the bus system works. Diane is a social tourist; for her, the people are at least as important as the sights along way.
After that, he kindly drove up the coast road a few miles and dropped us off at the trailhead for our real destination: The Machrie Moor Stone Circles.
A mile or two inland, and up the west coast of Arran a bit from Blackwaterfoot, the Machrie Moor Stone Circles are a major Neolithic/bronze age ritual site, as old as anything we’ve seen so far in Scotland. We climbed over the stile and followed the well-marked trail. First, there was well-manicured ancient site that was either a burial cairn or the remains of a stone circle. Then we passed a single standing stone on our left, and a bracken-covered tumbled-down cairn. Finally, coming over a low ridge we found before us an impressive stone circle, and to our left and a bit down the hill the ruins of an old farm. Then, to the right, we saw that there was another stone circle in the middle distance… and another … and another… and another: six stone circles in all. We stood there, amazed, pointing them out to each other. We had had no idea that there would be so many! We had been chasing single standing stones in farmers’ fields, after all, and now we were confronted by a plethora of stone circles, in various states, a mixture of standing stones and fallen, red sandstone (like our flat in Hyndland) and granite, some (“the Famous Three”) as much as 10 feet tall.
We spent a long time wandering around these 6 circles, studying the sign in order to place all of them, taking photos of them and of each other standing in front of or peeking out from behind them. There were other groups of visitors, not a lot, actually, given how spectacular the site is, but many of them came and went while we poked about, trying to absorb as much of the ancient vibe of the place. Finally, we tore ourselves away from the site and walked back out to the road.
Arran buses only come every 3 hours or so (they are coordinated with the ferries), and at this point we had a good 90 minutes to wait for the next bus. We walked north along the coast road a couple of miles, until we came the village of Machrie, which seemed to consist mostly of a golf course and a café. There we grabbed a quick, late lunch, spoke for a bit to a former EFT students named Pat (who later mailed us a recommendation for her favourite accomodation on the island) and were outside on the road when the 15.06 clockwise coast road bus trundled along. We got on, and the bus wound its way up the coast and around the top of the island.
When we arrived back in Brodick, the ferry back to the mainland was waiting. As we approached Adrossan, another rainbow appeared in front of us, a low, multicoloured arch. We slept very well that night, having travelled many miles and centuries, on one of our alltime best Saturday Adventures. We experienced only a small part of the island, but now have a pretty good idea of where to stay and how to find our way around. We are looking forward to taking visitors there for further exploration.
After the EFT Level 1 4-day intensive course was over, I needed to collapse for a day, which is exactly what I did, taking advantage of the 4-day Glasgow Fair Weekend. The next morning, however, we got up early and caught the train to Adrossan for our next Saturday Adventure. From Adrossan, we took the ferry across the Firth of Clyde to Arran.
It was a lovely, mostly sunny morning as we approached Brodick, the main town on Arran. We could see Brodick castle sticking up through the forest on the north side of the bay, and above, Goat Fell disappearing into the low-hanging clouds. We’d been meaning to visit Arran for ages, but it is difficult to do much there in a day, we were unsure about where to stay and how best to get around etc etc. Thus, we went along primarily on a scouting expedition, with a contingency plan of seeing if we could find accommodation and extend our stay. Fortunately, the tourist information place was able to find a place on the other side of the island, possibly the last room for two on the island, which we’d be able to reach by the somewhat infrequent Arran bus service.
Having re-organized our Saturday Adventure into two days, we spent most of the first day at Brodick Castle, with it 47 heads of deer running up the stairwell, a ghastly sight that nearly put us off the whole thing. It’s another magnificently-furnished-originally-military-castle-converted-over-the-centuries-into-a-stately-mansion kind of castle. The Dukes of Hamiliton apparently strongly favoured hunting and sports, the theme of much of the art found within the place, but the kitchen does feature a nice collection of Victorian household gadgets, many of which I recognized from my mother’s kitchen. Brodick Castle also has very nice gardens, but unfortunately much of it is currently suffering from some kind of fungal blight, which put them off limits to our exploration.
