Places Limited to 40
Event will close for bookings 2nd Oct 25
Online WNWRC - The Act of Imagination: Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy in Experiential Context
Presenter's Bio:
Allan is the author of ‘Waking Dreams: Imagination in Psychotherapy & Everyday Life’ (TranspersonalPress, 2021). He is a psychotherapist in private practice and since 2011 has taught at the Psychosynthesis Trust, on the Foundation and Counselling Diploma courses as well as CPD events related to his research interests in imagination, ecopsychology and transpersonal psychotherapy.
Qualifications:-Diploma in Supervision with Soul (2013)-MA Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy (2011)-PGDip Psychosynthesis Counselling (2007)-MBACP(Accred)-UKCP(reg)
Find out more: wildimagination.uk | @wakingdreams20
Event Outline:
This workshop will present an image-based approach to psychosynthesis. While the original presentation of psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) offered many image-based methods and techniques it nevertheless emphasised an approach centred around ‘the will’ as ‘the foundation of all endeavour’ (‘The Act of Will’, p6). And yet, there is one line from Assagioli which suggests, at the very least, a strong connection between imagination and the will:
“When will and imagination come into conflict, imagination wins” (‘Psychosynthesis’, p143).
This workshop will discuss the further implications of this statement to offer an image-based adaptation of the ‘Stages of Psychosynthesis’ as:
Stage1: story identification
Stage2: story disidentification
Stage3: story emergence
Stage4: living between stories
As a psychosynthesis theory of change these stages will provide a useful comparison between Assagioli’s emphasis upon ‘the will’ and the more dynamic and active elements of imaginative life.
Learning Outcomes
- How to work therapeutically with imagination as a meta-function which includes sensations, feelings, thoughts, intuitions, perceptions and actions
- How to appreciate images as the raw-material of therapeutic work within memories, present-moment-perceptions (the transference) and future fantasies
- How to work with the process of how we imagine (rather than interpreting what we imagine)
- How to understand the presenting issue as an impoverished imagination
- How therapy offers an enhancement of imaginative life
- How to understand the presenting issue as an unscripted event or character in the habitual story being told about self and world
- How to help clients find a new, expanded story capable of incorporating the presenting issue
- How to align with the playful unpredictability of imagining and avoid formulaic scripted approaches
What to expect?
The workshop will be a mix of slideshow presentation, discussions, live demonstrations and practicum opportunities.
CPD Certs will be emailed to participants after attendance
The Zoom Link and Password for the event will be sent at least a day or two in advance
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