Can groups fulfil their potential?
How does a group facilitator foster an environment conducive to safe enough practice? What does safety, which is also dynamic, look like?
The functions of groups vary. People may join a group for personal development and therapy, to learn something, to collaborate in creative acts, to organise an activity. One of the common threads connecting these endeavours is a desire for change, to create something new.
How does safety act as an enabler and/or an inhibitor of transformation? Can there ever be too much safety in a group?
In order for change to occur we need to feel safe enough (as a group participant) to relax, but not so enmeshed with safety that we (as a participant and as a facilitator) can’t let go of its comforting and powerful embrace. Groups can be so safe that nothing is allowed to change. But groups can also be unsafe. They can be destructive. How does a group facilitator hold the competing needs in a group for safety, trust, risk and innovation? How do they model dynamic safety? How do they use/misuse their power?
In this one hour session John and Beverley will have a conversation about their own experiences, of safety and lack of safety, from their practice as facilitators (and participants) of different kinds of groups. These include groups for personal development, training, therapy, clinical supervision and reflective practice. They will attempt to weave in the theoretical models of safe and ethical practice that they draw from, the personal and professional lessons they have learned and the joys of working with truly transformational group experiences.
Course Content
Presenter
Dr. Beverley Costa grew up in a multilingual and cross-cultural family. After qualifying as a psychotherapist, she set up Mothertongue multi-ethnic counselling service. (2000-2018) for multilingual clients.
In 2009 she created a pool of mental health interpreters, in 2010 she established the national Bilingual Therapist and Mental Health Interpreter Forum and founded The Pásalo Project in 2017 to disseminate learning from Mothertongue. In 2013, Beverley established “Colleagues Across Borders” offering support to refugee psychosocial workers and interpreters based mainly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. She is a Senior Practitioner Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London and has written several research papers and chapters.
Together with Jean-Marc Dewaele she won the 2013 British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, Equality and Diversity Research Award. Beverley has produced a play about a couple in a cross-language relationship for the Soho Theatre, London.
In 2021 she received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation grant to create a free online training course on multilingualism and mental health.
I have been facilitating in Counselling & Psychotherapy programmes in the UK for more than 10 years.
I am currently the director at Temenos Education and have a private practice where I offer online Psychotherapy and Supervision using video and chat communication platforms along with virtual environments. I am also the co-founder of onlinevents which has grown to be the world’s largest library of online video and audio content with instant certification and a learning log.
I am also a past chair of the Association for Counselling & Therapy Online (ACTO) and have served for 6 years on the board of the World Association for Person Centered & Experiential Psychotherapy & Counselling. My passion to bring online learning into the field of Counselling & Psychotherapy has also led to the development of online experiential learning within the Temenos programme, facilitating the exposure of Temenos students to external tutors who are located in different parts of the world. Along with the inclusion of experiential learning of online Counselling & Psychotherapy for Temenos students so that they qualify with knowledge and practice in online communication and relationship.
