Through the Door: a workshop for practitioners on facing the climate crisis

Through the Door: a workshop for therapeutic practitioners on facing the climate and ecological crises

Who is this workshop for?

This online professional and deeply personal workshop is for psychotherapists, counsellors and health practitioners wanting to see beyond their consulting room doors.

There is a door inside ourselves as well as the door of the consulting room, and this workshop seeks to help participants to open up safely to what might be on the other side of both doors.

What is Through The Door?

A one day workshop that explores how to be present in the climate crisis and find new ways into the future that is coming towards us.

It draws on traditional rites of passage to inspire new forms of being psychological, fit for the challenges of this uncertain time.

This involves transiting doorways as border crossings to different realities.

What can I expect at this session?

The workshop is an experience of feeling, thinking and imagining together that supports participants in their own version of going ‘through the door’ and finding new ways of feeling into an unknown future that is coming towards us through the climate and ecological crises of our time.

It is process rather than outcomes focused, working emergently with the group emotional experience. The aim is to inspire and make space for new forms of being and doing, fit for the challenges of this uncertain time.

We'll use individual and shared imaginal exploration as well as interactive groupwork to engage reading the signs of cultural unravelling as part of a necessary and vital change.

Why take this workshop?

• Like travelling to an unknown country, we are changed and bring back different ways of seeing and being.
• Staying with the trouble: learning to bear what feels unbearable and think the unthinkable.
• Practice of dis-entangling from a malignant normality: like the fish trying to discover water, recognising the cultural water within which we moderns swim
• The world is changing, and therapists can be midwives of the change: facilitating the birth or re-birth of previously hidden fertile engagements.

What is it like taking part in Through the Door?

“My own experience of Through the Door was life-changing and I love thinking about how others will experience it. I went to the CPA Through the Door workshop in 2019, and it got me thinking with others about how my work with groups and leadership could enable me to respond to the climate crisis. It was a transformational experience and I credit it with the development of the climate café model.”

Rebecca Nestor

"Yesterday, I was so surprised and energised by the marvellously imaginative and creative event you facilitated. I can't believe I'm saying this of a Zoom event!!! It felt fertile and productive but also, painful and confusing. But, above all I felt energised… The group thinking triggered not just the loss and chaos of the Crisis but also my personal story. I think this was the 'powerful' connection enlivened in me. Playful, creative and imaginative crisis! If this is what is on the other side of the door .....then, count me in."

Participant, 2023

If you'd like to discuss whether Through the Door is for you, email us on admin@climatepsychologyalliance.org

How much does it cost?

Standard: £100

Reduced Fee: £30 - £80

Very low income: £5 - £20

Reduced fee and very low income rates are offered on a sliding scale. Please consider what is an appropriate and manageable amount for you and pay what you can. Thank you.

Places are limited to 18 persons.

Who is facilitating this workshop?

Two facilitators will hold this workshop.

Chris Robertson: psychotherapist and trainer since 1978, ex-CPA Chair, co-founder of Re-Vision and contributor to Depth Psychology and Climate Change and forthcoming A Matter of Life and Death. W: https://www.culture-crisis.net.

Jennifer Fendya, PhD: Psychologist, Sandplay practitioner, nature & forest therapy guide, Climate Reality Project leader and CPA member, actively engaged in the creative expression of climate change-related experience.