ERThworks:
Workshops with Nick Totton
Spring-Summer 2002
GRACE and CHAOS
A residential weekend at Unstone Grange,
near Sheffield
May 10 (eve) to May 12 (late afternoon)
Cost: £120
A group process workshop, where we have an opportunity to
explore our own issues around self and relationship in
the context of a 'group field'.
Grace and Chaos: qualities which I identify as both
crucial to good groupwork, although at opposite poles to
each other. Grace - the gracefulness of a
well-functioning group or of good group facilitation,
effortless and yielding to reality. And also 'Amazing
Grace' - a transpersonal gift that sometimes emerges from
deep quiet listening or from the storms of Chaos. Joanna
Macy describes what she calls group synergy: 'It is like
grace, because it brings an increase of power beyond
one's own capacity as a separate entity'.
Groups often need to go down into Chaos, as part of their
alchemical journey; and group leaders need the courage
and grace to allow chaos to happen, and to model openness
to chaos for the rest of the group. Grace and Chaos,
Chaos and Grace: in a successful, living group process
the two dance together, mirror each other, marry each
other, become each other.
I hope in this course to combine theory and experiential
learning in a helpful way. I combine two approaches to
groups: the process model, which looks at how each
participant expresses an aspect of the 'group field', and
how this can work in a stuck or a creative way; and the
psychodynamic model, which focuses on the unconscious
fantasies of individuals and of the whole group, and ways
in which we project our own material onto the group and
other group members. I believe these two models can
usefully be combined. However, without appropriate
experience these are just abstract ideas; and our first
priority will be to be a group, and only then to think
about what a group is like. We will thus be combining two
possible group functions - therapy and work (i.e.
learning); and finding out how the two support or
interfere with each other. The workshop will provide
opportunities to work on your own issues regarding self
and relationship.
BREATHING SPACE
A residential group
Fawcett Mill Fields, Southern Lake District
Sun July 7th 6 p.m.-Friday July 12th 2 p.m.
Cost: £320/£250
This workshop, taking place in a beautiful converted mill
in a valley on the edge of the Howgills, is an
opportunity to pause, relax, take stock, and remember who
you are and what you're doing.
We will use a variety of tools to help us slow down,
interrupt patterns of anxiety and stress, and hopefully
reach a still point from which fresh choices are
available. Much of what we do will depend on the energy
and interactions of the group, but it will include work
with relationship, process, subtle energy, imagery - and,
of course, with the breath.
Please state what you want to pay between £320 and £250.
Bookings and enquiries
To Nick Totton, 86 Burley Wood Crescent Leeds
LS4 2QL, 0845 345 8597 (local rate), or e mail.
£50 deposit secures a place for each workshop.