Recognizing the brilliance of someone psychological disturbance normalizes their experience and opens the door to transformative change. We aim to explore the lived experiences on irregular perceptions of reality with an open mind. Each Saturday includes: a live dialogue between Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and an International Existential Therapist; a moment to share your thoughts and feelings with the teachers; and a final integration facilitated by Bárbara Godoy. This series of ten dialogues set out to explore the multifaceted dimentions and complexities associated with Existential Therapies. It attempts to engage with various interpretations of insanity through the lens of patients often painful, confounding, and deeply unsettling life experiences. Invention- between Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and Dr. Betty Cannon “When I first saw the topic of this year’s dialogues, I asked myself whether I had anything to contribute. After all, I told myself, I do not usually work with psychoses or other so-called ‘extreme’ or’ irregular’ states of consciousness. This started me thinking about a series of demonstration videos that I have been making with students and supervisees over the last couple of years as part of a book project. Do those videos display ‘extreme states’? To my surprise, the answer is yes. They are filled with experiences that might be described as hallucinations (positive and negative), dissociative states, paranoia, delusions, manic and depressive states, crippling anxiety, schizoid withdrawal, depersonalization and derealization, and body dysmorphic phenomena. Not to mention the so-called normal neurotic trances that Freud called transference, countertransference and defenses, psychedelically induced extreme states, and those nightly hallucinations, our dreams. So why did I not remember at least some of these states as being ‘extreme’? Perhaps the answer lies in my perspective on therapy, which is largely existential-phenomenological. I think that the following quote, from a letter that Sartre wrote to R.D. Laing, captures the essence of this perspective: “Like you, I believe that one cannot understand psychological disturbances from the outside, on the basis of a positivistic determinism or reconstruct them with a combination of concepts that remain outside the experience as lived and experienced. I also believe that one cannot study, let alone cure, a neurosis without a fundamental respect for the person of the patient, without a constant effort to grasp the basic situation and relive it, without an attempt to rediscover the response of the person to that situation and––like you, I think––I regard mental illness as the ‘way out’ that the free organism, in its total unity, invents in order to be able to live through an intolerable situation.”* When a client and I together are able to appreciate the true brilliance of this invention, my experience is that it not only normalizes the client’s experience, it also opens the doorway to change. It allows us to invent something new.” Dr. Betty Cannon. Betty Cannon, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who has taught and practiced in Boulder, Colorado, for over 40 years. She is Professor Emerita of the Colorado School of Mines and president and founder of the Boulder Psychotherapy Institute, which has trained mental health professionals in Applied Existential Psychotherapy since 1989. In addition to existential philosophy, especially the philosophy of Sartre, AEP has roots in Gestalt therapy, classical and contemporary psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology (especially the person-centered therapy of Carl Rogers), and body-oriented psychotherapy. Betty is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal for the Society of Existential Analysis and Sartre Studies International. She is the author of Sartre and Psychoanalysis and numerous articles and chapters on existential therapy. Her mentor was Hazel E. Barnes, who translated Sartre into English and who was the world’s foremost Sartre scholar until her death in 2008. Betty is her literary executor, and her book on Sartre is dedicated to Hazel. Prof. Ernesto Spinelli was Chair of the Society for Existential Analysis between 1993 and 1999 and is a Life Member of the Society. His writings, lectures and seminars focus on the application of existential phenomenology to the arenas of therapy, supervision, psychology, and executive coaching. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS) as well as an APECS accredited executive coach and coaching supervisor. In 2000, he was the Recipient of BPS Division of Counselling Psychology Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Profession. And in 2019, Ernesto received the BPS Award for Distinguished Contribution to Practice. His most recent book, Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World 2nd edition (Sage, 2015) has been widely praised as a major contribution to the advancement of existential theory and practice. Living up to the existential dictum that life is absurd, Ernesto is also the author of an on-going series of Private Eye novels. Date and Time: Saturday 25 October from 2 pm to 3 pm – (UK time) Individual Dialogue Fee: £70 Venue: Online Zoom FULL PROGRAMME 2025: 25 January “Knots” with Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and Bárbara Godoy 22 February “Healing” with Dr. Michael Guy Thompson and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 22 March “Difference” with Prof. Tod DuBose and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 12 April “Polarisation” with Prof. Kirk Schneider and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 3 May “Character” with Prof. Robert Romanyshyn and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 21 June “Opening” with Dr. Yaqui Martinez and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 19 July “Meaning” with Dr. Jan Resnick and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 25 October “Invention” with Dr. Betty Cannon and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 15 November “Hallucination” with Prof. Simon du Plock and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 13 December “Hysteria” with Bárbara Godoy and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli Read the full programme here > Course Organised by:
