Compassion Focused Therapy Chair-work in Manchester (June 2024)

Registration‍

This workshop will be 15 hours towards your CPD, and you will receive a certificate of attendance shortly after the workshop. This workshop will be recorded, and recordings will be available for up to one month after the live broadcast for you to watch in your own time.

Timings‍

All timings are according to UK BST (GMT+1)

Day One: 09:30 - 17.00, Day Two: 09.30 - 17:00‍

Pricing‍

This workshop is priced as follows:

Early Bird Rate - £315.00 (expires on 4th April 2024)

Student Rate - £275.00

Standard Rate - £345.00

For those in difficult financial circumstances, who may struggle to afford this price, please contact hello@compassionatemind.co.uk

About this Course

'Chair-work’ refers to a group of experiential psychotherapeutic techniques that incorporate chairs, the positioning of chairs and the client’s movement between them. Chair-work has a rich history in psychotherapy and has a key role in Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT). Research has found chair-work to be an effective, experiential intervention that increases emotional processing and activation; facilitates differentiation, dialogue and integration between internal ‘parts’ or ‘selves’; allows clients to gain a metacognitive stance; whilst also being memorably ‘enactive’ in nature. CFT chair-work interventions include the enactment of self-critical dialogues between two chairs (the critical and criticised ‘selves’) before introducing and utilizing the ‘compassionate self’ in a third chair. Another core CFT chair-work intervention involves embodying various threat emotions, in separate chairs, before relating to them with compassion.

The workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to practice key CFT chair-work interventions, as well as two-chair interventions to facilitate the flow of compassion between self-to-other, other-to-self, and self-to-self. Alternate and novel applications of CFT chair-work will be introduced and practiced, including how to work with blocks to compassion using chair-work and how to address an internalized abusive ‘other’ using chairs. Each CFT chair-work intervention will be modeled by the facilitators and broken down into specific steps to aid practical application.

Learning Objectives

-Understand the underpinning principles and theoretical rationale for chair-work in CFT

-Practice core CFT chair-work interventions including self-critic and ‘multiple-selves’ interventions

-Undertake ‘two-chair’ interventions to introduce and cultivate the flows of compassion

-Work with blocks, fears and resistances to compassion using chair-work

-Practice novel applications of chair-work in CFT

-Integrate client feedback from recent research into their CFT chair-work and reflect on the role of the therapeutic relationship

-Learn how to adapt CFT chair-work for specific client populations and to address client reservations and blocks to chair-work

-Experience chair-work from the ‘inside-out’ by working with their own difficulties

Useful Reading

Bell, T. (2021). Compassion-focused therapy chairwork. In P. Gilbert and G. Simos (Eds.), Compassion-focused therapy in clinical practice. Oxon: Taylor and Francis.

Bell, T., Montague, J., Elanders, J, & Gilbert, P. (2020). ‘A definite feel-it moment’: Embodiment, externalization and emotion during chair-work in compassion-focused therapy. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 20, 143-153.

Bell, T., Montague, J., Elanders, J, & Gilbert, P. (2021). ‘Suddenly you are King Solomon’: Multiplicity, transformation, and integration in compassion-focused therapy chairwork. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 31, 3, 223–237.

Bell, T., Montague, J., Elanders, J, & Gilbert, P. (2021). Multiple-emotions, multiple-selves: chairwork in compassion focused therapy. The Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, 14, E22.

Pugh, M. & Bell, T. (2020). Process-based chairwork: Applications and innovations in the time of COVID-19. European Journal of Counselling Theory, Research and Practise, 4, 1-8.

Pugh, M., Bell. T., & Dixon, A. (2021). Delivering tele-chairwork: A qualitative survey of expert therapists. Psychotherapy Research, 31, 7, 843-858.

Pugh, M., Bell, T., Waller, G., & Petrova, E. (2021). Attitudes and applications of chairwork amongst CBT therapists: A preliminary survey. The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, 14, E21.

Kellogg, S. (2014). Transformational chairwork. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.

Pugh, M. (2020). Cognitive behavioural chairwork. Oxon: Routledge

Workshop Leaders

Dr. Tobyn Bell is a Compassion Focused Therapy Trainer, Supervisor and Psychotherapist, and is also part of the training committee for the Compassionate Mind Foundation. He is the co-author of the book ‘Compassion Focused Therapy from the Inside Out: A Self-practice/Self-reflection Workbook for Therapists’. Tobyn regularly provides national and international training on compassion and chairwork and conducts research in these areas. He is a co-founder of Chairwork (www.chairwork.co.uk) - an international provider of chairwork-related training and supervision- and works as a lecturer and operational lead at the University of Manchester.

Alison Bell is a senior psychological therapist accredited in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) & Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT). Alison works with clients with complex difficulties within the NHS, and works as a tutor and supervisor at the Psychological Therapies Training Centre in Manchester. Alison has a keen interest in compassionate, relational and integrative approaches, with a particular interest in CFT. She has published research in CFT and has experience facilitating CFT groups.