Learning Community
THE RELATIONAL SCHOOL
Learning Community
Next Event:
3 March 2012 – Times of Crisis: Personal & Political
2 – 5pm Michael Soth
‘The personal is political’
Becoming self-conscious as a political animal in the 1980′s, I was the first generation for whom the feminist statement ‘the personal is political’ was self-evident. We took it for granted that this equation works both ways: the political becomes personal, right down into the depths of the psyche, as we recognised how profoundly ‘private’ subjectivity was socially constructed.
And the equation works the other way round, too: we declared categorically that personal desires – and how we related to them and with them – had political and social significance (“if I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution”). If patriarchal dynamics shape the way ‘my’ mind and ‘my’ body relate, then ‘the gender war’ is occurring right inside me – making it obvious that attempting to change ‘external’ collective structures was foolish and bound to fail without such efforts being rooted and carried by corresponding ‘internal’ work.
Although gender was my starting point, reflected in the above formulations, we took it for granted that ‘the personal is political’ applied to all forms of oppressive dynamics, e.g. racism, homophobia, class, etc, etc.
The ‘Fractal Self’
Following the mutual correspondence between personal and political, this eventually evolved in my mind into the integral notion of the ‘Fractal Self’. We can explore this further both theoretically and experientially, but in a nutshell: what I mean by ‘Fractal Self’ hinges around the recognition that multiple levels of relational enactments interweave through complex parallel processes, reaching from the biological via the psychological to the intersubjective and collective; and that the linkage, suppression or dissociation between these levels maintains vicious cycles of enactments, or facilitates their relational transformation and containment.
About this seminar
During the three hours of this seminar, I’d like to invite you to experiment with the notion to the ‘Fractal Self’, by deeply working the parallels between personal and political levels of crisis (plus all the intermediate levels in between), and how they inform, reflect and exacerbate each other.
Holding a paradoxical tension between identifying as agents of change on the one hand, and containing the pain of the status quo without any investment in change on the other, we can attend to the always already emergent processes of transformation, with a minimum of effort, resistance and ‘ego contortion’. This may allow access to the profound truths inherent in the therapeutic cliché that every crisis is a growth opportunity.
Michael Soth calls what he does integral-relational Body Psychotherapy, whatever that means. He has been pursuing the notion of enactment as central to therapy for the last 15 years or so, within a broad-spectrum integrative framework that draws from all the approaches and paradigms of the therapeutic field (recognising that the splitness of the therapeutic field reflects the psyche of its clients and practitioners, and needs all the diverse fragments to be included and valued in their plurality). You can find information about his work at www.soth.co.uk, and his training work at www.counsellingpsychotherapycpd.co.uk.
Upcoming Seminar Series 2012: Saturdays 2-5pm
THE THERAPISTS’ NEEDS
2012:
28 January: Selling Ourselves: Building and maintaining a practice in the 21st century: relational implications (Maya Jacobs-Wallfisch)
3 March: Times of Crisis: Personal & Political (Michael Soth)
31 March: The therapists use of self: Keeping our balance when the necessary tension between our clients and our own needs for emotional maintenance are in conflict (Katherine Murphy)
26 May: Embracing our own Narcissism – an ethical and relational necessity (Robert Downes)
7 July: The Therapist’s need of the client: What’s in it for us? (Nick Totton)
The price of the seminar series has been reduced and is now £30 members, £40 non-members
Cheques payable to: The Relational School
Send to: The Relational School c/o Jane Nairne, 35 Manor Road, Potters Bar, Herts. EN6 1DQ Tel. 07717 220762 email: jane@nairne.com
(PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS WITH YOUR CHEQUE)
Venue: South Hampstead High School (Oakwood Entrance)
3 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3 5SS
Seminar Series Policy: each seminar will run with a minimum of 6 participants and a 20 participant maximum. Please be aware that spaces are limited and reserve in advance to secure your place.
Cancellation Policy: Cancellations received up to 2 weeks prior to the workshop date: a £10 admin fee will be charged and the balance refunded. After that there will be no refunds.