Definition of Safeguarding Legislation & agreed ways of working Definition of Safeguarding Legislation & agreed ways of working Every child matters guidance Myths and statistics Effects on young people Leadership/worker skills Common indicators of abuse Reporting of abuse and potential abuse Barriers to reporting abuse Understanding the types of abuse Recognising acts, signs and symptoms of abuse Who is vulnerable / at risk The role of dignity in safeguarding Legislation and policies and procedure What to do should you have a concern Overview of prevent How to respond to an individual should they disclose a concern
Enhancing Performance with Productive Conflict: In-House Training Most organizations have typically held the belief that workplace conflict is something that needs to be prevented, resolved, and/or mitigated. After all, conflict creates stress and leads to a variety of performance problems and very real costs. However, what savvy organizations have come to embrace is the understanding that when conflict is truly understood and harnessed, it can be utilized to not only add value to teams, but also enhance workplace performance. Conflict can be productive and make organizations better! Learners will explore the results of a formal, personalized, conflict-related assessment, uncovering targeted nuances of their conflict responses in action. Participants will learn to use basic strategies which allow them to transform destructive conflict responses into more productive ones, especially in the moment when they are happening. What you will Learn At the end of this program, you will be able to: Apply different models for understanding the lifecycle and dynamics of conflict Describe a physiological response to conflict and its impact on communication Recognize the correlation between a person's conflict style and how they respond to conflict Identify your own default responses to conflict and catch them in action Reframe automatic negative thoughts to create more positive interpersonal outcomes Utilize various tactics and strategies to transform destructive conflict responses into productive ones Getting Started Introductions and social agreements Course goal and objectives Opening activities Module 1: The Dynamics and Anatomy of Conflict Conflict basics Dynamics of conflict The anatomy of conflict Module 2: Conflict Styles and Conflict Conflict through the conflict style lens Exploring your style in conflict Destructive responses to conflict Module 3: Changing Your Response to Conflict Changing your conflict response Three steps to productive conflict Choosing a productive conflict response
Our one-day sleep workshop aims to provide healthcare professionals with evidence based knowledge to develop their theoretical and practical understanding of how to assess and manage sleep difficulties in pre-school children. It is an opportunity for you to enhance your sleep knowledge, add skills to your current professional tool box and feel confident in supporting young families with sleep. We have developed the workshop content and delivery to be highly engaging, interactive and relevant to all community staff working with families with young children experiencing sleep issues. Child focused, gentle, responsive and firmly grounded in research and evidence-based practice our training follows the Baby Friendly Initiative. The content will focus on practical evidence based issues relating to sleep assessment and identify interventions to guide and support parents and carers. This one-day workshop is accredited for 6 CPD Hours by The CPD Certification Service; “This is a good course delivering clear learning value.” Workshop Aims To provide community staff with up-to-date evidence based knowledge to develop their theoretical and practical understanding of sleep needs; sleep patterns; sleep cycles and common difficulties. To support community staff to enhance their confidence, skills and knowledge base in providing guidance to parents regarding sleep difficulties in pre school children. To provide an overview of evidence based gentle and responsive interventions used to help sleep difficulties in young children. Workshop Outcomes With the use of assessment tools – by the end of the day delegates will be able to: Understand typical sleep regulations, sleep needs and sleep cycles. Understand common sleep difficulties. Provide education to families on establishing good sleep hygiene, and provide anticipatory advice in the prevention of sleep difficulties. Understand how to undertake a sleep assessment for an infant and child, incorporating a sleep history and the use of a sleep diary. Gain an understanding of common sleep interventions used to help behavioural sleep difficulties in pre school children.
