Workshops

Workshop Outlines For 2012

PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN JOHNELLA TEACHING IN THEIR COMMUNITIES

I am often asked to teach in communities outside of Auckland. If you are interested in approaching me for teaching, I suggest you review the descriptions below of the one or two day presentation topics. You can also select one of the workshops and and 4 day Intensives that I am teaching this year in Auckland (see NZ Training). You might prefer to use a combination of these workshops or presentations in order to meet the particular needs of your group.

I tend to limit the participant numbers for intensives in order to maximise skills, integration and practice. The descriptions of the intensives are general because I find that the clinical focus/themes are shaped by the participants' work interests and experience. The presentations tend to suit larger groups as the teaching style is more didactic.

If any of these presentations or workshops interest you please contact Jill Kelly (email: edgepress@xtra.co.nz) with your proposal.

APPLIED SUPER-VISION

The super-vision relationship requires participants to negotiate the sometimes complex balance between the professional and the personal, affirmation and extension, support and challenge, theoretical ideas and the technical and practical application of these ideas. This workshop will focus on how we achieve this balance.

Although we all experience many challenges while facilitating super-vision relationships, the situations I and others have found most taxing, involved the use of the power relation to address ethical concerns. In these instances, I found that a relational perspective supported all participants to navigate a process that could have easily floundered in a mire of defensiveness, accusation, shame, anger and subsequent detachment.

Throughout the workshop I will discuss and demonstrate this relational perspective by reviewing:

• A super-vision agreement that clarifies the responsibilities held by all participants in the relationship.

• A review of the common restraints to participation in the super-vision relationship.

• The use of Prismatic dialogue to reveal limiting truth positions and extend technical skills.

• Ways to negotiate accountability within a power relation.

• The use of imaginative abilities to support new therapeutic directions.

• Ethical review through a conversational process.

I hope the ideas and practices presented here will assist people to facilitate environments where there is an emphasis on the development of a reflective practitioner.

This workshop is relevant to people who have experience facilitating super-vision.

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'I SHOULD FEEL SAFE WITH YOU, BUT I DON'T'- REINVENTING THE THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP

When we consider the question, 'What contributes to successful therapy?' there has been considerable evidence that the experiences people have within the therapeutic relationship significantly influences the outcome.

How we use this experiential resource is I believe, critical to the generation of either:
An expert-led narrative that confirms the therapist theories,
or,
A tentative relational positioning which allows new narrative threads to emerge.

In this workshop I'll demonstrate the kind of relational positioning that allows for the following:

• The generation of new narrative threads that move people beyond entrapping binaries whilst also advancing known psychological knowledge.

• A negotiation with people around the strengths and limitations of the therapeutic relationship.

• An invitation for all participants in the therapeutic relationship to develop in a process that supports and constructs change.

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'ISN'T THIS A LEADING QUESTION?' NOTICING AND MAKING THE DIFFERENCE IN CONVERSATIONS WITH YOUNG PEOPLE AND THEIR FAMILIES

In many institutions this question, 'Is this window bullet proof?' will be collected and used as evidence of a disorder. In contrast, I consider this question offers us an opportunity to discover the world the young person is inhabiting. Through a discovery process that emphasises agency, movement and relational subjectivity we (young person and therapist) can find and generate story-lines that are life-enhancing.

I believe the experiential nature of therapeutic conversations can provide us with many opportunities to transform the narratives that are limiting young peoples lives.

In this workshop I will demonstrate the skills that help us shift the way we listen, enquire and interact with young people and their families.

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WORKING WITH COUPLES: WE TALK, WE LISTEN BUT DO WE UNDERSTAND?

We often meet couples who are struggling to find any common ground in respect to understanding past events. Consequently, we can find ourselves managing a conversation shaped by accusation and counter-accusation. In this workshop I will discuss and demonstrate a conversational process that allows us to step away from accusation in order to find a third way. The third way incorporates each person's experience while exploring the sometimes complex and contradictory moments which occur within relationships.

By using a process that emphasises a relational perspective, we can explore and renegotiate the taken-for-granted notions which act to shape relationships.

Throughout this presentation I will demonstrate a therapeutic process where I engage couples in addressing serious concerns such as, significant betrayals of trust, long-standing conflicts, the impact of losses and grief, and the negotiation of change in relationships.

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CHANGE-MAKING CONVERSATIONS WITH COUPLES

This workshop will interest practitioners who have previously attended couple workshops or intensives with Johnella.

There will be a focus on developing the skills to do the following:

• Effectively use whatever is said or experienced in the room.

• Explore intentions rather than believing in or disbelieving these intentions.

• Generate a narrative platform with the discoveries we make while also actively negotiating conversation direction.

• Explore everyday 'truth' assumptions.

• Move discoveries into everyday practices.

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'THE SUCCESSFUL FAILURE! 'FINDING THE MEASURE THAT WORKS FOR PEOPLE'S LIVES

In this workshop I will demonstrate ways to think about and work with those people who feel they are 'failures'. Many practitioners have found that this experience of failure can continue to grip people despite their often numerous public achievements. The private nature of this experience contributes to a silence that evokes enormous suffering as the inexplicable nature of this is drawn on as further evidence for the 'truth' of this position.

If the questions below resonate for the people you work with, then its likely that at one time or another they have been captured by a sense of personal failure.

• Have you ever held a view about yourself that seemed to be contradicted by the external evidence?

• Have you ever been surprised when others held a positive opinion about an ability or skill you had?