Being and Belonging 2: Explorations in Co-operation and Community.

A 3-day experiential workshop, using Group Relations approaches,
inspired by therapeutic community principles.

Our invitation to you

Following last year’s successful Being and Belonging Workshop, we’re offering a second opportunity to take part in this innovative experience that combines therapeutic community principles, group relations concepts, social dreaming, and the culture of Argentine tango.

Humans are innately groupish. Out of the millions of species that inhabit the earth, there are only a handful that appear to do this unique thing: organising and collaborating together in groups. But why do we do this? Perhaps, counter to the claims of those who believe that “might is right”, it is an acknowledgement of our vulnerability, and our need for the other.

Maybe, in the fractured times we live in, we should take the opportunity to examine deeply what’s involved in true co-operation. The pioneers of the therapeutic community movement (Wilfred Bion, Tom Main, Franz Fanon, Barbara Docker – Drysdale, Donald Winnicott, and R.D.Laing) went further – their insight was that through acts of co-construction we can both become more integrated as individuals, and also overcome some of the implicit divisions in social structures that create ill health and alienation in the first place.

As we did last year, we have included spaces in the program specifically aimed at helping us to learn from experience, to use our physicality to access nonverbal understandings of ourselves and our relationships, as well as to play and be creative. These are for all participants and staff and include: group exercises inspired by the culture of Argentine Tango, a Social Dream Matrix harnessing the unconscious life of the group, focusing on the dreams not the dreamers, to jointly create social meanings, and a Creative Space containing art materials to support non-verbal expression of thoughts and emotions.

The Being and Belonging 2 Workshop is a place to experiment with ways of working and being together. We will be reflecting on our dreams, noticing the part played by the unconscious, attending to the interplay of leadership and followership, re-connecting body and mind, and discovering alternative ways to take up our authority within a democratic ethos.

This is our invitation to you. Join us for what promises to be a rich weekend of exploration and discovery together.

Who is the Workshop for?

The Workshop is suitable for anyone curious about the impact of self on group, and group on self. You may work in a therapeutic environment, be a therapeutic or relational practitioner, have an interest in the functioning of democratic and collaborative systems, be a student of the human sciences (social science, psychology, psychotherapy, bodywork and movement), a community organiser, or simply a citizen seeking to explore the context in which we live, learn and grow.