A colleague’s personal journey with the model
Shared with permission.
I heard about these workshops from a colleague who told me I absolutely ‘had to try one’! At the time I was managing a counselling service, along with a counselling trainee programme within a highly pressured institution with high standards and expectations. I had been a therapist for 20 years and was somewhat burnout, finding management demanding with relentless pressures. I also had some issues with ‘imposter syndrome’ and basically just wanted out of the therapy world, feeling worlds away from the passion I had for therapy during my training and work in the field in the early stages of my career. I was finding my therapeutic work with clients and supervisees utterly exhausting and arrived at every holiday break exhausted with no energy to engage in anything other than rest.
I was nervous attending my first experiential, would I like it, would I be able to engage, was I to exhausted to get anything from it? It was an extremely intense three days but I was blown away! I came away incredibly energised! It had been amazing- this method goes soooo deep so quickly and the way of facilitating is just so safe. It is the safest I have ever felt in a group.
Since then, I have done multiple groups and gained something different from each one. You can literally keep attending these experientials and find each one different, evoking different thoughts and personal work. I have been with several different facilitators and whilst they do have a slightly different style obviously, the method and model is similar and holds the group safely.
How to explain the model
It is difficult to explain the model without experiencing it! Over my training, and subsequent career and ongoing continuing professional development I have experienced many therapeutic groups. This method is different, very different. And everyone who experiences it says the same.
Firstly, the group is structured and task orientated. You explore each of the seven attachment systems in turn, taking one system per session. There is a brief theoretical introduction to the system being explored and then you are invited to jump in and explore that system individually with the facilitator. You are invited to work ‘alongside’ other participants while they are working with the facilitator. Monitoring your own thoughts, feelings and reactions to their work but rarely giving feedback or responses to others.
THE most freeing aspect of this way of working is the invitation to be ‘off duty’, to allow the facilitator to be the care giver, and notice when and if you want to look after another participant. This frees you to deeply immerse yourself in your own work.
When it is your turn to explore the facilitator deeply reflects what you are saying, rarely gives interpretations or feedback but lets you hear yourself and feel heard. You are often invited to look around the group and that is so powerful! You can see they have heard you, but you also know you are not going to get other responses or thoughts, you will just be heard. It is SOO powerful and feels SOO safe.
What impact has it had?
The groupwork has had a profound impact on my life both personally and professionally. I have examined my care giving system and realised how my defensive style of care giving was what was draining me, and how I was not good at care seeking, even in support of my work. I have tonnes more energy, I am thoroughly enjoying my work having rediscovered my passion and enthusiasm for it, I want to work longer hours-I am not watching the clock. I have energy at the weekend and for holidays. Work gives me energy in the main. I have put in place far more support for my work and started voluntary work in a related area which feeds and nourishes me. I love this work and cannot express the depth of my appreciation for it ! There simply aren’t enough superlatives to describe it and the life changing impact it has had on me.
