NeuroSystemics CARE Training...
Transcript of NeuroSystemics CARE Training...
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NeuroSystemics
3-year CARE professional therapy training:
A community-based experience to learn practical therapeutic
& life skills of embodiment, empowerment & joy!
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Introduction
“I think there’s every reason this 21st century will be much happier!”
- H.H. the Dalai Lama
Over the course of our evolution, our human species has gone through two
revolutions: we learned to domesticate the natural environment through agriculture,
and then technology developed to a super-industrial capacity. Due to these great
transitions in our way of life, the forms of self-regulatory mechanisms of healing and
growth, from our own individual nervous system to our planetary systems, are being
challenged. Our psyche, our communities and our wider ecological and societal
structures require care.
Thankfully, as complex systems, we humans are imbued with non-linear principles of
emergence: despite any measure of chaos in ourselves or our surrounding, we have
the capacity, at any moment, to rise up to a new level of organization, healing and
awakening. NeuroSystemics proposes a meta-therapeutic approach to provide fresh
perspectives for individual, community and societal resiliency and empowerment.
NeuroSystemics methodology
NeuroSystemics is an integrative methodology bridging ancient wisdom traditions,
the latest neurosciences and systemics. The over-arching NeuroSystemics
framework is applied in various modalities, including mindfulness retreats,
professional therapy trainings and resiliency communities.
As a community-based and systemically-oriented methodology, the first aim of
NeuroSystemics is to build safe and caring communities. This enables the natural
unfolding of participants’ nervous system, passionate living and awakening to higher
levels of understanding. Its methods and practices are framed within an integrative
perspective to include bio-affective, cognitive, mystic, social and structural
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dynamics. Much like musicians with different skillsets forming a quartet symphony,
NeuroSystemics’ art and science serve to harmonize one’s experience to
progressively deeper levels with a variety of tunes to dance at the rhythm of the
cosmos.
A deep & meaningful adventure
The CARE training is a transformative 3-year journey to practice essential life and
therapeutic skills. It is a precious opportunity to:
Train contemplative abilities of
mindfulness, compassion and
gratitude with playfulness.
Practice self- and systemic
regulatory skills and sense the bio-
psychosocial nature of the nervous
system functioning.
Enjoy a gentle, pleasurable and
solution-centered methodology
which focuses on positive
psychology while also caring for
more problem- and symptom-
centered perspectives.
View the experiential therapeutic
process in action with live
demonstrations and discuss its
process of healing, empowerment
and awakening.
Participate in and help co-create
grass-roots spaces for reflection
and practice.
Be supported by a caring
community of practitioners and
teaching team and experience the
fundamental role of systemic
processes for resilience.
Develop an understanding of the
most recent clinical research in
psychotherapy and its implications
for therapeutic practice with
individual and groups.
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3 Axes of impact
The CARE training is a highly experiential and engaging process oriented towards 3
axes of impact:
• Belonging: being a part of a vibrant self-organizing community offers radical
possibilities to deepen a sense of belonging and skillful engagement.
Together, with a diverse and committed group, it is possible to creating
positive and empowering visions of the future: “Together we go further.”
• Experiential transformation: the training offers different activities, ranging from
individual work to small group dynamics to community processes. They all aim
to reach deep psychobiological and relational patterns to free up one’s
capacity and love for a more connected and purposeful life: “The way is in the
heart - follow it and be transformed by it.”
• Skill development: by personally experiencing the different training activities in
a safe environment, one will develop transdiagnostic therapeutic skills for 1:1,
group and community settings, transferable to one’s life. Participants, at their
own pace, will learn practical abilities to support durable healing, self-reliance
and creative living: “Give a friend a fish, and you feed them for a day. Teach
them to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime.”
The CARE training is a professional program, and certified graduates will be
registered on the SIMPLE online directory. For more information about the CARE
training, please visit: http://simplemindfulness.org/neurosystemics.
