In shared humanity: A relational approach to neurodiversity & autism

As part of our 'Living and Working on the Margins' CPD offerings, we bring to you a focused workshop on the experience of nuerodivergency in our lived experiences.

Peri Mackintosh and Susan Gregory join us to present

"No Enemy - empathy, inspiration and neurodiversity"

and

"A Gestalt Therapy Approach to Helping Persons with Autism"

Peri’s session: "No Enemy - empathy, inspiration and neurodiversity", Embraces the challenge of empathy as key to working with neurodiversity. Exploring how therapeutic alliance predicts positive outcomes. He will speak about how empathy is crucial to the bond of therapeutic alliance. in this workshop he will explore how therapist rejection of difficult experience can block empathy, and how opening to these experiences, however, can fuel empathy, inspiring creative energy, taking us beyond our usual frame.

This workshop will span the contemplative practice of no enemy, relational neuroscience and the psychology of inspiration.

We will explore an approach of non-opposition that honours the client's unique inner world, to empower intrinsic motivation for creative change.

Susan’s Session: "A Gestalt Therapy Approach to Helping Persons with Autism", is a two hour didactic and experiential workshop in which we will 1) look at the history of treatment of persons with autism from the beginning of the twentieth century until today. 2) review aspects of biology and neuroscience which are understood to be involved with diagnoses of autism. 3) share our experiences of working with and supporting through treatment our clients with autism. 4) discuss ways that Gestalt therapy theory and practice support us in our work with this special population. 5) investigate the field conditions which both encourage and constrain social development of persons with autism. 6) share, if we wish to, questions we bring around our clients' needs and our own needs as practitioners who, in some cases, may be autistic.
Susans explorative workshop will include brief teaching lectures, small group
conversations, and group-as-a-whole discussions. We may, depending on time availability, engage in one or two short experiments regarding sensing and sensitivities. In this workshop, observing is respected as a form of participating, and so all styles of engagement are welcome.

This event will award 4 CPD points for the Gestalt Insititute of Ireland