OUR GROUP WORK FOR 2022

We are exploring what it means to be a part of an ‘interpersonal field’ as a group.  We make space for direct encounters and exchanges with one another that we can track with a felt sense in our bodies.  

We will pay attention to the necessity of ‘dynamic tension’ in group processes in ways that are life-giving to our desires and give generative movement to aggression.  We will also learn to recognize the various ‘disguises’ of destructive aggression, and how they tend to play out in groups.

Supplemental Reading for 2022:

• Difficult Topics In Group Therapy, by Jerome Gans.
• The Group Therapy Experience, by Louis Ormont.
• Who Do We Choose To Be? by Margaret Wheatley.

AUDIO RECORDINGS – September 2022

Wednesday 1 – Embodiment Meditation – Enlivening Presnce – 14 min

Wednesday 2 – The 3 Components of Lived Experience – Senses, Myth & Passion – 16 min

Wednesday 3 – Group Sharing – Explaining vs Enlivening – 10 min

Thursday 1 – Embodiment Practice – On Being And Becoming In One’s Self & In The World – 20 min

Thursday 2 – Vitality Emerges From Shared Lived Experiences in Group Work – 13 min

Thursday 3 – The Tendency To Project Onto Empty Spaces in Groups – 3 min

Friday 1 – Embodiment Practice – At One With One’s Own Aliveness – 23 min

Saturday 1 – Embodiment Practice – Opening Mind & Body To The Boon – 19 min

Saturday 2 – Bringing Aliveness Into A Group – 5 min 

Sunday – What It Takes To Bring Ourselves Alive To The World – 37 min

FOR THE AUTUMN TRAINING WEEK

I have distilled the amount of content to be read. There are a few PDFs of my personal notes from a new book called Vitalizations: On Being and Becoming.  It is a collection of papers that I find quite inspiring, but not the easiest to read.  (Thus the book notes.)

Below are three short PDFs to read in preparation for the autumn training week.  They are representative of new material that I am excited about sharing. The content fits in very well with understanding the particular skills needed for more intensive group work.

Embodying Essential Process Work Capacities for the Group Facilitator/The Ruthlessness of The Group – Michael Mervosh

Facilitating Aliveness in The Group Container – Based on the work of Rachel Peltz

VITALIZATON Perspectives on Being and Becoming – Between Mythos & Logos – Boaz Shalgi

READING PREPARATION

PRIMARY PDF READINGS

Chapter 3 – The Analyst’s Witnessing & Otherness – Warren Poland

Chapter 7 – The Group As Witness – Morris Nitsun

Groups – Chapter 3 Notes – Learning & Hating in Groups – Mick Landaiche

Aggression & Destructiveness – Chapter 1 – Making Sense of Aggression – Celia Harding

Aggression & Destructiveness – Making Sense of Aggression – Book Notes – Celia Harding, Cliff Notes by Michael Mervosh

Facilitating Intensive Group Work – 2022 – Michael Mervosh

REVIEW THESE  PDF READINGS

HJAP Group Training Manual 2022- Mervosh 

Destructiveness is a part of Aliveness – Eigen

The Therapeutic Functions Of Aggression – Cornell

The Group Therapy Experience – Ormont – Lecture Notes with Highlights – Chapters 1 -13

Please read all of the primary PDF Readings in preparation for the upcoming week!

AUDIO RECORDINGS – April 2022

Wednesday – Embodiment Practice – Surrendering To Deeper Forces Within – 20 min

Thursday 1 – Aggression In Service of Change – 33 min

Thursday 2 – Understanding The Dynamics of Pressure & Unconscious Forces – 20 min

Thursday 3 – Practitioner Defensive Use of Help & Repair – 8 min

Friday 1 – Emboding The Ground Of Being – Trusting the Unknown – 16 min

Friday 2 – I Am Here – Aggression As A Generative Relational Force – 2 min

Saturday 1 – Moving Ourselves Out Of Habitual Thinking & The Unfelt Known – 4 min

Saturday 2 – Embodiment Practice – Shifting From The Unfelt Known To The Felt Unknown – 19 min

FOR THE SPRING TRAINING WEEK

I am providing you with some photocopied and highlighted chapters for a more focused distillation of the material we will reference during the spring training week, along with my personal book notes for some of the chapters.  I think you’ll find these to be worthwhile.

We’ll deepen our understanding of aggression as a fundamental instinct and a life force, both as a generative force and as a destructive force in one’s own development, and in relationships.   As well, we’ll keep on exploring the ways we are animated, moved and troubled by our experiences of eros and desire.

We will revisit the essential skill of Active Witnessing – to be both a part of and apart from – the experiences of others as individuals, and the subjective experience we each have of our group as a whole.

This year will we place an emphasis on furthering processes that happen in groups, by examining more closely and precisely those various aspects of our humanity that keeps a group from moving forward.  In that regard, we will look more at transferences with groups, and the counter-transferences we encounter as group facilitators.

PRIMARY PDF READINGS

Chapter 3 – The Analyst’s Witnessing & Otherness – Warren Poland

Chapter 7 – The Group As Witness – Morris Nitsun

Groups – Chapter 3 Notes – Learning & Hating in Groups – Mick Landaiche

Aggression & Destructiveness – Chapter 1 – Making Sense of Aggression – Celia Harding

Aggression & Destructiveness – Making Sense of Aggression – Book Notes – Celia Harding, Cliff Notes by Michael Mervosh

Facilitating Intensive Group Work – 2022 – Michael Mervosh

REVIEW THESE  PDF READINGS

HJAP Group Training Manual 2022- Mervosh 

Destructiveness is a part of Aliveness – Eigen

The Therapeutic Functions Of Aggression – Cornell

The Group Therapy Experience – Ormont – Lecture Notes with Highlights – Chapters 1 -13

Please read all of the primary PDF Readings in preparation for the upcoming week!