*********************************
( See comments from participants of 2005 Irish Intensive. )
What exactly are the underpinnings of a Feeling and Body Oriented Depth Psychotherapy practice? How do we create, "The Wide Open Field of Permission" that is so necessary for this work? What exactly does the therapist do and why and how does he do it?
Dr. Paul Vereshack, B.A.,M.D.,D.Psych. is a Canadian Depth Therapy practitioner of forty years experience and the author of the book, "The Psychotherapy of The Deepest Self," which is fully available on his web site as, "Help Me - I'm Tired of Feeling Bad."
This kind of work, sometimes referred to as Primal Therapy, is often misunderstood. Paul suggests that before attending the free evening lecture it would be helpful to read his on line book here, and this is a prerequisite for attending the Intensive teaching group mentioned below.
In the free evening lecture during the first hour he will describe his view of the mind/body processes which lie at the heart of this practice. In the second hour he will talk in detail about what exactly he does in helping clients to achieve very deep work on themselves. The third hour will be fully devoted to demonstrations, questions and discussions about what has been put forward.
Following the lecture there will be an eight day Intensive training course. This will be done in a small group, limited to 12 participants. We will work for six hours a day, using each other as subjects to experience first hand the issues connected with this, or any other very deep psychotherapy.
Complete information about Dr. Vereshack and his teaching methods is available here on his web site, as is an entire book of instructions, a brief biography of his life and very much more. The web site also contains comments from the participants in his 2003 Australian, and the 2005 Irish, intensive training groups. Please read the Training section of the website for an understanding of how these workshops are conducted.
This course, because we will use ourselves as subjects for demonstrating depth therapy principles, requires that if necessary, each person be prepared to handle in themselves very high levels of psychological tension. Participants must be able to contain, and where they wish, to process powerful feelings. We make every effort to create a safe environment using modern group and depth therapy principles. No one is ever pressured to take part in processing feelings on the mat although it may be suggested. None the less these groups can cause powerful feelings to arise, and anyone attending is expected to understand that this is a teaching program and not a treatment facility. Previous therapy experience as a client is expected, as is an understanding of very deep therapy methods and procedures as outlined in the above mentioned book.
| Dates: | Friday Evening 28th April 2006 Free lecture. |
| Venue: | Glencree Centre for Reconciliation, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. http://www.glencree.ie/ |
| Cost: | €650 Accommodation and meals are not included in this fee. Deposit of €325 (non-refundable) is payable upon application. The balance is due March 15, 2006. The workshops will conclude with a celebration meal on the Saturday evening. |
| Contact: | Clare Gill. Tel. 00353-1- 2828948.
|
* * Comments from Participants * *
Dear Paul Thank you so much for a wonderful and truly amazing workshop. It did wonders. Paul's congruence and interventions brought me to new depths in psychotherapy. I had already completed over 3 years of one-to-one psychotherapy, but Paul opened and deepened the inner reservoir.
In particular for the first time in my life, I connected in with my quiet, choking, childhood voice and gave it full permission to roar, cry, whine, and scream. I found myself really connecting with young core material. I discovered a new permission to express myself. Above all, in this group I surprised myself in terms of how focused and determined I was to work through my stuff.
By Thursday and Friday (day 6 and day 7) I experienced a new surge of energy, and basked in contemplative hues of yellow and orange. I connected and delighted in this positive and spiritual space. I found a new felt compassion for my family, and did a session on my father that had meditative and prayerful elements. As Paul remarked, {we are seeing} “This is little boy's love for his father.” The group was excellent, respectful, resourceful and open to process.
I have returned to my own psychotherapist, renewed and re-energized, and I have returned to my work on the mat. However, this time I am more open to the process and the relationship with my therapist has changed; it has become deeper. I feel I still need permission to get beyond the childhood chokes and croaking screams and sometimes I am homesick for the wonderful work that was done in Paul Vereshack’s group. The real privilege was the permission to be primal, and to be with this the group who processed their material in this way.
G. C. (Therapist)
I took part in Paul Vereshack's workshop in Ireland between the 28th of April and the 6th of May 2006.
It is not an exaggeration to say that these eight days emotionally, were the most intense experience I have ever had, at least in my adult life, and not only including therapy. I would therefore also like to contribute this comment as an encouragement for those who like me, find it difficult to get into feelings.
I have done phone sessions with Paul for over three years now, and also had visited him in Toronto in 2003 to do an Intensive. In spite of a few very intense sessions, which at least gave me the feeling that this is the only way for me to proceed on my journey, I often felt stuck. Paul suggested I should attend the workshop, because the intensity of somebody else's feelings might trigger my own. He was absolutely right.
There were six of us as clients. Although the number was low, for these six it was great because everyone of us was able to work on the mat at least once or sometimes twice each day.
Right at the beginning of the first day in the primal room a woman in our group, when she began telling us a bit of herself, very quickly started crying, crawled onto the mat and had a very intense hour. That was a great encouragement to the rest of us. We were ALLOWED to feel. We had PERMISSION!! The next woman on the mat triggered my own
feelings by a sentence she uttered several times, "I feel dead". I started crying myself, and after she had finished I almost automatically slid into a sequence of intense feelings, supported by Paul. And on my request, another woman's touch also helped me. And so it went on.
Before the workshop began I had been a bit apprehensive because I was not sure if I would find the courage to work on the mat, and show my "worst" feelings in front of other people. Once the group started, however feelings simply flowed, and there was almost no sequence when somebody
else was on the mat, that did not trigger some intense feelings in me.
