Living as a therapist in an unanchored world’- a practical movement and mindfulness approach towards cultivating a sense of safety and ease. with Sandra Reeve PhD, ADMP, UKCP April 13, 2024 – 10-4pm North Baddesley Hall

As therapists and supervisors, we face a world full of uncertainty and change – Covid, the effect of climate change, wars and economic hardship. Many of us now also lead double lives, working and spending time in the real world and online in varying proportions.

The COVID pandemic challenged and extended our capacity – requiring us to adapt and to work within structures that would have been unimaginable before Skype, Zoom and similar platforms. Perhaps we were able to support our clients through seemingly impossible times and continue to do so, even as our own personal contexts may have been challenged in various ways. The world continues to feel fundamentally unstable as we try to find balance for ourselves and for others.

This workshop will offer you the time to consider in depth: ‘How can we cultivate a somatic sense of safety and ease for ourselves in our roles as therapists in an unanchored world?’

Non-verbal movement and mindfulness exercises that support us in practical, physical ways to be easeful, accepting, alert and present in any position and, crucially, fully engaged in any emergent context (not just skills that can only be applied ‘on retreat’) will form the main part of this workshop.

We shall share our experiences verbally in pairs and small groups and bring back any useful points of practice to share with the whole group.

Our explorations will include:

• The power of the pause, of the outbreath and of ‘letting go.’
• The practices of naming, pacing/slow walking and basic relaxation exercises which can happen almost anywhere/anytime.
• Exploring the role of our eyes in relation to our other senses.
• An awareness of 2 movement dynamics: active/passive; position/transition as a support to understanding what is necessary in any given situation.
• Identifying through moving what gives you a sense of embodied safety.
• Embodiment and the digital world

Please come ready to move (not dance! – just simple daily life movements) perhaps comfortable loose clothes and shoes suitable for movement (or barefoot) and be ready for some work outdoors if the weather is good.

Bio

Sandra Reeve is a movement psychotherapist living in West Dorset, working these days primarily with creative approaches to supervision, as well as running her own annual programme of movement workshops called Move into Life

Her lifelong passion has been the relationship between the body and voice, movement and the environment, mindfulness, health and creative expression. These interests resulted in her PhD, called The Ecological Body. She is committed to an experiential and non-hierarchical approach in all aspects of her work.