On the way back from the castle, I found in one of our guidebooks that there are three standing stones between the castle and the town of Brodick. However, finding the Brodick Stones required some creative trail-following, and Diane expressed grave misgivings about the possibility of our getting lost on the way on a strange island. Fortunately, the standing stones turned out to be not far from the exit road from the castle, although they stood in the middle of a wheat field behind a hedge, making it difficult to get to them. (Scottish law on public access doesn’t give you permission to trample the farmer’s crops…) After that, as we walked into town, we spied a sign advertising meals at the Armadale Hotel, so we made a dinner detour, before continuing on to meet our bus.
The bus rumbled up over the centre of Arran on what the locals call the String road. We were heading for the little village Shiskine, so when we got there we stood up and moved to the front of bus, at which point the bus driver immediately stopped the bus to let us out. We got out, discovered no bus stop within sight, and watched the bus drive away through the rest of the village, which extended for half a mile in front of us. Later, we found out that unlike Glasgow buses, Arran buses stop pretty much wherever you want them, so the driver had just assumed that we wanted off at the near end rather than the far end of the town. We walked along the main road for about 10 minutes, until we came to the B&B that we had booked.
The owner, whose name was Derek, was glad to see us and showed us our room before going off for the evening to a folk music event. We went for a walk around the town, starting up a trail to a nearby iron age fort, but gave up because we were going to run out of light if we continued. We went back to the B&B, I watched the sunset, and then we pretty much collapsed.
The next morning, when we went out to the breakfast room, there was an early morning rainbow across the valley. Another couple, from Edinburgh, was staying at the B&B, and we ended up talking to them for quite a while, before they left; then we talked to Derek for a while, and he filled us in on local byways such as how the bus system works. Diane is a social tourist; for her, the people are at least as important as the sights along way.
After that, he kindly drove up the coast road a few miles and dropped us off at the trailhead for our real destination: The Machrie Moor Stone Circles.
A mile or two inland, and up the west coast of Arran a bit from Blackwaterfoot, the Machrie Moor Stone Circles are a major Neolithic/bronze age ritual site, as old as anything we’ve seen so far in Scotland. We climbed over the stile and followed the well-marked trail. First, there was well-manicured ancient site that was either a burial cairn or the remains of a stone circle. Then we passed a single standing stone on our left, and a bracken-covered tumbled-down cairn. Finally, coming over a low ridge we found before us an impressive stone circle, and to our left and a bit down the hill the ruins of an old farm. Then, to the right, we saw that there was another stone circle in the middle distance… and another … and another… and another: six stone circles in all. We stood there, amazed, pointing them out to each other. We had had no idea that there would be so many! We had been chasing single standing stones in farmers’ fields, after all, and now we were confronted by a plethora of stone circles, in various states, a mixture of standing stones and fallen, red sandstone (like our flat in Hyndland) and granite, some (“the Famous Three”) as much as 10 feet tall.
We spent a long time wandering around these 6 circles, studying the sign in order to place all of them, taking photos of them and of each other standing in front of or peeking out from behind them. There were other groups of visitors, not a lot, actually, given how spectacular the site is, but many of them came and went while we poked about, trying to absorb as much of the ancient vibe of the place. Finally, we tore ourselves away from the site and walked back out to the road.
Arran buses only come every 3 hours or so (they are coordinated with the ferries), and at this point we had a good 90 minutes to wait for the next bus. We walked north along the coast road a couple of miles, until we came the village of Machrie, which seemed to consist mostly of a golf course and a café. There we grabbed a quick, late lunch, spoke for a bit to a former EFT students named Pat (who later mailed us a recommendation for her favourite accomodation on the island) and were outside on the road when the 15.06 clockwise coast road bus trundled along. We got on, and the bus wound its way up the coast and around the top of the island.