Our one-day interactive workshop for the school aged child is suitable for all staff working in the school setting. We explore a wide range of common sleep difficulties and sleep disorders in school children and young people including children with SEND and neuro diversities. Based in the most up-to-date evidence and science, we discuss responsive gentle sleep strategies to enable professionals to develop their theoretical and practical understanding of how to assess, manage and adapt techniques for a range of sleep difficulties Following the workshop, participants will be able to offer preventative intervention and share practical strategies to support sleep, with both parents and young people. Millpond Training’s sleep awareness day has been fully accredited for 6 CPD Hours by The CPD Certification Service; “This is a good course delivering clear learning value. It has a well-written and engaging presentation and a variety of activities and tasks to aid interactivity and learner engagement.” Workshop Aims To provide community staff with up-to-date evidence-based knowledge to develop their theoretical and practical understanding of sleep needs; sleep patterns; sleep cycles and common difficulties. To support community staff to enhance their confidence, skills and knowledge base in providing guidance to parents and young people regarding sleep difficulties. To provide an overview of evidence-based interventions used to help behavioural sleep difficulties in the school aged child and young people. Learning Outcomes By the end of the day delegates will be able to: Understand typical sleep regulations, sleep needs and sleep cycles. Understand common sleep difficulties in the school aged child. Provide education to families on establishing good sleep hygiene, and provide anticipatory advice in the prevention of sleep difficulties. Understand how to undertake sleep assessments, incorporating a sleep history and the use of a sleep diary. Gain an understanding of common sleep interventions used to help behavioural sleep difficulties.
Couples therapy Discuss the future Discuss needs Marriage and communication discussion Marriage prep consultation 4 sessions 1 hour x 4 https://relationshipsmdd.com/product/i-want-to-marry-my-partner-but-i-am-not-sure-im-scared-package/
Talk issue through Couples therapy Address trust issues Social habits training Relationship boundary setting Address arguments and conflict issues Social media issues and tension issues addressed 3 x 1 hour https://relationshipsmdd.com/product/my-partner-is-addicted-to-social-media-package/
Second Degree Usui Reiki Course You will be taught how to conduct a healing session; protocols, etc and how to perform distance healings. This course is comprehensive and detailed. You will have all the tools you need to start using Reiki on others and their pets. Upon completion of this comprehensive and insightful Reiki course, you can go on to get insurance to set up as a Reiki Practitioner and start seeing clients.
Course Outcomes As an MHFAider® you will be able to: Recognise those that may be experiencing poor mental health and provide them with first-level support and early intervention Encourage a person to identify and access sources of professional help and other supports Practise active listening and empathy Have a conversation with improved mental health literacy around language and stigma Discuss the MHFAider® role in depth, including boundaries and confidentiality Practise self-care Know how to use the MHFAider Support App® Know how to access a dedicated text service provided by Shout and ongoing learning opportunities with MHFA England Format Learners will be trained over four live sessions with an MHFA England Instructor Member, covering 14 hours of content in total. Learning takes place through a mix of instructor led training, group discussions, individual and group activities. Each session builds on the previous, enabling the learner to gain confidence in supporting others with a Mental Health First Aid action plan. We limit numbers to 16 people per course so that instructors can keep people safe and supported while they learn. We strive for all of our learning content to be as accessible and inclusive as possible. Takeaways Everyone who completes this course gets: A hard copy workbook to support their learning throughout the course A digital manual to refer to whenever they need it after completing the course A wallet-sized reference card with the Mental Health First Aid action plan A digital MHFAider® certificate Access to the MHFAider Support App® for three years Access to ongoing learning opportunities, resources and exclusive events The opportunity to be part of the largest MHFAider® community in England Becoming a qualified MHFAider® Once you complete the Mental Health First Aid course, you can test your knowledge and build your confidence in your role as an MHFAider® with the internationally recognised MHFAider® qualification, RSPH Level 3 Award in Mental Health First Aid. Course Structure Session 1: Mental Health First Aid and the action plan The MHFAider® role and self-care Helpful and unhelpful language Useful models to support the role Session 2: What influences mental health? What is anxiety? Crisis first aid Active listening and empathy What are eating disorders? What is self-harm? What is substance misuse? Session 3: Applying the Mental Health First Aid action plan What is depression? What is suicide? Crisis first aid continued What is psychosis? Session 4: Recovery and lived experience Boundaries in the MHFAider® role Moving forward in the MHFAider® role My MHFA action plan
