Strong feelings of love or attraction in the therapy room are often experienced as scary and disruptive. In training and supervision erotic feelings are sometimes not explored, or else the emphasis is on suppressing them. Yet they are a very frequent part of therapy, and, we suggest, an inevitable effect of the intimacy and intensity of the relationship and the encouragement it offers to surrender to spontaneity.

More than that, erotic charge can be a powerful tool for therapeutic change. This workshop will focus on learning to accept and explore erotic charge while still maintaining appropriate boundaries, and on making creative use of the experience and everything that it brings up. We will use client material and here-and-now exercises as well as group discussion.

An opportunity for practitioners, trainees and anyone interested to learn about an area of therapy attracting new attention at the moment - but which has been around since psychotherapy began. Body psychotherapy rounds out and balances the verbal emphasis of ordinary therapeutic work; it reminds us that the head is part of a body, and that the embodied nature of our existence is crucial to both our difficulties and our possibilities. It enriches bodywork practices such as massage, shiatsu, or movement and dance, by stressing the role of the therapeutic relationship and the feelings it brings up.

On this weekend we will be exploring several ways of thinking and feeling through the body, both with and without the use of touch. The central paradigm will be Embodied-Relational Therapy (ERT), the integrative form of psychotherapy which I use, but much of the work can be applied to a wide range of therapeutic models. As well as learning new skills and attitudes, you can expect a powerful personal experience. No one will be expected to do anything they don't want to do, and emotional release will be held within a safe setting.

April 28th-29th 2012
Embodying Therapy
Nick Totton and Michael Soth
Oxford
£180/£160 earlybird, bursaries available
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May 11th 2012
Boundaries and Boundlessness
Nick Totton
Leeds
£80

Therapy has wild aspects, and rather tame ones; both can be of value at different times and for different people, but this workshop will be an exploration and celebration of therapy’s wildness, its capacity to transcend the limitations we place on our own creativity and connectedness. For example: identifying the role of the other-than-human and more-than-human  in the therapeutic process; recognising the interdependence of all beings; supporting the spontaneous and the unknown, trusting what arises of its own accord; celebrating embodiment as a central aspect of our existence; transforming fear-based defensive practice into contact-based adventurous practice.

The weekend will be mainly experiential work, in pairs, on one’s own and in the whole group; we will spend part of the time working out of doors. This will be the first time this approach has been explored in an urban setting.

June 20th-22nd 2012
Wild Therapy
Nick Totton, assisted by Kamalamani
 near Glastonbury
£195/£180 earlybird
Deposit £50
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The venue (http://www.paddingtonfarm.co.uk/) is an organic farm, with both indoor and camping accommodation. There are a limited number of single rooms, which will go to the first people booking to ask for them. The surrounding land is beautiful, with views of the Tor and the Somerset Levels.