When we arrived back in Brodick, the ferry back to the mainland was waiting. As we approached Adrossan, another rainbow appeared in front of us, a low, multicoloured arch. We slept very well that night, having travelled many miles and centuries, on one of our alltime best Saturday Adventures. We experienced only a small part of the island, but now have a pretty good idea of where to stay and how to find our way around. We are looking forward to taking visitors there for further exploration.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Strathclyde Emotion-Focused Therapy Level 1 Training 2009
Entry for 27 July 2009:
Last week was the 4th annual EFT Level 1 short course at Strathclyde.
Jeanne Watson was able to come along once again from Canada, arriving two days after we returned (at long last!) from our extended trip to Chile. On the Saturday before the training, we took her out to Helensburgh to see the Hill House and waterfront; it was a lovely day. Lorna Carrick had agreed to help us with the training and so on Sunday afternoon she came along for a bit so that we could make plans.
This year’s EFT-1 class of 16 was a bit smaller than last year’s; however, they made up for it with their enthusiasm, and included two women from the Netherlands and a fellow from Portugal, as well as several former Jordanhill students.
Each year we continue to fine tune the structure of the 4 days, and this year we made additional changes: First, we restructured the course to integrate the emotion theory more thoroughly with the tasks. Drawing on exercises I’d developed for the Bridge Pastoral Foundation conference in April, I had worked up small group exercises for the four different components of EFT emotion theory: (a) importance of emotion; (b) emotion schemes; (c) emotion response types; and (d) emotion regulation. This got the participants into small group work by mid-morning on Day 1, earlier than ever before. By Monday afternoon, we were using Clearing a Space and Focusing to illustrate moderating and accessing emotion respectively. By Tuesday, we were doing Unfolding and Chair work. It moved so quickly that it practically made our heads swim!
Another innovation (Jeanne’s idea) was covering Empty Chair before rather than after Two Chair work. I’ve been teaching EFT for more than 20 years, and have always assumed that it is best to leave Empty Chair for last, because it can be so intense and thus requires the maximum level of trust and safety. Interestingly, however, it worked just fine to introduce Empty Chair work before Two Chair Work. Why? Jeanne’s point is that Empty Chair Work, in which the client speaks to an important other person, imagined as sitting opposite them in the other chair, is more specific, less abstract, and less strange than speaking to another part of oneself imagined as sitting in the other chair. And that is basically what happened: The participants took to Empty Chair Work quite readily and managed their safety levels appropriately.
We took our group through Two Chair Work on Wednesday morning, and having done that, we had them practice “free form/find the task” for the rest of the time: That is, we had the person in the client role present whatever they wanted to work on, requiring the person in the therapist role to first figure whether it was one of the tasks they’d had, and if so what task it was. After a two half days of this, we thought they’d have had enough of it by Thursday afternoon. In this expectation, however, we were wrong, because most the groups wanted the chance to do one more practice session early Thursday afternoon. Interestingly, another one of my expectations was also confounded by this: in spite of working in relatively small groups of 4 (rather than 5) each, the groups did not run out of issues to work on.
The result was a training series in which we experimented successfully with some of our training practices, breathing new life into the structures we’ve been using for the past couple of years. In addition, the participants appeared to have gotten more time to practice in small groups than in previous years, but as far as we could tell without sacrificing quality or needed conceptual input. I’m not totally sure how we did it, or whether we just had a really great group of participants, but it was clear that the training had worked very well indeed.
Last week was the 4th annual EFT Level 1 short course at Strathclyde.
Jeanne Watson was able to come along once again from Canada, arriving two days after we returned (at long last!) from our extended trip to Chile. On the Saturday before the training, we took her out to Helensburgh to see the Hill House and waterfront; it was a lovely day. Lorna Carrick had agreed to help us with the training and so on Sunday afternoon she came along for a bit so that we could make plans.
This year’s EFT-1 class of 16 was a bit smaller than last year’s; however, they made up for it with their enthusiasm, and included two women from the Netherlands and a fellow from Portugal, as well as several former Jordanhill students.
