2010 RSPOPUK Student Intensive

10 August 2010

by Jean-Claude Audergon

Most of us who participated had a blast – that’s the only decent way to describe the atmosphere of the 2010 Student Intensive we held and co-facilitated with Michal Duda and Joanna in Nowe Kawkowo in June this year, with the assistance of Pat, Andy, Kim, Małgorzata and Grzegorz.

There were about 65 Polish participants and about 27 or so participants from outside Poland – from UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, Burundi and USA. All came to the student intensive, Poland 2010.

It was 'intense' and lived up to its name. From early morning with yoga at 7 and inner work at 8 and then non-stop training finishing at 10 pm, it was also highly emotional, highly instructive, lots of fun. It was wonderful to discover that such activity exists within the European scene of Process Work and it was an occasion for rich networking. The friendliness, the joy and camaraderie that reigns in this Polish school was and is infectious.

Months later, life has moved on and so maybe the Intensive is not news. But it is worthwhile recapitulating what we all learned, some of what we did as a group and the outcomes that we won as schools.

Students of process work from 9 different European countries were there – and while not remarkable in itself, because large Process Work Seminars are always international - in this case it was remarkable because all 85 or 90 participants were either registered students of process work schools in Europe or diploma holders of process work.

The schools of the Grundtvig funded quartet were there (Poland, Ireland, Slovakia and UK) as were participants from another four or five training programmes. Just that was wonderfully inspiring.

Michal and Joanna, co-founders of one of the two Polish schools, have inspired some hundred students to study process work and have done an incredible job. Meanwhile two students completed their studies, and are now also a part of the training. Several more are soon getting their Diploma.

Diplomates follow their own paths, and develop their own special interests and skills. Those who want to teach, undergo a three year training programme after their diploma to prepare them to be able to teach. Each step of the way, they have strong requirements they must uphold as practitioners and teachers.

The teachers in Poland also occasionally invite international colleagues to join them in teaching their students in all aspects of process work. The training is intense, personal, regular, structured and yet individualized. It does help that most students are from Warsaw or Gdansk, where the teachers are living, to have weekly classes and groups that meet. But students who are outside are encouraged to find their ways in if they want to study.

Michael and Joanna have instilled into the training their own personal experience on how they learned best; they often had to be their own best teachers, because foreign teachers were rare and they needed to earn their life through their therapy work. So early on, they set up centers together with phase 2 students.

Today, students are encouraged after their first exams to create new centers in groups of three and four (no more) and offer therapy (the school is accredited) as well as other services in their respective regions. They have strict requirements to uphold, and are accountable in terms of hours, supervision, personal therapy, and a structure on how to further their learning and more. All this works – it creates that atmosphere of professional familiarity we encountered. People are at ease with their identity as Process Workers and therapists contributing to their communities, while at the same time deeply commited to the pathway of their studies and development. That sense of having an identity as a school, and having an identity with one of the small centers - of being known – there are about 8 – 10 centers like that in Poland, four of them in Warsaw alone - gives the school its delineation.

The school, the students and its founders are so happy, proud and creative being Process Workers that they have instituted an annual Process Work Festival, to which the public, the TV, the newspapers, the radio are regularly invited and who regularly report on the festival. I have not participated to such a festival, but its very existence is so interesting. The process workers offer sessions, group work, group processes, explanations, Q & A time and so forth. I know the organizers also invite musicians to play, theatre groups, and other events to take place too. The festivals happen in towns where there are centers. The school does this for a whole week. The students and diplomates come to a given town with a center to promote it and to promote process work in that town. That is an enriching and generous community spirit. We felt it when coming there and it is part of what made those of us coming from outside Poland feel so well there too.

Michal and Joanna had invited Arlene and me to come teach their group Inner Work and Worldwork tools – i.e. they felt their students needed exposure to Worldwork style group process. They thought that while their students were willing to learn and open to the world, they did not know enough how social issues were part of any project or any field dynamics that they were involved in. They thought that their students also had an unjustified fear of research, because in a post communist state, research is still seen only in terms of statistics. Michal and Joanna were asking us to bring in our perspective and experience teaching these issues. We agreed under the condition they would co-teach with us.

Love is a powerful kit - that was so visible in Poland. The love the students brought towards their teachers was incredibly touching to see and experience. And the love they brought us in the role of teachers was as special. Thankful that we opened up doors of learning to them they had been unaware of, they experienced the seminar as a ‘ sea change’, a totally transformative experience for them. Michal compared it to the original conference we had given in 1993 – East meets West, which had had an immensely inspiring effect on the creation of the first Polish training.

Malgorzata, Grzegorz, Pat, Andy, and Kim, were the assistants who gave theory sessions after lunch, before the afternoon session. They were there in all small exercises to help facilitate. Together, they led the evenings on research and panels. They were the group of ‘heart’ contact person people could at any time talk to – and they worked hard and with a lot of joy to form an intrinsically cohesive team that was a pleasure to watch in action when they presented or facilitated the panels together and a gift to have as team-partners. They animated the panels, motivating the people to participate - and people attended their sessions in high numbers. People came out of their isolation and started to ask questions and get very interested in researching topics that were of interest to them. And naturally, there were already several people who had been researching topics near their heart and who had a big pleasure to be welcomed to present their findings.

Process Work Seminars are always full of wonder and unexpected moments, creativity seeps and bounces from all corners. Synchronicity abounds and the unexpected surprises every time anew. We had torrential rain coming down on the day we taught about the rainmaker and just after a high tense moment in a group process of East meets West - and we had sunshine most of the time allowing small groups to work on group processes out in the open. We had yoga at 7 am and panels at 8.30 in the evening, with theory introduction in the middle of the afternoon just before the group processes - and people were not tired! We tried to get out of teaching "inner Work' the last morning so we could rest - and we got called to order by the group who wanted their inner work. It was fun!

What we heard again and again was that students just loved being together with one another as well as all the learning. Water has gone under the bridge - but not the feelings Arlene and I experienced there. A warm thanks from Arlene and me to all of you who helped this to happen.

Jean-Claude