Sunday, February 28, 2016
An Online Class Facilitated by Jan Winhall
Part of The Focusing Highlights Series
The capacity to ground ourselves, to feel safe and regulated inside our bodies is perhaps the most fundamental skill that we can achieve in a lifetime. Some of us are lucky and we learn these skills and the felt sense in our bodies from our loving caretakers. Others spend the better part of their existence trying to create a safe nest in which to grow and heal.
In this two hour online workshop we will explore how stress and traumatic experience prevents and/ or disrupts our capacity to be grounded. Instead we react by becoming chaotic and flooded with overwhelming feelings (deer in the headlights), or rigid and numb (dissociated) to protect from the flooding of feelings. Sometimes we swing back and forth from chaos to rigidity in an effort to calm ourselves down. Addictive or compulsive behaviors become very enticing ways to attempt to regulate ourselves. When we learn to Focus and make a caring relationship with ourselves and others we can resist the addictive ways and ground in the healing of our own experience.
Jan will present material from her chapter in Emerging Practice In Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy - Innovative Theory and Applications. There will be experiential exercises that will help you to understand yourself in relation to the Felt Sense Experience Model and time for questions and comments.
Bio:
Jan Winhall, M.S.W., R.S.W., F.O.T. s a Focusing-Oriented Therapist and Creator/Lead Trainer of 'Focusing On Borden' in Toronto, Canada. the centre offers group classes for training as a Focusing Professional and Focusing-Oriented Therapist and is creating a community of like-minded and embodied people who share a passion for bringing Focusing into the world.. Jan created the Felt Sense Experience Model for working with issues of Emotional Regulation. She has written about the model in the recent publication "Emerging Practice in Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy." She teaches, supervises and sees clients in her private practice. In her spare time she enjoys writing, time at her cabin with family and friends...and her cats...Loui and Mitzi!!