Each year we continue to fine tune the structure of the 4 days, and this year we made additional changes: First, we restructured the course to integrate the emotion theory more thoroughly with the tasks. Drawing on exercises I’d developed for the Bridge Pastoral Foundation conference in April, I had worked up small group exercises for the four different components of EFT emotion theory: (a) importance of emotion; (b) emotion schemes; (c) emotion response types; and (d) emotion regulation. This got the participants into small group work by mid-morning on Day 1, earlier than ever before. By Monday afternoon, we were using Clearing a Space and Focusing to illustrate moderating and accessing emotion respectively. By Tuesday, we were doing Unfolding and Chair work. It moved so quickly that it practically made our heads swim!
Another innovation (Jeanne’s idea) was covering Empty Chair before rather than after Two Chair work. I’ve been teaching EFT for more than 20 years, and have always assumed that it is best to leave Empty Chair for last, because it can be so intense and thus requires the maximum level of trust and safety. Interestingly, however, it worked just fine to introduce Empty Chair work before Two Chair Work. Why? Jeanne’s point is that Empty Chair Work, in which the client speaks to an important other person, imagined as sitting opposite them in the other chair, is more specific, less abstract, and less strange than speaking to another part of oneself imagined as sitting in the other chair. And that is basically what happened: The participants took to Empty Chair Work quite readily and managed their safety levels appropriately.
We took our group through Two Chair Work on Wednesday morning, and having done that, we had them practice “free form/find the task” for the rest of the time: That is, we had the person in the client role present whatever they wanted to work on, requiring the person in the therapist role to first figure whether it was one of the tasks they’d had, and if so what task it was. After a two half days of this, we thought they’d have had enough of it by Thursday afternoon. In this expectation, however, we were wrong, because most the groups wanted the chance to do one more practice session early Thursday afternoon. Interestingly, another one of my expectations was also confounded by this: in spite of working in relatively small groups of 4 (rather than 5) each, the groups did not run out of issues to work on.
The result was a training series in which we experimented successfully with some of our training practices, breathing new life into the structures we’ve been using for the past couple of years. In addition, the participants appeared to have gotten more time to practice in small groups than in previous years, but as far as we could tell without sacrificing quality or needed conceptual input. I’m not totally sure how we did it, or whether we just had a really great group of participants, but it was clear that the training had worked very well indeed.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Emotion-Focused Therapy: Level 3 Training 2009-10
Facilitated by Robert Elliott
Professor of Counselling, University of Strathclyde
Wednesdays, 6-9pm, 16 September 2009 – 2 June 2010
Sir Henry Wood Building
Jordanhill Campus
University Of Strathclyde
(Sponsored by the Professional Development Unit, University of Strathclyde)
The Counselling Unit at the University of Strathclyde are pleased to offer continuing training in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) for counsellors and psychotherapists (Diploma level or above) who have completed Level Two training in EFT. This 12-session series will meet approximately every three weeks throughout the 2009-10 academic year, beginning in September. The format will primarily focus on supervision of recorded therapy sessions, supplemented as appropriate by viewing of archival video-recordings, brief lectures, experiential practice exercises in small groups, and discussion. Emphasis will be on putting EFT into practice and examining blocks to effective practice.
This series is scheduled for the following dates:
Autumn 2009:
16 September
7 October
28 October
18 November
9 December
Winter-Spring 2010:
13 January
3 February
24 February
17 March
21 April
12 May
2 June
• Enrolment is set for a maximum of 12.
• Course fee: Until 15 August: £345; after 15 August: £395.
• The course could be taken for continuing professional education credit.
Professional Development Unit applications may be downloaded at http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/PDU/shortcourses/shortcourses.html (Note that that this course is not on the official list.)
Please direct enquiries to the PDU office (0141 950 3734) or Robert Elliott (Robert.Elliott@strath.ac.uk or fac0029@gmail.com ).
