Being and Belonging: cooperation and community

Organised by:

Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust

Description

A 3 day experiential workshop, using Group Relations approaches to explore therapeutic community practice.

What does it take to really think and work together democratically?
How can we connect to others in fruitful ways that foster sustainable
action? Can we create groups and systems that are responsive and
resilient? What can we learn from therapeutic communities/milieus that
we can transfer, adapt and use in other contexts?

Our inspiration for this workshop derives from the long tradition of
therapeutic community practice. Tom Main, Franz Fanon, Barbara
Docker- Drysdale, Donald Winnicott, Wilfred Bion and R.D.Laing are
some of the pioneers who articulated models of practice that were non-
hierarchical and collaborative in nature. These are perhaps best
summarised by the themes of Democratization, Acceptance,
Communalism, Reality Confrontation and Reciprocal Relationships.
To help us learn from experience, use our physicality to access
nonverbal understandings of ourselves and our relationships, as well as
to play and have fun, we have included spaces in the program for all
participants including staff to take part in group exercises inspired by
Argentine Tango.

Through the design of this three day workshop we hope to experiment
with ways of working and being together. We will be reflecting on our
dreams, noticing the part played by the unconscious, attending to the
interplay of leadership and followership, re-connecting body and mind,
and discovering alternative ways to take up our authority within a
democratic ethos.

This is our invitation to you. Join us for what promises to be a rich
weekend of exploration and discovery together.
Staff will include:
Iwona Munia
Chris Tanner
Miriam Gita Vince
Sarah Wynick

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