| Home | Consulting | Courses | Resources | Personal | Links | Contact |
NOTE: This workshop has now been completed with strong positive feedback from participants. I have left it here as an example of the type of workshop that
Waiariki Institute of Technology in collaboration with Martin Ringer and Francoise Ringer offers a 3-day workshop:
Leading groups for learning, change and growth:
Depth issues in experiential learning groups
Hosted and organized by Continuing Education Unit - Te Kura Tu Tangata/School of Social Sciences.
Venue: Tangatarua Marae, Waiariki Institute of Technology, Rotorua
(RESIDENTIAL)
DATES: Monday July 2 - Wednesday July 4 inclusive
This three – day workshop enables participants to harness the significant power of intuitive, unspoken, hidden and unconscious communication in learning groups.
It is intended to be relevant to:
| social workers, |
| occupational therapists, |
| adventure therapists, |
| educators, |
| leaders of growth and therapy groups, |
| psychologists, and |
| others whose work involves them in establishing and leading groups for human growth and change. |
The goal of the workshop is to enable participants to improve their practice as group leaders and as workshop facilitators by becoming more adept at dealing with unspoken, out-of-awareness and intuitive issues in groups that they lead.
Specifically, the workshop is intended to enhance participants’ ability to continually explore their skills, emotions, hunches, intuition, questions, uncertainties etc as relevant to their roles in groups that they are leading. This capacity requires an understanding of the complex multiple unconscious processes in groups and in ‘umbrella’ organizations, including:
The leader’s own unconscious processes
The unspoken, intuitive, and out-of-awareness processes that occur in groups
Patterns of thinking, believing and perceiving that occur in the various contexts in which groups are run – for example mental health organizations.
The workshop will include participants’ active involvement in experiential exercises, discussion groups, case study analysis and theory sessions. (No physically demanding activities will be included.)
The size of the group will be between twelve and sixteen participants to have a small enough group for adequate quality of interaction with space for all participants to contribute to discussions, whilst having enough participants to create adequate variety. Participants need to have previous experience in facilitation or leading groups and be able to learn from reflection on themselves and their experience.
Workshop content.
The following is intended as a guide to the topics that may be included in the workshop as it unfolds. The emergent nature of the workshop means that there will be opportunities to address many of topics listed below, but neither the order in which they occur can be predicted nor will all topics listed be addressed in detail. Potential workshop content includes:
The individual group member:
A psychodynamic view of human development
Splitting, projection, identification, and psychological defenses
The group-as-a-whole
Core principles for establishing effective groups: Establishing boundaries for groups
Primary process in groups and organizations (ie the basic nature of unconscious processes in groups)
Projective processes in groups and organizations
Models of group-as-a-whole and implications for leaders (working with individuals in the group and with the whole group at the same time.)
The group and organization as a container for anxiety and projections
The group as a "reflective space" for effective thinking and learning.
The group leader
"Mature functioning" of leaders
The role of the leader as a container for anxiety
The position of "not knowing" as a leader
The leader or facilitator’s role in facilitating safety in hostile conditions
Leadership for emotional and psychological safety
Working within the organizational context.
Clashes of Primary task between umbrella organization and the group and the existence of ‘pseudo-tasks’ in groups
Multiple reference groups and the effect on the current group: Identity issues
Workshop program
The program will be semi-structured, and will consist of two sessions in the morning with a break in between and one or two workshop sessions after lunch. Breaks are considered to be an integral part of the program in that they have the function of providing space and time for people to reflect.
Course materials
Summaries from the manuscript of a book by T. Martin Ringer will provide the background information for the workshop. The book is: "Group Action: The Dynamics of Groups in Therapeutic, Educational and Corporate Settings" to be published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London. Extensive references to other works will be provided.
Contact person
Leonie Nichols
Continuing Education Coordinator
Te Kura Tu Tangata - School of Social Sciences
Waiariki Institute of Technology
Phone (07) 346 8690