(version 21 July 2009)
Professor of Counselling, University of Strathclyde
Wednesdays, 6-9pm, 16 September 2009 – 2 June 2010
Sir Henry Wood Building
Jordanhill Campus
University Of Strathclyde
(Sponsored by the Professional Development Unit, University of Strathclyde)
The Counselling Unit at the University of Strathclyde are pleased to offer continuing training in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) for counsellors and psychotherapists (Diploma level or above) who have completed Level Two training in EFT. This 12-session series will meet approximately every three weeks throughout the 2009-10 academic year, beginning in September. The format will primarily focus on supervision of recorded therapy sessions, supplemented as appropriate by viewing of archival video-recordings, brief lectures, experiential practice exercises in small groups, and discussion. Emphasis will be on putting EFT into practice and examining blocks to effective practice.
This series is scheduled for the following dates:
Autumn 2009:
16 September
7 October
28 October
18 November
9 December
Winter-Spring 2010:
13 January
3 February
24 February
17 March
21 April
12 May
2 June
• Enrolment is set for a maximum of 12.
• Course fee: Until 15 August: £345; after 15 August: £395.
• The course could be taken for continuing professional education credit.
Professional Development Unit applications may be downloaded at http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/PDU/shortcourses/shortcourses.html (Note that that this course is not on the official list.)
Please direct enquiries to the PDU office (0141 950 3734) or Robert Elliott (Robert.Elliott@strath.ac.uk or fac0029@gmail.com ).
(version 21 July 2009)
Monday, July 20, 2009
Emotion-Focused Therapy: Level 2 Workshop Series
Facilitated by Robert Elliott
Professor of Counselling, University of Strathclyde
Saturdays, 9.30-16.30pm, 19 September, 2009 – 22 May, 2010
Sir Henry Wood Building Room
Jordanhill Campus
University Of Strathclyde
(Sponsored by the Professional Development Unit,
University of Strathclyde)
The Counselling Unit at the University of Strathclyde is offering further training in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) for counsellors and psychotherapists (Diploma level or above) who have completed Level One training in EFT or the equivalent. This series has been restructured from its previous evening format and will now meet on seven Saturdays throughout the 2009-10 academic year, beginning in September. The format will be a mixture of brief lectures, videos or demonstrations, experiential practice exercises in small groups, supervision of cases seen by course members, and discussion.
The specific topics to be covered are flexible based on participant interest, but will feature material not covered in the Level 1 course, such as
• Therapist experiential response modes
• Client modes of engagement
• Narrative Retelling of difficult/traumatic experiences
• Relational Dialogue for Alliance difficulties
• Creation of Meaning for meaning protests
In addition, the Focusing and different forms of Chairwork will be particularly emphasized:
• Focusing with difficult or painful experiences
• Clearing a Space for overwhelming or chaotic experiences
• Two chair enactment for Self-interruption splits
• Two chair conflict split work for depression, anxiety and self-harm behavior
• Empty chair work for unfinished business
This series is scheduled for the following dates:
Autumn 2009:
19 September
24 October
21 November
Winter-Spring 2010:
23 January
20 February
24 April
22 May
• Enrolment is set for a maximum of 20.
• Course fee: Until 15 August: £395; after 15 August: £445
• The course could be taken for continuing professional education credit.
Professional Development Unit applications may be downloaded at http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/PDU/shortcourses/shortcourses.html (Note that that this course is not on the official list.)
Please direct enquiries to the PDU office (0141 950 3734) or Robert Elliott (Robert.Elliott@strath.ac.uk or fac0029@gmail.com ).
(version: 20/07/09)
Professor of Counselling, University of Strathclyde
Saturdays, 9.30-16.30pm, 19 September, 2009 – 22 May, 2010
Sir Henry Wood Building Room
Jordanhill Campus
University Of Strathclyde
(Sponsored by the Professional Development Unit,
University of Strathclyde)
The Counselling Unit at the University of Strathclyde is offering further training in Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) for counsellors and psychotherapists (Diploma level or above) who have completed Level One training in EFT or the equivalent. This series has been restructured from its previous evening format and will now meet on seven Saturdays throughout the 2009-10 academic year, beginning in September. The format will be a mixture of brief lectures, videos or demonstrations, experiential practice exercises in small groups, supervision of cases seen by course members, and discussion.
