UNCERTAIN GROUND: The Body as Resource in the Face of Modern Life | United States Association for Body Psychotherapy

An Experiential Workshop for Psychotherapists, Counselors, Body Workers

and others in the helping professions

PRESENTER: Narelle McKenzie, MA
August 16, 2017 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Sandman Suites on Davie, Vancouver, B.C.

Registration Fee CAN$125

Today we live in a world where nothing is certain. We no longer live in small communities where everyone is known. No longer is there a job for life. We don’t know what to trust in the media—is it true or is it false? Our lifestyles have become more fluid, which can be challenging for our personal relationships.
Living in such a world brings unsettling disturbances to our sense of the ground beneath our feet. We long for more certainty in our lives and less unpredictability. Perhaps, however, the question is not “How can I make my life more predictable?” but “How can I develop confidence in living when I don’t know or trust that I have the resources to deal with the unpredictable?”

For those of us in the helping professions, this issue is even more complex. How do we suspend our training and knowledge and the transferential pressures of our clients, to be truly present in every session while still being with them in their uncertainty? What assists us to enter the world of our clients with an openness to their experience and process, at times not knowing where we are going?

This one day workshop will be blend of didactic and experiential sessions for members of the helping professions. We will explore how we can access our body and its inner resources so that we may develop greater confidence in living with both “knowing” and “not knowing,” and trusting in our capacity to deal with the unpredictable, as it will inevitably arise. We’ll explore how we might work with others to develop this capacity for themselves. Participants will experience how working from this framework enhances their comfort with not knowing, empowers the process of the client and embodies the spiritual with the emotional and the physical. In particular, emphasis will be given to how attending to our body and theirs can help us be able to sit with our clients in their difficult feelings without necessarily trying to make them feel better, but in fact, to be able to increase their tolerance for those uncomfortable feelings.

Presenter Narelle McKenzie is a registered psychologist and somatic psychotherapist in Melbourne, Australia, with over thirty five years experience of working in private practice with adults, adolescents, families, couples and groups. She has a Masters degree in developmental psychology and extensive experience and training in psychotherapy. As part of her private consultancy, Narelle has led experiential and training workshops in somatic psychotherapy throughout Australia and in the USA and has taught courses in these areas at undergraduate and graduate level at universities in Australia. She is the Director and a Senior Trainer of the Australian Radix Training Centre and The Radix Institute, USA, which offer national training programs in Radix body-centered psychotherapy.Visit radix.org or email information@radix.org for more information.

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