Well, six meetings! This one started off, as usual, with a coffee and chat, everyone catching up on what everyone else had been doing. This of course went on longer than expected.

The session itself started with a quick recap on what everyone had been getting up to over the previous few weeks. To summarise:

Colin	continuing to enjoy the hypnotherapists' course in Edinburgh
Maureen M	working on completing her dissertation for her MA in Counselling
Jan	told us about her MA and taking Clean Language into new areas
Maureen N	doing two mastertrack courses.

I went last since I was planning on presenting what I had been doing as the theme for the morning session. "Symbolic Learning" is the working name for what I've been doing, I've included a more detailed description of it as a separate article.

After a quick description of how I started thinking about this and where I was currently at, a demonstration became appropriate. We used juggling as an example skill to practise with. Juggling is portable in that the balls are easy to carry and also in that any change in skill can be evidenced there and then.

Maureen N volunteered, and started by throwing a single ball from hand to hand, with some degree of accuracy. We then went through the modelling session, and some fascinating symbols became apparent. Maureen also became aware of how her knees needed to bend. Bending the knees is a simple action, but try telling someone consciously (as ski instructors do) to "bend zee knees" - likely as not they'll concentrate consciously on bending the knees and forget everything else.

But when the skill appears from within it is instantly available and already a natural part of the person's abilities. After the session Maureen again juggled with one ball, with far greater success.

After coffee the group then got into pairs and practised, by the end of which Maureen was juggling two balls and Maureen M had rediscovered how to juggle three (an improvement over her performance immediately prior to the session).

Learned in this way, juggling (or any skill) can become slightly addictive, so most of us spent many moments here and there practising with the juggling balls.

Next came lunch - and a bottle of wine!

After lunch Maureen N took us through a session on using client created drawings. The focus of the session was not to do a piece of therapy or change work but to explore the process and skill of using a drawing - what questions to ask, where to begin, what to notice.

We started by each creating a drawing or two, not on any specific topic but on whatever came to mind. That took us up to the mid-afternoon coffee break.

The last part of the day was spent analysing the drawings, thinking about the various ways in to a picture. These included noticing what was balanced or unbalanced, what might be missing (for example if the whole family is drawn except for one person that might be significant), if objects or people are in anyway unusual (leaves blowing into the wind), unusual use of colour, shape, location and many others.

Maureen provided us with a comprehensive handout which summarised much of what we had discussed during the afternoon session.

The final thing was to "do diaries" and set a date for the next meeting:

Saturday 9th May 1998 at the TAD Centre.

PS:

If anyone knows of any other venues we could consider using then please let me know!