Oxfordshire Therapy & Self-Development Centres
1-to-1 Counselling & Psychotherapy - Group Therapy & Workshops in Oxford and Witney

Humanistic versus Psychodynamic: understanding the paradigm clash deeply, before integrating and transcending it

Trainer: Michael Soth
Time: 09:00 – 16:30 (09:00-11:00; 11:30-13:30; 14:30-16:30)
Date: Sunday 6th December 2020
Venue: On-line (Zoom)
Fees:
Trainee Members - £40
Full Members - £50
Trainee Non-members - £60
Qualified Non-members - £75

About the training:

How do you integrate humanistic and psychodynamic thinking in your practice?

How do they complement each other and how do they conflict with each other?

Do you wish you had a deeper understanding of the essential principles underpinning each tradition?

Are there particular aspects of each tradition that you are strongly identified with or against?

And how do you think this becomes relevant to different clients at different times in your practice?

Do you ever feel torn and conflicted between the traditionally opposing perspectives?

With the astonishing success of the integrative movement over the last 30 years throughout counselling and therapy in Britain, it’s hard to remember why the humanistic and psychodynamic traditions were at war with each other for many years previously. Most integrative practitioners these days can see the point of both perspectives and move freely between them. However, after decades of profound polarisation, are we in danger of superficially sliding over the differences, and what are we losing by doing that?

17 years ago, my colleague Lavinia Gomez, best known as the author of “Introduction to Object Relations”, wrote a ground-breaking paper, warning us that we cannot just switch back and forth between humanistic and psychodynamic stances without serious detriment to the client’s therapeutic process. During a time when most assume that psychotherapy integration is an unequivocally good thing, Lavinia’s warning still deserves investigation. Her paper also addresses the question: what actually is the essence of the humanistic tradition in contradistinction to the psychodynamic? And why can’t we mix and match them?

Workshop aims:

In this workshop we will...

investigate Carl Rogers’ claim that the person-centred core conditions are necessary and sufficient for therapy, and discover an implicit assumption in this claim which can be questioned

become familiar with Lavinia’s suggestion that the essence of the humanistic tradition is the ‘alongside’ position, as well as her equivalent suggestion that the essence of the psychodynamic tradition is the ‘opposite’ position

with the benefit of hindsight question some of Lavinia’s oversimplifications of these distinctions, and how they clash with humanistic therapists’ self-understanding

become familiar with and begin to appreciate the essence of Lavinia’s warning, and why it is so fundamental for anybody’s attempt to integrate these traditions

understand the conditions by which Lavinia’s warning may be taken on board, but also transcended (based upon her limited definition of the minimising of the transference and the notion of containment)

This workshop will clarify, in an accessible and condensed fashion, questions and dilemmas that are rarely addressed these days, based upon principles and formulations that are not published and not available publicly. You will come away with an appreciation that decades of paradigm clash really did have a deeper purpose and meaning, without getting stuck in the polarisation. This is an intensely practical as well as theoretical workshop, depending upon your reflective engagement with these questions in your own practice.

Pre-reading material will be sent out once you have booked your place for the event.

To Book:
Please complete the online form here, or email Kate, the OTS administrator here.

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OTS Community Breakfast Meetings for 2020

In response to current guidelines on social distancing, and to take care of each other during this difficult time, we have had to cancel these meetings for the foreseeable future.

Sunday 19th April, 10:00 - 12:00

Sunday 19th July, 10:00 - 12:00

Sunday 18th October, 10:00 - 12:00

These meetings are an ideal opportunity to come and meet members of our community, and find out more about OTS. For OTS members and our guests, these mornings will be a chance to:

get together and have a chat over breakfast (which will be provided)

discuss, plan, and create activities which OTS can be involved with or develop

members may offer an activity, theme or discussion topic that they or we lead for one of these meetings

If you would like to come as a guest to one of our meetings you would be very welcome. Please email us here

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