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Five-day residential workshop for leaders of experiential training and therapeutic groups

What and whom is this group for?
Participants will be experienced leaders, facilitators or group therapists. The purpose of the workshop is to build on participants' existing levels of expertise in leading experiential learning groups, adventure-based groups and experiential/adventure therapy groups and hence to release creativity and talent in group participants.

Theme/specialism of this workshop
The workshop will be based on a psychodynamic theoretical background, including socio-analytic, Gestalt and psychodramatic approaches. The foundational approach will be experiential learning and so it is assumed that participants will be familiar with at least one approach to experiential learning or have the openness and affinity to learn in self-aware ways.

The workshop is intended to provide new experiences and ideas for participants so that they build their understanding of the complex dynamic conscious and unconscious systems that are involved in groups. These systems include the individual group members, interrelationships between members, subgroups, the group-as-a-whole, the context in which the group runs and the functioning of the leader him/herself.

The workshop will aim to build understanding rather than teach specific techniques.

Program topics and components
Some of the topics to be addressed and components to be included are:
· Unconscious processes in groups and the leader's role in working with these
· An experiential exploration of participants' own conscious and unconscious patterns of thinking, perceiving and believing in the training group itself
· Sociodramatic explorations of means of working with specific issues and difficulties in groups
· Sociometric explorations of the group itself
· Experiential explorations of inter-group phenomena
· A group-level exploration of the nature of learning from experience in groups

Learning approach
The workshop will consist of an integrated series of lectures, small group discussions, small-group experiential exercises, large-group experiential exercises and seminar sessions.

Workshop presenters
Luk Peeters (Belgium)
Martin Ringer (New Zealand)
Françoise Ringer (New Zealand)
(See below for details on presenters)

Languages
The majority of the workshop presentations will be conducted in English but some presenters are able to work with questions and small group discussions in French and Flemish as well.

Location
BEAUDOUY
24800 Saint-Jory-de-Chalais
France
About the venue
Beaudouy is the name of an old farmhouse beside the little village of Saint-Jory-de-Chalais, amongst pastures, woods and rivers in the beautiful French Dordogne between Limoges and the historical city of Périgueux.
Participants can choose to bring their own tent to sleep in the camping area or sleep in a two-person room in a beautifully renovated old barn on the same premises.

Dates & Times
Tuesday 20th August to Saturday 24th August (inclusive) [with a half-day on Tuesday and on Saturday].
Cost
Tuition: € 390
Lodging: own tent with all meals supplied: €25/day
2 persons per room with all meals supplied €45/day per person.

Reading and written materials.
Persons who are accepted as workshop participants will be sent an annotated bibliography prior to the workshop.
Selection of participants

The organizers reserve the right to refuse entry to applicants at the discretion of the organizers. Unsuccessful applicants will have all payments returned to them.

Refunds and withdrawals
10% of the full fee will be retained by the organizers if participants withdraw within three weeks of the first day of the workshop. The organizers reserve the right to retain 50% of the full fee for participants who withdraw after that date and before the workshop start date. 90% of the full fee will be retained if a participant fails to notify withdrawal and does not attend or if the participants withdraws at any time during the workshop.

Payment and enrolment
Full payment of the tuition is required before June 15. Payment of a half of the full fee will reserve a place for the applicant unless there are enough fully paid participants to fill the programme.
Payment of accommodation will be arranged during the program.

Please complete the enrolment form on the next page and return it with your deposit. (Whilst expressions of interest and queries are welcomed, no formal enrolments will be taken without payment.)

Brief biographies of presenters
Martin Ringer is an experienced group leader, university lecturer and author who has presented extensively in many countries around the world. His recent book "Group action: The dynamics of groups in therapeutic, educational and corporate settings" will be used as one of the main theoretical bases for the workshop. See www.martinringer.com for more details. Email martinringer@groupinstitute.com

Dr Françoise Ringer's professional experience of 25 years has been varied and has often combined treatment with research, training and teaching. Her PhD research was on early attachment and eating disorders, comparing patterns of adult attachment for women with anorexia and/or bulimia.Françoise is originally from Belgium where she was trained in the psychoanalytic field for individual and group work, and in 1990 she moved to Australia and then in 2000 to New Zealand where she now runs a private practice, teaches Attachment theory, and leads a group seminar on Infant Observation. She is currently the president of the NZ Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Email francoise@groupinstitute.com

Luk Peeters is a licensed Gestalt Psychotherapist and has been working in the experiential outdoors for more than fifteen years with a blend of target groups and in several countries. He co-manages Exponent, a European Ropes Course construction and training company and works as an independent trainer for several Train-the-trainer Institutes. See www.exponent-ropescourses.com for more details or Email exponent@pi.be

(NOTE: This workshop is substantially different to but complementary to the groupwork module in the MA(DT) at St Martin's College, Ambleside: See http://www.devtrg.ucsm.ac.uk/)

Registration FormName _________________________________________________________________________Address ____________________________________ Phone Home _____________________________________________________ Work __________________________________E-mail _____________________________________ Fax _____________________________Occupation _________________________________________________________________Experience with groups A tuition of € 390 is transferred to the account number 979-3921280-60 of Argenta Bank in Belgium on name of Luk Peeters with the message 'summer school 2002' and serves as proof of registration.Please return completed form by 15th of June to : Luk Peeters, Putstraat 62, 3220 Sint-Pieters-Rode, Belgium or E-mail to exponent@pi.be