Dining Room Dialogues – a discussion group for therapists and trainees.
‘Exploring Madness’ runs from February to April 2019. Each session starts at 11am, finishing at 3.30pm on a Sunday.
Next discussion is on Paranoia and Unusual Beliefs – Sunday 3 February
- We will be thinking about and discussing why and how people feel paranoid and hold unusual beliefs. Ways to support and work with unusual beliefs. Rachel will draw from her experiences of 8+ years running a community peer-led Unusual Beliefs group.
More about ‘Dining Room Dialogues’
They are a monthly, themed, peer-based group discussion for qualified therapists and trainees or people who work in a caring/supportive profession i.e social worker, teacher, support worker and who have an interest in the Person-Centred Approach and a belief in a more trauma-informed and non-medicalised approach to mental health and mental distress. It will be a small group of 7/8 people sat around a dining room table, with the opportunity to learn together by each bringing our knowledge and experiences.
Each discussion will be facilitated by Rachel Yates and me. Rachel is a qualified counsellor and mental health trainer with over twenty years of experience of working with alternative “models of madness” (Read & Dillon, 2013). Her career has been at St Mungo’s, a homelessness organisation, within a client-facing role where she led and delivered psychologically informed and trauma-responsive environments based on the person-centred approach to mental distress. I am a qualified therapist with lived experience of mental health issues, including the good, bad and ugly ways of coping.
We will develop new ideas and ways of understanding through our discussion together about specific issues, starting with ‘madness’ over a set of three Sundays followed by a set on gender and identity. You will have an opportunity to learn and raise thoughts, ideas or ask those questions that you may have just keep to yourself over the years. It is totally up to you how much you want to contribute and take away, at your pace and perhaps at times based on what is relevant within the discussion to you.
(Please be aware that although these groups are a confidential space, they are not an alternative to supervision and/or therapy.)
Details
Each of the ‘Dining Room Dialogues’ is held in Walthamstow, East London. A homemade vegetarian lunch, as well as unlimited good coffee and herbal teas is provided at the dining room table. Please let us know if you have any dietary requirements. Cost is £25 per person/ per discussion group, payment is by BACS. A certificate will be provided for CPD use. Each discussion is stand alone so you do not have to attend all three in the set.
A list of relevant and interesting reading such as books, articles or videos will be provided before each session for you to look at these before the discussion group meets, although it is not an issue if you do not get to it before the session.
Dates and themes
‘Exploring Madness’ runs from February to April 2019. Each session starts at 11am, finishing at 3.30pm on a Sunday.
- Paranoia and Unusual Beliefs – Sunday 3 February
- We will be thinking about and discussing why and how people feel paranoid and hold unusual beliefs. Ways to support and work with unusual beliefs. Rachel will draw from her experiences of 8+ years running a community peer-led Unusual Beliefs group.
- Hearing Voices – Sunday 3 March
- We will be talking about what hearing voices is like, think about where the voices may come from, the impact on people’s lives, and ways to support people with this experience.
- The label of ‘Personality Disorder’ – Sunday 7 April
- We will be looking at the diagnoses of personality disorder that clients may acquire – the validity, impact and meaning. How we can support someone through exploring the person-centred work of Margaret Warner (Pearce & Sommerbeck, 2013). Client processes at the difficult edge on Difficult Process); looking at the experience of fragile, dissociative and psychotic process. I will drawn on my personal experiences of living with difficult processing styles.
‘Exploring identity’ runs from May to July 2019
- Non-binary and trans identity – Sunday 5 May
- We will be thinking about and discussing our understanding and language of gender, trans, non-binary and gender expression. The impact of being gender non-conforming and thinking about ways to support non-binary and trans people.
- Non-monogamous and ployamorous relationships – Sunday 2 June
- We will be talking about reasons why people are in these relationships, issues that they may bring to the counselling room, our prejudices and understanding, and thinking about how we support them.
- Sexuality – Sunday 7 July
- We will be looking at how the experience of growing up, coming out and living as gay/lesbian/bi in a ‘straight’ world affects people’s mental health, self-esteem and relationships. We will be thinking about how this can bring them into counselling, and the support they may be looking for.
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