Online weekend workshops exploring the impact of our fear system responses on our ability to give and seek care in our personal lives and in our work as therapists.
Dates: Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 February 2024
Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 June 2024
Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 December 2024
Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 May 2025
Times: 09.30 to 12.30 pm each day
Venue: ONLINE
Cost: £80
Facilitator: Michael Guilding
As therapists, we are professional caregivers, and our work requires us to respond to the needs of others who seek care from us. Careseeking and caregiving are instinctive biological systems which, working in a straightforward manner, enhance our wellbeing and sense of self. However, when our careseeking needs have not been adequately met by responsive caregiving in infancy and childhood, our patterns of careseeking and caregiving can be defensive (infiltrated by fear-system responses) and become complicated and ineffective. When we work with complex trauma clients it is easy for their fearful careseeking to meet our fearful caregiving, leaving both of us frustrated and diminished.
This workshop continues and deepens the exploration of the impact of the fear system on our lives started in my Fear and the Therapist workshop. It will provide an introduction to the work of Dorothy Heard, Brian Lake and Una McCluskey who developed John Bowlby’s work on attachment and demonstrated the ways that the fear system disrupts our patterns of attachment. While giving a brief overview of this theory the workshop will consist predominantly of experiential work focused on our patterns of careseeking and caregiving. This approach to fear and attachment helps us to become aware of changes we might be able to make to these patterns to make it easier for us to give care and to seek care in ways that enhance our wellbeing in our professional and personal lives.
Each weekend workshop will be limited to a maximum of 8 participants and is only open to therapists who have already attended the Fear and the Therapist workshop.
To enquire or book contact michael.guilding@gmail.com
Please feel free to download the PDF below and forward it to any colleagues you think might find it interesting.