ON SIGNIFICANT RELATING
WHO IS THIS COURSE FOR?
This course will be invaluable to anyone in relationship – anyone who would like to develop a new understanding of relating. This also includes relationship therapists and coaches, those involved in long-term relationships, and couples who are on the threshold of committing to a long-term relationship. For couples who want to breathe new significance into their relationships, for young relationships, for people struggling with commitment as well as practitioners looking to build or strengthen their couples therapy practice.
PRE-REQUISITES
No prior course work is required.
PRESENTER
François Wessels
COURSE FORMAT
The course is presented in either of two formats:
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A weekend workshop commencing on Friday at noon and concluding at 17:00 on the Saturday afternoon.
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Five x 3-hour contact sessions presented weekly for 5 weeks in a seminar setting.
The course can be done online via Zoom or similar platform or as contact sessions. The style of the course is participatory and facilitated discussions form an integral part of the course.
FULL COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course introduces the foundation of an understanding of relating based on oneness. Starting with an exploration of humanness in the context of identity, spirituality and connection, it continues to provide new insights to communication, intimacy, diversity and imaginative relating. This course breathes new life into relating and restores our experience of relationships as significant!
My name is François Wessels and I will be facilitating the course. I have developed this course and have been presenting it since 2018. I am a pastoral therapist and spiritual coach and did extensive research on people’s experience of significance for my PhD.
The course aids in developing a unique new understanding of relationships for the participant(s). This, however, requires that we reflect on Humans in relationships. Discourse about our humanness – perhaps better worded as Anthropology – should be preceded or contextualised by reflecting on Humans as situated within Creation, or Cosmology. This course will therefore begin with a discussion of Cosmology, introducing a non-dualist understanding of Cosmology as we do. The ontology underlying this course will be informed by a non-dualist, mystical spirituality. The epistemology, or our way of thinking about meaning-making, will acknowledge a postmodern narrative paradigm.
We will start by unpacking Cosmology using the concept of non-duality. Under the umbrella of Cosmology, an Anthropology of humanness will be introduced, focusing on our? ontological anxiety of separateness.
The second session will expand upon the discourse of separateness, juxtaposing it with the spiritual need for one-ness. The concept of one-ness will be embedded into a conversation around relationship described as a new life within which the relationship partners experience a sense of belonging. This sense of belonging evolves into a gift to be nurtured and grown. Intimacy is subsequently introduced and facilitators of?to intimacy are discussed.
In the third conversation in this series, the rhythms of relationship, namely harmony and counterpoint, are discussed. This section will explore the challenges posed by the hope for similarity and the experience of otherness in relationships. A musical metaphor is introduced to explain the paradox of counterpoint in terms of the spiritual elements of longing and belonging.
The Fourth Conversation is based on one of the most prevalent frustrations voiced by clients in Relationship Therapy, namely the discourse of communication, or what is presented as the need for conversations or language in relationships. Conversation is expanded to include silence, and in doing so, reflecting on connection.
The last conversation will muse on imagination, as we explore creativity in our understanding of relationship. Not-knowing and wonder are introduced as perspectives on the sacredness of connectedness.