Circling Intensive (Portland, March 2026)

Join The Deep Play Institute for a weekend intensive of Circling: a here-and-now practice of deepening connection, authenticity and presence. Circling, developed by Guy Sengstock in the 1990s, is one of many practices aimed at exploring the here-and-now in a group. Other such practices include Group Therapy, T-Group, Group Relations Conferences, Process Work. Please find more info about Circling here. 

The aim of our weekend is twofold. The first is to deepen into the practice of Circling, which involves bringing more connection and authenticity in relation to each other within our group. This deepening will involve practicing multiple Circling modalities including: Large Group Circles, Small Group Circles, Dyads, Circles that focus on one person’s experience (called Birthday Circles), Circles with predefined roles such as mother, empathetic listener, clown (called Kabuki Circles), and Circles with explicit representation of shadowy/challenging aspects of the group (called Coyote Circling). 

The second aim of our weekend intensive is for participants to try co-creating new Circling modalities. As facilitators we are riveted by playing with the structures of play. We think this meta-play brings a heightened awareness to the impermanence of rules and the magical process of designing towards depth, connection, and awareness. On the last day of the weekend intensive we will co-create and iterate on a new here-and-now structure based on our emergent interests as a group.

Rough Schedule (Subject to Change) Friday March 20th, 6-9pm: Opening Circle, Agreements, Warmups, First Full Group Circle Saturday March 21st, 10am-6:30pm: Deepening into Circling modalities. Sunday March 22nd, 10am-6:30pm: Co-Creating New Structure. [We will have a 1-hour lunch break on both Saturday and Sunday]

Price: Price is tiered based on 3 income levels. All prices are in USD. Tier 1 $350 / Tier 2 $300 / Tier 3 $250 BIPOC: Tier 3 

Sliding Scale: Please try to reasonably and honestly select the price that reflects your economic situation. If you are unable to find a price that is suitable for you, please get in touch [thedeepplayinstitute@gmail.com]. We are committed to covering our basic costs, while also making this possible for everyone who wants it. 

Maximum Participants: 10

Emotional Safety: The practices on offer are designed to cultivate vulnerability, with its pleasures and its hardships. The practices tend to surface conflict and hurt that might conventionally be quieted or minimized. It is common to experience triggers of past psychological wounds within this practice, and this should be accounted for as a possibility. The intimacy of these practices might be compared to the way one's deepest romantic relationships sometimes surface one's most challenging psychological material. The facilitators will use techniques to contain and care for what arises, but will not be able to provide ongoing care for emotional fallout. The invitation is to be watchful of one's own safety and opt out in little and big ways as needed, and to have emotional processing methods in place (such as therapy, meditation, journaling, processing with friends, etc) that can help you learn with and from what happens at the intensive.

Covid Policy: If any participant has symptoms of covid (i.e. cold symptoms), we ask you to please take a home-test and if you test positive and still have fever you cannot attend the workshop. If you test negative, or if you test positive and 1) Your symptoms are getting better overall, and 2) You have not had a fever (and are not using fever-reducing medication) for 3 days, then we still require you to wear a mask. For everyone else, masks are optional. We may update these policies in accordance with evolving public health guidance.

Cancellation Policy: Refunds are available up to 30 days before the event - minus a $20 processing fee. After this time we are unable to provide a refund for the event. Partial refunds might be given if a cancellation takes place under extenuating circumstances (e.g. a death of a 1st or 2nd degree family member, serious non-preventable illness or accident requiring hospitalization). Refunds in such cases remain at the discretion of the local organizers and will be decided on a case to case basis.

Partial Attendance: All participants are required to attend the Opening Circle on Day 1 of the Intensive. Given the intimacy and trust building inherent to the program, we highly recommend that all participants plan to stay for the entire weekend.

Note: This weekend intensive is intended for participants who reside in Portland. The Deep Play Institute is not able to provide accommodations for out-of-town participants. DPI is also not able to refund any travel or housing costs in the unlikely event of cancellation.

About the Deep Play Institute The Deep Play Institute is a nonprofit organization committed to exploring life’s deepest questions through transformative play. DPI’s facilitators – therapists, artists, coaches, and philosophers – aim to use play to bring people into an experiential questioning of what it means to exist. Each program that DPI runs is a unique container, creatively constructed and inspired by practices that include: Gestalt therapy, Process Work, Psychodrama, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Tavistock Group Relations, Relational Psychoanalysis, Authentic Relating, Nonviolent Communication, Circling, coaching, performance art, contact improvisation, experimental theater, LARPs, surrealism, existential games, and various schools of meditation.

About the facilitators: 

 Aaron Finbloom is a philosopher, artist, pedagogue and counselor. He is also the founder and director of the Deep Play Institute. Finbloom's work (and play) involves expanding and deepening transformative inquiry through games, performance, and structured play. After an initial 40-hour psychodrama training in 2018, Finbloom co-led a psychodrama group in Montreal, and has directed dozens of psychodrama sessions in the forthcoming years. His facilitation style is informed by training in Circling, Authentic Relating, Vipassana Meditation and profoundly inspired by Internal Family Systems Therapy both in theory and practice. Finbloom has been seeing individual clients for over two years using transformative deep play techniques derived from these aforementioned practices. He holds a PhD in relational practice from Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Humanities & Fine Arts program, and teaches philosophy at the City College of New York and The University of Portland.