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At 01:40 PM 6/13/2002 +0200, Bernhard wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>This reminds me of the time, when I
was a group dynamic trainer in<br>
classical T-Group settings (following Lewins tradition) at Vienna<br>
University/Dep.<br>
Sociology. At that time I was myself participating in various<br>
therapies. The more I learned about therapeutic interventions, the<br>
more and more "problem"<br>
cases showed up in my T-group trainings: people had break downs,<br>
people blackmailed the group and/or the trainer with suicide<br>
threats... I had to learn,<br>
that my "naive" speaking that I have "also some
psycho-therapeutical<br>
knowledge" at my inicial presentation was interpreted as a kind
of<br>
invitation: not to<br>
behave in a responsible way.<br>
So I think it is just the other way round: I had to (and I am
still<br>
in the process) unlearn a lot of my knowledge of group dynamics and<br>
other "facilitator<br>
skills" to become a good OST-facilitator<br>
Unlearning does not mean: "just forget about ist", but to
transform<br>
the knowledge, integrate/dissolve it into the whole person and then<br>
step forward. What<br>
I mean is: no! no special skills necessary, but yes! of course we<br>
will be better prepared for OST &/in PEACE making<br>
if we become wiser and emotionally better integrated (healed)<br>
persons.<br>
(Medical & Psycho-)Therapy is a profession, Healing is something
we<br>
all can do (co-healing our & other selves), even if we forgot
that.</blockquote><br>
Bernard -- if these are just fragments, I would hate to see what happens
when you get the whole thing together. <i>Unlearning</i> and
<i>transforming </i>are, I think, critical as we move forward. For years
I have found myself in a most uncomfortable place. On the one hand it was
clear to me that much of what we (or certainly I) had learned and
practiced under the general heading of "group work" (everything
from Dialogue to community building) constituted real impediments to my
effective role as a facilitator in Open Space. Some genuine un-learning
was therefor essential. At the same time the understandings of the group
and the individual gained from all of our work were, and are, profoundly
useful as we seek to understand what happens in Open Space and where we
go from here. At a practical level, as I conversed with colleagues who's
practice centered on any of the several approaches (Dialogue, Community
Building, Appreciative Inquiry etc) -- the interest seemed to be -- How
can we ADD these to Open Space? At the risk of appearing a mono-maniacal
Open Space freak, I I tried to say, there is nothing to add, it is
already there. But can we please use your deep insights to understand
what is really going on? At worst all this appeared as some kind of ego
war. My way vs their way. That was never my point or feeling. Maybe now
we are in a place where we can take "The Open Space Experience"
as primary data in a natural experiment, and go from there, understanding
that it is not about one method or another, but rather -- the reality and
power of naturally occurring self-organizing systems. Someone once asked
me what my vision might be for Open Space Technology? I replied that it
was simply a half-way (interim) technology, and under the best of
circumstances we would forget all about it. No longer something special
-- simply what we did. Obviously, there is a role for OST at the moment
as in Rome. But the sooner we get beyond it, the better we will
be.<br><br>
Harrison<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<div align="center">Harrison Owen<br>
7808 River Falls Drive<br>
Potomac, MD 20854 USA<br>
phone 301-365-2093<br>
Open Space Training
<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.com/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.com</a>
<br>
Open Space Institute <a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.org</a><br>
Personal website <a href="http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm" eudora="autourl">http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm</a><br><br>
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