The specific topics to be covered are flexible based on participant interest, but will feature material not covered in the Level 1 course, such as
• Therapist experiential response modes
• Client modes of engagement
• Narrative Retelling of difficult/traumatic experiences
• Relational Dialogue for Alliance difficulties
• Creation of Meaning for meaning protests
In addition, the Focusing and different forms of Chairwork will be particularly emphasized:
• Focusing with difficult or painful experiences
• Clearing a Space for overwhelming or chaotic experiences
• Two chair enactment for Self-interruption splits
• Two chair conflict split work for depression, anxiety and self-harm behavior
• Empty chair work for unfinished business
This series is scheduled for the following dates:
Autumn 2009:
19 September
24 October
21 November
Winter-Spring 2010:
23 January
20 February
24 April
22 May
• Enrolment is set for a maximum of 20.
• Course fee: Until 15 August: £395; after 15 August: £445
• The course could be taken for continuing professional education credit.
Professional Development Unit applications may be downloaded at http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/PDU/shortcourses/shortcourses.html (Note that that this course is not on the official list.)
Please direct enquiries to the PDU office (0141 950 3734) or Robert Elliott (Robert.Elliott@strath.ac.uk or fac0029@gmail.com ).
(version: 20/07/09)
Thursday, July 09, 2009
There … and Back Again
Entry for 8 July 2009:
On Sunday, my 7-day H1N1 quarantine having finally expired, we had a Saturday Adventure in Santiago. La Moneda is the Chilean equivalent of the White House, except that there is a cultural museum underneath it. An ambitious exhibit about Rapa Nui (= Easter Island) had opened two days before, and we also discovered exhibits on the Mapuche Native American people of Chile as well as a show featuring the art, poetry and music of Violetta Parra. We happily spent the afternoon wandering through these three exhibits, covering diverse but essential elements of Chilean culture. Violetta Parra’s primitivist artworks are very colourful, some using the medium of yarn on burlap, others oil on board; almost all feature music in some way. In many of her pieces, birds emanate from fiddles, apparently representing the sound of the music. Much of her music uses the rocking 6/8 cueca rhythm of Chile’s national dance; she was one of the forerunners of the nueva cancion (new song) movement of the the 1960’s and ‘70’s.
The Mapuche exhibition featured different kinds of craft, but what most struck me was the information about Mapuche shamans and their accessories, including a special kind of drum, called a kultrung, and their totem, called a rewe, with 4 to 7 notches or levels, representing both the 7 levels of the Mapuche cosmology and the skill level of the shaman. Two weeks ago, when we went to the Precolumbian Museum in Santiago, I was also struck by the importance of the shaman in south and meso-american culture and made a point of taking lots of pictures of shaman paraphernalia. So once again I cross paths with my dad.
But the main attraction was the exhibit on Polynesian/Melanesian culture and art. I can remember being fascinated by the Polynesians when I was a kid, reading Thor Heyerdahl’s book Kon-tiki about his voyage by reed boat between Peru and Polynesia, and his later book Aku-Aku, about his expedition to Easter Island, or Rapa Nui. Rapa Nui is of course famous for its Moai, the hundreds of huge carved stone heads that were carved centuries ago, under somewhat mysterious circumstances. The exhibition had a couple of Moai, but covered broad range of Polynesia culture, including the mysterious and untranslatable writing found at Rapa Nui.
After that, there was nothing for it but to investigate the music of Rapa Nui and the Mapuche people, which occupied us for a good part of the next day. Once I’d tracked them down, I found that the music of Rapa Nui is much more melodic than that of the Mapuche. But I was pleased to discover several tracks of music for Kultrung, or Shamanic drum.