I’ll share a case of visual hallucinations, showing how an existential-phenomenological approach helps understand their meaning and purpose. We aim to explore the lived experiences on irregular perceptions of reality with an open mind. Each Saturday includes: a live dialogue between Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and an International Existential Therapist; a moment to share your thoughts and feelings with the teachers; and a final integration facilitated by Bárbara Godoy. This series of ten dialogues set out to explore the multifaceted dimentions and complexities associated with Existential Therapies. It attempts to engage with various interpretations of insanity through the lens of patients often painful, confounding, and deeply unsettling life experiences. Hallucination- between Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and Prof. Simon du Ploc “The phenomenon of hallucination has been a subject of debate for centuries. It has been suggested that its function was one of revelation or prophesy, and those who hallucinated were often considered to have a ‘sacred’ affliction. In recent times, their function, at least in the West since the Age of Reason, has been often been reduced to primary indicators of schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis. Lumped into the ‘core phenomena’ of schizophrenia, the concern is not so much what they are, or what they mean to the client, or even their content, but their treatment and control. I will present an excerpt from my own clinical practice with a client who presented with distressing visual hallucinations. This piece of work illustrates how approaching such irregular perceptions of reality from an existential-phenomenological perspective can provide a way of understanding their meaning and purpose within a client’s lived experience. I will suggest that such an approach also enables us to take a creative position regarding wider notions of sanity and madness, a position which enables us to navigate a path between, on the one hand, the medical model which typically focusses on reduction and management of hallucinations, and on the other hand, a Laingian view of hallucination as a route to ‘hyper-sanity’. Adopting such a path may enable us to work more confidently with clients when they present with unusual or disturbing perceptions.” Prof. Simon du Ploc. Prof. Simon du Plock is Senior Research Fellow at the Metanoia Institute, London. He was Head of the Faculty of Post-Qualification and Professional Doctorates at the Institute from 2007 to 2020, in which role he directed counselling psychology and psychotherapy research doctorates jointly with Middlesex University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Medicine, a Foundation Member with Senior Practitioner Status of the BPS Register of Psychologists Specialising in Psychotherapy, and a Member of the BPS Register of Applied Psychology Practice Supervisors. He has been a BPS Chartered Counselling Psychologist and UKCP Registered Psychotherapist since 1994. He has authored nearly one hundred journal papers and book chapters on existential therapy, and he has co-edited Existential Analysis, the Journal of the British Society for Existential Analysis, since 1993. He was an editor of the 2019 Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy. He has lectured and trained internationally, and in 2006 he was made an Honorary Member of the East European Association for Existential Therapy in recognition of his contribution to cooperation between West and East Europe in the development of existential psychotherapy. His clinical and research interests include phenomenological research methodology, clinical and research supervision, existential pedagogy, and working with issues of addiction and dependency. Prof. Ernesto Spinelli was Chair of the Society for Existential Analysis between 1993 and 1999 and is a Life Member of the Society. His writings, lectures and seminars focus on the application of existential phenomenology to the arenas of therapy, supervision, psychology, and executive coaching. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS) as well as an APECS accredited executive coach and coaching supervisor. In 2000, he was the Recipient of BPS Division of Counselling Psychology Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Profession. And in 2019, Ernesto received the BPS Award for Distinguished Contribution to Practice. His most recent book, Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World 2nd edition (Sage, 2015) has been widely praised as a major contribution to the advancement of existential theory and practice. Living up to the existential dictum that life is absurd, Ernesto is also the author of an on-going series of Private Eye novels. Date and Time: Saturday 15 November from 2 pm to 3 pm – (UK time) Individual Dialogue Fee: £70 Venue: Online Zoom FULL PROGRAMME 2025: 25 January “Knots” with Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and Bárbara Godoy 22 February “Healing” with Dr. Michael Guy Thompson and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 22 March “Difference” with Prof. Tod DuBose and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 12 April “Polarisation” with Prof. Kirk Schneider and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 3 May “Character” with Prof. Robert Romanyshyn and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 21 June “Opening” with Dr. Yaqui Martinez and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 19 July “Meaning” with Dr. Jan Resnick and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 25 October “Invention” with Dr. Betty Cannon and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 15 November “Hallucination” with Prof. Simon du Plock and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli 13 December “Hysteria” with Bárbara Godoy and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli Read the full programme here > Course Organised by: