The holiday season offered space and time to reflect and consider again our core 'SOS’ (Self-Other-Situation) framework, which emphasises interconnection and interdependence between ourselves and others in ever-changing situations.
We describe this ongoing interaction as 'Gestalt-ing', an holistic and ongoing process of impacting and being impacted by our environment, which we detect through exploring our quality of Presence. For this reason, practising Relational Gestalt necessarily involves gaining familiarity with our embodied Presence; getting behind our thoughts, identities, masks and other ego-based processes and waking up to the lived experience of ourselves and others.
In 2020, we are delighted to be working with ROG graduate Ann Shuptrine, who will be facilitating a series of workshops exploring Presence using the SOS framework. Read on to be introduced to Ann and the work she is offering with Relational Change.
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Ann Shuptrine:
As I type these words on my computer, I slow down and take a breath. I am aware of the skin on my hands, the bones and muscle within. My finger tips touch each letter of the key pad - in this moment I am aware of our contact…
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Four years ago, at the beginning of my training in Open Floor Movement, a conscious dance practice influenced by Gestalt, I started to research Gestalt people and programmes in the UK. The training had sparked my curiosity about Gestalt and I hoped to extend my learning and application. I was on the brink of a major turning point in life, having left a long term relationship and an architecture practice that I founded following years of corporate life in the creative industries. It was time to make a relational turn towards my authentic self.
My personal dance and art practice had always supported me to make contact with my creative vitality, a flow that can only be described as presence. Now with my study of Open Floor Movement, dance was resourcing me to make change through an embodied awareness of mind, emotion, body and spirit. With this awakening, a different perspective on professional choices began to emerge.
Contemplating how my experience in the arts, movement, and corporate world might be utilised to support change in organisations and larger systems, I googled the words presence, relational and embodiment. I found Dr Marie-Anne Chidiac and Dr Sally Denham-Vaughan’s article The Process of Presence and the Relational Organisational Gestalt (ROG) training programme.
Excited to read about ROG, I set up a call with Sally to discuss it further. I recall the vibrancy and flow of our conversation. It had texture, depth, and left me with a unique quality of feeling that felt integral to that something awakening within.
I commenced the ROG programme with the aim to gain theoretical knowledge. However, what I acquired was much more experiential and profound.
Witnessing Sally and Marie-Anne facilitate the modules was an ongoing lesson in the art of presence, and in a way, a teaching on love. I use the word 'love' here, not in the romantic sense, but as a deep appreciation of another as a colleague, a way of relating and conveying knowledge alongside another that comes from sensing and intuiting through the body, a love of Relational Gestalt, and how it can be applied to a world that is in need of a different way of relating to effect change.
Now as a Relational Gestalt Practitioner, I take a love of embodied presence into my offering as a coach, consultant and facilitator. Last year I presented my first workshop on behalf of Relational Change, called 'Giving Presence', to a varied group of participants. That experience inspired a new workshop series, Embodied Presence at Work and Beyond, which commences in March 2020.
If you'd like to book a place or want any further information, please email me: ann@bemovedforchange.com. I look forward to meeting you there!
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SUPERVISION: A RELATIONAL CHANGE PROCESS
starts 30 January 2020
CERTIFICATE/DIPLOMA PROGRAMME
SOME PLACES AVAILABLE!
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For psychotherapists, counsellors, coaches, and organisational practitioners wishing to be accredited to supervise others. This course is UKCP recognised and meets BACP standards. UKCP members who complete the diploma can go straight onto the HIPC Supervisors Directory.
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CONTEMPORARY TRAUMA PRACTICE: MIND, BODY & RELATIONSHIP
starts February 2020 | Oxford
CERTIFICATE/DIPLOMA PROGRAMME
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Grounded in a relational perspective, this course offers a non-pathologising and accessible approach to working with trauma, providing a combination of relational, embodied and experiential perspectives, including pragmatic ideas on psycho-education and experimental interventions.
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EMBODIED PRESENCE AT WORK AND BEYOND
March, May, July 2020 | London
SERIES OF TWO-DAY WORKSHOPS
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Through movement practice and Relational Gestalt methods, including dialogue, observation and inquiry, we hone embodied presence in relationship as we apply this learning to professional life and beyond.
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RELATIONAL
ORGANISATIONAL GESTALT
starts April 2020 | Esher, Surrey
CERTIFICATE/DIPLOMA PROGRAMME
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The ROG programme provides skill enhancing training for OD professionals, coaches, consultants, leaders, facilitators and change agents. It's also ideal for therapists and counsellors aiming to move into coaching or organisational work.
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THE WELL GROUNDED THERAPIST: LANDSCAPE, STILLNESS & THE BODY
5th - 7th June 2020 | near Hereford
RESIDENTIAL RETREAT
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In this quiet place, we will explore inner and outer landscapes to restore, nourish and deepen connections with ourselves, and others, as well as the wider environment.
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