Every time I went through a sequence of my own, there was this feeling of relief and peace and sometimes a little, child-like pride about my own courage and strength that I had just discovered. This was a great experience. I don't know if I actually had "primal feelings". I just know that I had never felt so intensely that I am alive, and four weeks later I still have that feeling.
Once I was sitting on the mat crying I didn't have to struggle any more with the fear of losing the ground under my feet, because I was already sitting there, on the ground. It was such a relief; just indescribable.
Now four weeks later, I can still feel the effect when I am talking to people, especially women.
I am more relaxed and there is less of the urge I had always felt to appear as a sovereign grown up person who must not show any weak or "childish" side of my nature. These fears are not totally gone, but something has definitely changed.
Paul had given a talk on our first night, before the workshop actually started. It had also been attended by people from the area, who were not participants of the workshop. In the talk he mentioned that the essential thing about deep feeling therapy is that it offers, and often for the first time in our lives, a "wide open field of permission” to feel, to connect, and to externalize our pain, so it is an extremely precious space for us all. That was what I felt throughout the workshop.
It was not only Paul who offered that wide open field of permission, well, he in particular, by the extremely attentive and very gentle way he helped us to focus on our arising core issues, but it was also the whole group who gave me that feeling of permission.
I am extremely grateful for that!
For me it made a great difference to be able to watch other people on their feeling journey, and I feel it is the effective way for me to pursue my growth.
Thank you,
V.H.(Male)
Question from a reader:
Dear V.H.
Can you tell me how Paul’s Training Groups differ from a more general Deep Feeling Therapy Group?
Dear S.
I am glad you ask that. It was an aspect I forgot to mention because it was not that important to me. This was a training workshop too, and three of the six participants (not me) either worked in their worlds as therapists, though not as primal therapists, or were in a therapy training.
Now and then Paul did indeed made teaching comments and general remarks, or answered questions about why he had done this or that during a sequence. He talked about why at certain points he had made an intervention in the client’s process, or mostly, not made one. He discussed difficult issues such as client centeredness, and the use of touch. He also explained how to find the client’s core issue among the many issues that they might present within a certain sequence so that it could be the one pursued.
We also had a few discussions where we all shared our own point of view, such as whether or not and when, therapists might share something of their own personal journey. There was a general consensus among us that this was alright, and that it would in fact make therapists more "human" to their clients, as long as the roles of therapists and clients remained clear, and therapists could do it deliberately from a place of calm and non reactivity, so as to not use the group for their own healing.
To me, who is not in a therapy training, it was interesting to listen to these issues, and I certainly learned a few things.
It was also okay for me to hear teaching because on the whole these comments and discussions did not take very long, and did not really interrupt the on going work we were doing in our feelings. Another reason the teaching was OK was because we all felt we needed, in addition to our coffee breaks, a chance to relax in between feeling sequences.
Only a couple of times the therapists among us actually worked as buddies or therapists with somebody else on the mat. There was a certain reluctance to do that because all of us, including the therapists, rather wanted to use the opportunity to observe, and to work on our own issues in this new type of therapy. (I think I was the only one who already had three years of primal therapy "experience" as a client.)
In the same way I think that only twice there were two people working on the mat at the same time. Both times I was on the mat first, while somebody else spontaneously got into their own feeling sequence. The first time I found it a bit irritating, and it distracted me from my own process. The second time it was fine, and I could stay in my feelings, lying beside someone else who was helping me, while Paul worked with the other person.
Usually however, watching and listening to other people working was so valuable for all of us, that we gave each other the space and the time to work with Paul or another therapist alone on the mat. Certainly it helped that we were only six clients, because there was plenty of time for each of us.
V.H.
Paul, from the outset I experienced you as highly professional in a caring and personal way, yet never loosing sight of the group and overall objectives. I had a strong sense of your calm, thoughtful, insightful “knowing” in your well timed and considered interventions. In this context I felt safe and allowed myself to trust and so let the deep work happen gradually.
I consider the workshop was a very valuable experience for me and its effects are evident to me in my personal and professional life. On a personal level I am aware that I live with greater freedom in my daily interactions and decisions. To cite one example, I no longer feel disempowered or intimidated. Within three weeks I had completed alterations to my accommodation that I had been postponing for several months. It seemed as though barriers simply dissolved as I remained clear and focused.
Professionally, I am much clearer and more decisive in my client work and now most clients work “on the mat”. I feel confident using this method. The workshop has helped me track the client more accurately and to listen more to myself and trust my intuitions. I have been amazed at the progress. Some go to deep, previously unconscious places, with minimal interventions. I gained ability and confidence as a therapist, by my experience as a participant, realising what happened for me when I became fully focused and learned to stay with what was going on inside, refusing to be distracted in any way. I learned that this takes practice and commitment, and that this “being faithful” to myself was highly rewarding. I also learned by observing you at work throughout the workshop, and from the teachings you gave.
Overall, I had a very positive and fruitful experience and am pleased I attended the workshop and gave it my full commitment. I also want to say that I found the venue very suitable in every way. Group support and commitment also played a major part in the success of the intensive.
I am aware, too, that meeting you personally as facilitator and therapist has enriched my life and has helped me to value myself and my contribution more. I have much appreciation of you and your passion for your work in the service of those of us “who are tired of feeling bad”.
I thank you too for renewing your invitation to work with you at a later stage should I wish to do so. I will know what I need to do about this in time. Right now I leave it open.
A.M. (Female, therapist)