However, before the shopping trip, for our last day in Santiago before returning to Scotland, Diane took me to the Sculpture Park that the stretches along the River Mapoche not far form our hotel in the Providencia neighborhood. It was a beautiful, mild, sunny winter’s day, as we wandered through the park, created in the 1980’s, looking at the sculptures and taking pictures.
Finally, we got up on Tuesday morning, packed, ate breakfast, paid our bill (quite large by this time) and said goodbye to the staff at the hotel. Cecilia, Gloria’s cousin, drove us to the airport, where we began our long journey back to Scotland, via Madrid and London. We arrived at our flat in Hyndland about 4:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, 18 days after we’d left.
I had lain awake for a long time the night before we left to return home, restless and a bit anxious after being away for so long, but determined to do a better job taking care of myself and to avoid running myself down so much, under the pressure of work. It wasn’t fun being stuck in Santiago under quarantine, unable to go out, but at some level it’s quite clear that I really needed the down time, to recover from the intense pressure of work.
When I woke up this morning at 4.30 am, finally back in my own bed, there was again that delicious moment of disorientation: “Why is it so light outside? Why is the door to this room open?” And then I remembered: No longer in that hotel room in Santiago, in the dead of winter, far away, but back in Scotland, where it is still summer, in its own way: home.
On Sunday, my 7-day H1N1 quarantine having finally expired, we had a Saturday Adventure in Santiago. La Moneda is the Chilean equivalent of the White House, except that there is a cultural museum underneath it. An ambitious exhibit about Rapa Nui (= Easter Island) had opened two days before, and we also discovered exhibits on the Mapuche Native American people of Chile as well as a show featuring the art, poetry and music of Violetta Parra. We happily spent the afternoon wandering through these three exhibits, covering diverse but essential elements of Chilean culture. Violetta Parra’s primitivist artworks are very colourful, some using the medium of yarn on burlap, others oil on board; almost all feature music in some way. In many of her pieces, birds emanate from fiddles, apparently representing the sound of the music. Much of her music uses the rocking 6/8 cueca rhythm of Chile’s national dance; she was one of the forerunners of the nueva cancion (new song) movement of the the 1960’s and ‘70’s.
The Mapuche exhibition featured different kinds of craft, but what most struck me was the information about Mapuche shamans and their accessories, including a special kind of drum, called a kultrung, and their totem, called a rewe, with 4 to 7 notches or levels, representing both the 7 levels of the Mapuche cosmology and the skill level of the shaman. Two weeks ago, when we went to the Precolumbian Museum in Santiago, I was also struck by the importance of the shaman in south and meso-american culture and made a point of taking lots of pictures of shaman paraphernalia. So once again I cross paths with my dad.
But the main attraction was the exhibit on Polynesian/Melanesian culture and art. I can remember being fascinated by the Polynesians when I was a kid, reading Thor Heyerdahl’s book Kon-tiki about his voyage by reed boat between Peru and Polynesia, and his later book Aku-Aku, about his expedition to Easter Island, or Rapa Nui. Rapa Nui is of course famous for its Moai, the hundreds of huge carved stone heads that were carved centuries ago, under somewhat mysterious circumstances. The exhibition had a couple of Moai, but covered broad range of Polynesia culture, including the mysterious and untranslatable writing found at Rapa Nui.
After that, there was nothing for it but to investigate the music of Rapa Nui and the Mapuche people, which occupied us for a good part of the next day. Once I’d tracked them down, I found that the music of Rapa Nui is much more melodic than that of the Mapuche. But I was pleased to discover several tracks of music for Kultrung, or Shamanic drum.
However, before the shopping trip, for our last day in Santiago before returning to Scotland, Diane took me to the Sculpture Park that the stretches along the River Mapoche not far form our hotel in the Providencia neighborhood. It was a beautiful, mild, sunny winter’s day, as we wandered through the park, created in the 1980’s, looking at the sculptures and taking pictures.
