Being human - prof Ernesto Spinelli

Prof Ernesto Spinelli will be examining what it means to be human and real in today’s ever -changing therapy world.

This fascinating brand new workshop invites you to explore and experience the implications of embracing psychotherapy and counselling as an expression of human-to-human relatedness.

Counsellors today acknowledge the centrality of the therapeutic relationship as a key factor in both the process and outcome of therapy.

Nonetheless, as a profession, therapy places ever-increasing emphasis upon inflexible methodological rules and conditions of practice. In doing so, the therapeutic relationship is becoming ever more professionalised and less and less open to the uncertain possibilities of human encounter.

Existential therapy avoids bestowing upon the therapist the role of superior, objective instructor who distinguishes for the client those beliefs, attitudes and behaviours which are assumed to be 'irrational’ and who attempts to replace them with 'rational’ ones.

Instead, existential therapists seek to attend to their clients so that, through descriptively focused investigations, they attempt to clarify their clients’ meaning-world with them, thereby providing them with the experience of being heard - and hearing themselves - in a manner that is non-judgemental and accepting of the stance they maintain.

This attempt ‘to accept the being who is present’ rather than the ‘being who once was’ or ‘the being who might become’, promotes the possibility of the clients’ greater willingness and courage to confront the fixed biases and assumptions they hold with regard to their relations with themselves, others and the world in general.