Your natural history: A CPD workshop for counsellors

Thinking of taking your therapy practice outdoors? Already working out in nature and want to deepen your reflective practice?

I’m inviting you to take a step back and examine why you feel that pull. To really dig into the things you may not have noticed or realised before - and yet affect how you show up for clients in an outdoor space.

There are plenty of workshops out there now covering the practicalities of taking your practice outdoors.

This is different.

This is the deep reflective work that comes before the 'how'. It's creative and its dialogic, with a group of no more than 15 participants learning through community.

What the workshop involves

Stemming from my MSc research findings, I’ll invite you to creatively explore your relationship with other-than-human nature, past and present. You will map out your own ‘natural history’. You will dig into your ‘why’ – why you are drawn to working outdoors and, crucially, what that might mean for your practice. It will also get you thinking about who you are in nature – what makes it appeal to you.

The aim is to uncover your assumptions, examine your individual and cultural position and gain new insights into what brought you to the point of moving outside the therapy room, a step which has until recently been unusual – unless you count tens of thousands of years of shamanic healing in its many forms across the world.

Dialogue with fellow participants will allow us to gain a greater understanding of individual and cultural differences. This takes us a step closer to awareness of the things we take for granted so we can avoid assuming our experiences and beliefs about nature will be the same as our clients’.

Come prepared for creative reflection and depth.

Come prepared for rich and fascinating conversations.

Come prepared to feel more connected to your place in this growing field.

Who am I?

I’m Janine, a psychotherapeutic counsellor and nature therapist, and this CPD offering is based on my MSc research and my own experiences of working outdoors with individual counselling clients. I also bring my wider knowledge as a forest bathing guide and forest school leader.

Practical considerations

I use Google Meet, which allows live captions for those who need them. The link will come with your ticket confirmation. The workshop will not be recorded.

Please have available a large sheet of paper - A3 (or two A4 sheets taped together), pen, pencil and colouring pens/pencils.

You'll need to be in a private space to respect the personal conversations we'll be having.