Rob McNeilly
MBBS
Gabrielle Peacock
MBBS FRACGP
the essential therapist ... an invitation
We are all interested in the essentials of effective therapy.
But what are the
essentials?
How can we learn them?
We 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 concerned with effectiveness, but we seldom question effectiveness itself.
We 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 concerned with effectiveness, but we seldom question effectiveness itself.
We 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:
Each day 9.00 am - 3.00 pm
Venue:
CET The Coach House
336 Elizabeth Street
North Hobart 7000
Cost: $450 [$240 for past and present students]
If you're interested, you're invited!
Rob McNeilly & Gabrielle Peacock
Registration