New year, new group, new start
Beren Aldridge and Bev Gibbons, our Foundation Certificate trainers, share their thoughts on the first training weekend of the new academic year.
Building a community
Beginning the Foundation training with a new group of trainees is always a privilege. This weekend felt even more so. We met as a diverse Zoom room of strangers. By Sunday afternoon we had worked together to build a sense of community and belonging that will enable our learning together throughout the year.
Sharing our learning
This weekend, we’ve been looking at Group Imago theory (Eric Berne, Petruska Clarkson and Keith Tudor). In addition, Steiner’s classic and enduring thinking on contracts set the scene for us to attach and to explore the deep roots of TA. The vibrancy of early 20th century Vienna and the development of psychodynamic and humanistic thinking has helped bring the subject alive.
Individuals but together – a learning community
I’ve been more struck this time with the joy of finding my tribe. I feel, more so that usual, that its OK to voice and learn in my own way. Through the weekend the community of trainees also felt the same.
We’ve been exploring what it means to be a learner and our individual learning identity. Exploring disturbance as a necessary component of transformational learning; embracing self as a learner with prior knowledge, our own learning style and being in charge of own learning. We’ve been looking at essential components of TA – group process, ethics and philosophical foundations of TA.
Such an exciting start. I’m looking forward to October already.
Bev Gibbons and Beren Aldridge train on our Foundation Certificate course and are members of a group of trainers on the Clinical Training Group (years 2 – 4 of the clinical training programme).
The Foundation Certificate is a 1 year part-time course meeting 1 weekend per month during the academic year. To find out more about our Foundation Certificate course, click here.