A review of "Grovian Metaphor Therapy, part two" - a weekend with James Lawley and Penny Tompkins

So there we were, back at the Training Advice and Development Centre in Middlesborough, England, for the second part of Penny Tompkins' and James Lawley's workshop on Grovian Metaphor therapy.

If the first workshop was about learning the skills then this one was about learning to use those skills by adding an understanding of some organising principles.

It was also a chance to meet friends from Part One and to meet the new faces in the group.

Our journey began with an exploration of the three fundamental levels. As I understand it, it goes like this:

Components - someone's metaphor is comprised of 'things', each of these things is a component. If someone uses the phrase "it's like trying to shovel water up hill", then the components would include their self, the water, some form of shovel and some form of hill.

Relationships - these components do not exist as isolated and inanimate entities, they interact with each other in specific ways and these ways can be described as the relationships between the components. Where is the individual in relation to the water? Where is the water in relation to the hill? Where did the water come from? What happens next? And so on.

Patterns of organisation - from our own and from others' experiences we discover that these relationships are not random, they form patterns, the same sorts of relationships turn up time and time again and a pattern emerges. If someone uses the "shovelling water up hill" analogy and then the "it's like trying to nail fog to a tree" - maybe a pattern is emerging.

Sometimes these patterns are limiting, the individual is stuck - and this is where the most valuable information can be, a limiting pattern is what is maintaining unresourceful behaviour. People can become stuck in binds, paradoxes and dilemmas (to name but a few).

We then went on to develop the ideas of "defining moments", those moments which mark a profound event or change or realignment. New skills and abilities were developed as we continued to practice and to learn. All the time we were learning how to guide someone through exploring their own metaphorical landscape and to identify symbols and relationships and patterns.

More than once I tried to track someone's metaphor by consciously remembering all the details, and became dizzy, if I had been standing up I would have fallen over. This is when I learned the power and the magic of inviting someone to draw their metaphor, it takes the whole process to a new dimension.

A memorable, and powerful exercise was reading, in pairs, a transcript of an actual therapy session. One would read the part of the therapist and one would read the part of the client. It gave us valuable insight into what it was to use these skills in a real life setting.

The whole weekend was moving, informative, inspiring and empowering. If I had to choose one phrase to sum up the weekend, I would choose "it was a defining moment".