Finally, we got up on Tuesday morning, packed, ate breakfast, paid our bill (quite large by this time) and said goodbye to the staff at the hotel. Cecilia, Gloria’s cousin, drove us to the airport, where we began our long journey back to Scotland, via Madrid and London. We arrived at our flat in Hyndland about 4:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, 18 days after we’d left.
I had lain awake for a long time the night before we left to return home, restless and a bit anxious after being away for so long, but determined to do a better job taking care of myself and to avoid running myself down so much, under the pressure of work. It wasn’t fun being stuck in Santiago under quarantine, unable to go out, but at some level it’s quite clear that I really needed the down time, to recover from the intense pressure of work.
When I woke up this morning at 4.30 am, finally back in my own bed, there was again that delicious moment of disorientation: “Why is it so light outside? Why is the door to this room open?” And then I remembered: No longer in that hotel room in Santiago, in the dead of winter, far away, but back in Scotland, where it is still summer, in its own way: home.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
A Pre-Poem for Pat on her Leaving
Entry for 21 June 2009:
Pat Butson, one of the parttime tutors, has been teaching on the Monday Parttime course for some time now, but has decided that the stress of the commute from Edinburgh and the pressures on the course from the University, were too much. As a result, she has decided to retire from the course. This past Friday was her last day of work with us, so Thursday night, after my Professorial lecture, we had a leaving function for her at our old Jorndanhill hangout, the Three Craws (= Crows in Scots). We got her a piece of jewelry (Kathleen picked it out), as well as a collection of Spanish music and an earthernware bowl by a local potter (picked out by me).
I seem to have inherited the role of speaking at these functions, so I had the honor of making a little speech for her, composing a short piece I referred to as a “pre-poem” – meaning that it wasn’t polished and was partly improvished.
Afterwards, Pat and, along with two of her fellow former course tutors, Dot Clark and Margaret Harkness, sat and talked and talked until the pub closed and they threw us out. It was a lovely evening, and I will miss her sorely.
* * *
Here is a representation of Pat’s leaving piece:
Wise one, carrier of tradition
Holder of the Process,
I’ve looked to you –
Not for direction,
But for possibility.
Travellor in places
Both rainy and sunny,
You went many places
And were many things
Before you came to us.
You have laboured
In our vineyards,
Long and hard:
Emotional labour.
Generations of students
Have you imprinted
On their souls.
Now you are going –
We wish you could stay! –
But your process
Needs to go on.
So we will bless you
On your way, trusting that
Your process and ours
Will meet again.
Pat Butson, one of the parttime tutors, has been teaching on the Monday Parttime course for some time now, but has decided that the stress of the commute from Edinburgh and the pressures on the course from the University, were too much. As a result, she has decided to retire from the course. This past Friday was her last day of work with us, so Thursday night, after my Professorial lecture, we had a leaving function for her at our old Jorndanhill hangout, the Three Craws (= Crows in Scots). We got her a piece of jewelry (Kathleen picked it out), as well as a collection of Spanish music and an earthernware bowl by a local potter (picked out by me).
I seem to have inherited the role of speaking at these functions, so I had the honor of making a little speech for her, composing a short piece I referred to as a “pre-poem” – meaning that it wasn’t polished and was partly improvished.
Afterwards, Pat and, along with two of her fellow former course tutors, Dot Clark and Margaret Harkness, sat and talked and talked until the pub closed and they threw us out. It was a lovely evening, and I will miss her sorely.
* * *
Here is a representation of Pat’s leaving piece:
Wise one, carrier of tradition
Holder of the Process,
I’ve looked to you –
Not for direction,
But for possibility.
Travellor in places
Both rainy and sunny,
You went many places
And were many things
Before you came to us.
You have laboured
In our vineyards,
Long and hard:
Emotional labour.
Generations of students
Have you imprinted
On their souls.
Now you are going –
We wish you could stay! –
But your process
Needs to go on.
So we will bless you
On your way, trusting that
Your process and ours
Will meet again.
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