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NeuroSystemics: a quartet symphony
“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments,
what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound
and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”
- Fernando Pessoa (1982), poet & philosopher
Diversity is one of nature’s key dynamics for resiliency. For instance, different species
of plants have different protective mechanisms. When herbivore insects attack plants,
it is those plants emitting volatiles that attract enemies of the insects which survive.
(Gossner, Weisser, Gershenzon, & Unsicker, 2014). Plants reaching a high level of
attunement in attracting the right insect predators will tend to mature and prosper at
a faster rate. What’s more, when plant life has overcome the attack, they encode the
learning experience for future reference and communicate it to other plant species
through underground microbial networks. Human biology also follows these
principles of biodiversity, organismic attunement and learning when it comes to
immune system response and resiliency to protect itself.
In a similar vein, NeuroSystemics orchestrates an adaptive conceptual framework
and a transdiagnostic therapeutic methodology to help renegotiate past and current
traumas, heal depression, prevent burnout and dramatically reduce anxiety and
addictive tendencies. Empirical science, as a continuously adaptive immune response
for the organism of the human species as a whole, discovered a new research
paradigm of “common factors” (Lambert, 2003; Laska, Gurman & Wampold, 2014).
Through several wide-ranging meta-analytic studies of the last 60 years of
psychotherapy, it presents the key findings factors which make therapy successful.
40% of therapeutic success in the transfer between the therapeutic context and the
client’s daily life. Therefore, in order to maximize transferential potential between
therapeutic work and daily life, it is key to support clients in variety of contexts that a
client experiences in their life - internal, social and societal.
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A second emphasis in the “common factors” approach, making up to 30% of
therapeutic benefit (Cuijpers, Reijnders, & Huibers, 2019; Lambert, 2003), lies in the
strength and confidence of the therapeutic alliance. The therapeutic technique is
only worth 15% of the therapeutic impact. This means that both (i) transferential value
of therapy experiences and insights and (ii) the relational container are the key
priorities in therapeutic work and NeuroSystemics is founded on these postulates, by
emphasizing:
1. The fractal re-iterative and interdependent dynamic between a client’s
therapeutic experience and their daily life. Much like musicians playing with
different skillsets in a quartet symphony, a fourfold set of diverse and
complementary practices grounded in solid theory and empirical evidence:
individual, community, structural and mystical domains. This meta-therapeutic
perspective reflects the bio-affective, cognitive, intuitive and social and
societal diversity of human experience to maximize the transferential potential
of therapeutic interventions to clients’ daily life.
2. The therapeutic alliance as well as systemic and relational considerations in all
its practices. Systems thinking considers health and resiliency through the
quality of relationships between the system’s component parts. A solid, safe
and playful therapeutic alliance, therefore, offers great potential to increase
the impact of therapeutic interventions. The therapist is trained to develop a
multi-factorial sensitivity, attunement and responsiveness to a range of human
conditions.
In multi-person contexts such as group therapy or community processes,
facilitating skillful intergroup communication and connections also harnesses
the power of a constructive relational container. It opensup spaces for
harmony, playfulness, beauty, wisdom and mystery of individual and systemic
experience.
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Meta-therapy
“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”
- Albert Einstein, physicist & philosopher
NeuroSystemics is a transdiagnostic therapeutic methodology. By focusing on
systemic principles of (i) transference between interdependent experiential contexts
and (ii) relationality between therapist and clients and among clients, as well as many
others, NeuroSystemics senses at some of the underlying causes for healing and
freedom from symptomatic conditions such as trauma, depression, anxiety, burnout,
and post-traumatic stress disorder. This meta-therapeutic process itself involves 4
specific domains of intervention:
0. Mysticism: playing with perception, ritual and ceremony to deepen freedom
and reclaim a sense of sacredness, beauty and purpose to one’s life.
1. Individuality: embodying explorations of their channels of experience
(Meaning, Orientation, Sensation, Affect & Image = MOSAI) and personality
via resourceful means.
2. Community: sensing and belonging in communities.
3. Structurality: relationships to the supra-systemic institutions in which clients
are structurally embedded.
