Work within the Training – Approaches and Strategies
Involving the partners
It is inevitable to look at ones own family – origin family and current one – for working with families in general. The partners of our participants will be invited two or three times for our family and couple weekends within the four years of training.
The Participants as a Group
Every year group will be taught by a fixed team of teachers, who are continuously exchanging experiences with the participants. In addition there will be guest lecturers who will be dealing with specific topics of the training. It is important that the teachers get into personal contact with every participant in order to give support and counselling according to the personal situation of every one of them.
Working in the Plenum
Introductions of theoretical topics will be held in seminars. Questions, contributions and exchange among the participants are welcome. There will always be time for personal questions, concerns, issues and individual needs. Working with one another serves as a challenge and a chance for the individual development and the group processes.
The basis for communication are personal language and dialogue. The atmosphere within the group and the quality of communication with one another serve as a model for all participants.
Counselling and therapy in the plenum will be given under the supervision of the teachers and constitutes one important part of the training. Live supervision provides an insight into the course of the process for every one. The participants take on the roles of therapist/counsellor and client for each other.
It is possible and welcome at any time to invite one’s partner and family for counselling under supervision, as well as guest families, guest couples and single persons. The organisation of these invitations lies in the responsibility of the group and will be organized by the group members.
Practical exercises on self-experience, self-reflexion, giving feedback, taking care of the process and many more are part of the work within the plenum.
Working within the Training Group
Working within small, self-regulating training groups is essential for a training that deals with personal development. Apart from the plenum, our participants work in small groups, which plan and work independently.
These groups are of high value for the training. They serve as a forum for experiencing independent working and dealing with group processes without a teacher. Here the participants work on theoretical topics, develop their ways of cooperation and counsel and supervise each other. These experiences often bring about deep trust among the training group members.
These groups are established at the beginning of the training and will be fixed for the first two years. They serve as support and study groups for the theoretical and personal challenges inherent in the training. Each group will work on a theoretical topic every half year and present its results in the plenum.
Dissents and conflicts within the small groups are a common phenomenon. Group members often act according to their role models of their origin families within the group setting. Personal issues evolving from these conflicts are meant to be brought into the practical work within the plenum. Thus all participants are able to follow the process of therapeutic work.
Schedule of the Workshops
Under the management of the teacher the group works 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon in the plenum (except for days of arrival and departure). At midday and in the evenings the training groups meet for 2 or 3 hours a day.
Every participant is asked to write a short personal assessment of the training groups work in a diary-like style at the end of the workshops and, together with every ones notes, hands it in to the teachers. The teachers are then able to accompany the training groups work from outside according to the notes and the feedback given in the plenum.
Therapy for the Therapist
Working with ones personal development and being confronted with other individuals, which is the workshops’ main emphasis, leads to the fact that participants become aware of personal issues. They should additionally work on these issues outside of the training.
Engaging in an individual therapy outside of the training is not only sensible but also of help for any future therapist. For students in their third or forth year therapy becomes obligatory: They have to take and attest 10 hours of individual therapy and 25 hours of personal supervision of their own therapeutic work. All costs for these hours have to be paid additionally. They are not included in the training fees.