Each domain represents a fractal of the other domains, meaning they are self-similar.
In effect, the way a client behaves intra-psychically (individuality domain) to some
extent will mirror, either as the same or its opposite, their way of relating in more
relational (community domain) and structural contexts (structurality domain).
Similarly, the extent to which an individual feels embedded and supported in a
community (community domain) and deeply explored several channels of their
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internal experience (individuality domain) will have a large influence on the sense of
soulfulness and numinous receptivity (mysticism domain). Therefore, one’s
functioning in each domain is interdependent to all other domains: a transformative
therapeutic experience at the community level will likely have implications at other
levels.
0. Mysticism 1. Individuality 2. Community 3. Structurality
Simply put, NeuroSystemics involves, usually in sequence, (i) the building of a
therapeutic alliance, (ii) gradually opening up to and differentiating the various
channels of experience (Meaning, Orientation, Sensation, Affect & Image) with an
emphasis on positive psychology (individuality domain), (iii) embedding these trends
in the clients’ respective relational (community domain), socio-cultural and political
contexts (structurality domain), which leads to (iv) a sense of soulfulness and mystic
perception (mysticism domain). This is NeuroSystemics’ emptiness-centered quartet
orchestra concert.
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Teaching Overview
Therapeutic Principles
Experiential Practices
Individual Polyvagal Theory (Porges)
Psychobiological post-traumatic growth (Van der Kolk)
Positive psychology (Fredrickson, Hoskinson)
Intrapersonal systemics (Hoskinson)
Existentialism (Frankl, May, Yalom)
Contemplative sciences (Buddha, Kabbat-Zinn)
Humanistic psychology (Rogers, Maslow)
Personal (1:1) therapy
Compassion training
Attention & emotion
regulation
Embodiment & somatics
Positive reinforcement
Bio-behavioural connectivity
Relationality Social baseline theory (Cohen & Sbarra)
Interpersonal systemics (Bateson, von Foerster)
Group psychotherapy (Yalom)
Community Resiliency (Feldman)
Interpersonal therapy
Interpersonal regulation
Community-building
Social engagement
Systemic resilience
Structurality Theatre of the oppressed drama therapy (Boal)
Healing & transformative justice (Kandawalla)
Metamodernity (Freinacht)
Forum & image theatre
Appreciative inquiry
Generative somatics
Structural connectivity Mysticism
Collective unconscious (Yung)
Transpersonal psychology (Wilber)
Contemplative imaginal & emptiness (Burbea)
Eco-psycho-spirituality (Clinebell)
Eco-psychospiritual therapy
Ritual & ceremony
Cosmopoesis
Meta-connectivity
Please note that the training content will adapt to the CARE community’s unique
evolution. Therefore, the training depth and specificity may vary.
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Schedule
“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.”
- Maya Angelou, poet & civil rights activist
The training duration is 3 years. Each year of training is rhythmically organized in order
to best support the integration of insights and maturation, as follows:
Month
Training
Duration
Format
Quantity
Description
1
Residential training
9 days
In-person
1
Faculty-led training
2-5
Practice sessions
3 hours
In-person
or online
2
Peer-led practice meetings with mentors
2-5
Workshops
1.5 hours
1.5 hours
4
Faculty-led online Q&A and discussion sessions
6
Residential workshop
4 days
In-person
1
Faculty-led practice integration
7-12
Practice sessions
3 hours
In-person
or online
2
Peer-led practice meetings with mentors
7-12
Workshops
1.5 hours
Online
4
Faculty-led online Q&A and discussion sessions
1-12
Experiential therapy
1 hour
In-person
or online
6
Personal and/or relational therapy sessions
Varies
Optional Mindfulness
retreat
4-7 days
In-person
1
Faculty-led silent Mindfulness residential
retreat
• Total residential training days per year: 13 days (84 hours)
• Total training hours per year (excluding residential training): 24 hours
• The 3-year CARE training comprises of 3x the above schedule of activities
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Solidarity economy
“Give what you can, take what you need.”
The CARE training is offered in the spirit of solidarity. The Swiss Institute of
Mindfulness is committed to offer a model that supports a culture of economic
cohesion and structural regulation. In order to support diverse populations with a
range of means, SIMPLE offers 3 rates:
• Base rate: Reflects real costs to make the training viable.
• Supported rate: AVS, AI, students & unemployed and those with reduced
financial means (please shortly describe your current financial situation).
• Benefactor rate: Key to the solidarity economy, benefactors enable those
with less fortunate financial situations to attend. If you can offer more than
the suggested rate we suggest, then please do - we are very thankful for
your generosity.
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Who is this training for?
• Therapists, clinicians, psychologists, doctors, psychiatrists, social workers,
yoga teachers, health-practitioners and educators interested in a meta-
conceptual frame and methods to deepen optimize their practice.
• New or experienced meditation practitioners who would like to deepen their
practice with a bio-psychosocial frame on their internal experience.
• Community-lovers who would like to be a part of a participative, co-creative
and caring circle of friends and companions.
• Individuals who enjoy teachings about Mindfulness as a spiritual practice
and a deepening of embodiment through neurobiological understanding
and scientific insights.
• Professionals in the helping professions and networks of NGO’s searching
for empowerment in relation to the climate crisis, social and health issues.
• General population
The completion of this introductory workshop is required for registration on the CARE
training program, but there are no other pre-training requirements.
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Faculty
“I do not teach anyone - I only provide the environment in which they can learn.”
- Albert Einstein
Boaz B. Feldman, MSc, SEP, PgC
Boaz is an experienced psychologist, keynote speaker and integrative trainer
acting for worldwide positive change. He has worked with numerous international
organisations (UN, WHO, Doctors Without Borders) in a variety of humanitarian
projects (Afghanistan, Burkina Faso), low-income contexts (Eastern Europe) and
natural emergencies (Thailand). Trained in Mindfulness for over 15 years, Boaz first
ordained as a Buddhist Monk in Thailand and then studied MBSR-MBCT at the
University of Bangor. He has practiced in monasteries and meditation centers for
nearly 5 years and is dedicating most of 2020 for silent meditation practice. He is
the co-founder and CEO of the Swiss Institute of Mindfulness.
Heath Wilson, BA, SEP, OIX
Working over 25 years, Heath weaves his expertise as a psychologist, trauma
healer, rolf practitioner, dating/relationship coach and Somatic Experiencing. He
has a long-standing Vipassana meditation practice and has completed several 10-
day retreats. In Germany, Heath runs his 5aspects® center where Body, Sexuality,
Heart, Mind and Spirit can heal, grow and flourish. He leads Noble Man® and
Beyond Resilience® groups as well as trains women in self-defense. Heath leads
professional trainings for therapists in personality psychology based on the
psycho-spiritual model of the Enneagram. His aim is to transform people’s lives for
sustainable social and environmental change. He’s also a happy vegan for 33
years.
Prof. Irvin Yalom and Prof. Molyn Leszcz will participate as visiting faculty.
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Certification
Certificate Program
The CARE training program is a certifying program. Upon completion of all training
requirements over the 3-years, graduates will receive the SIMPLE NeuroSystemics
CARE Training certificate:
Item
Required hours
Residential Training
324
Peer-led sessions
36
Online workshops
36
Therapy
18
A NeuroSystemics career
All certified graduates will be registered on the SIMPLE online directory. Graduates
will also be kept informed of community practice sessions, gatherings and
teaching workshops, often with reduced fees or free of charge.
Swiss Institute of Mindfulness
The Swiss Institute of Mindfulness delivers high quality Mindfulness-based
interventions to empower groups and individuals towards positive personal and
socio-ecological change. As a not-for-profit organisation, SIMPLE redistributes a
share of its revenues to support populations and organisations in need. For more
information, please visit: www.simplemindfulness.org.