Transformations – How the Haven Approach works

Learn the theory and practice of the magic that happens in Haven’s core sessions through this hands-on experiential training program.  Transformations blends diving deeper into personal work started in Come Alive and other Living Alive programs, while learning the foundational concepts that go into Haven’s unique approach to personal growth.  It’s a training program that takes you into ancient wisdom while connecting with modern science, learning what it is to be truly human.  It is about expanding your world through challenging your beliefs, going beyond the idea of right and wrong, into a global humanistic and relational view of your own process with others.

Haven’s Approach was birthed from a multitude of forms and ideas using a wholistic frame to body, mind, emotions and spirit, while having the agility to respond to where someone’s growth leads them. In Transformations, you will take those concepts and actively work the forms with other participants to embody and learn how to create the ‘magic’ of transformation.  You will embody and expand in your own self-knowledge through your contact in this expanded role as facilitator, helper and guide.

Areas we will cover are:

• The Haven Approach: Our history and the fundamentals of our approach to growth through experiential learning.  Examine the elements of Haven’s bias in working with self and others.
• Highlights of Western Psychology, that are intrinsic to our thinking and biases and how those concepts form a lens we see the world through.  With a focus on the psychodynamic and humanistic / existential traditions reflected in Haven approaches, see your understanding of yourself, trying on a new lens to expand your world and ability to relate.
• Classical Chinese (Five Elements) Medicine. The philosophy of acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, with it’s wholistic inclusion of body, mind, emotion and spirit, offering a dynamic relational perspective to health and healing. The practical application will be covered in Part B.
• The Body and its Energy. The theory and practice of various body-oriented therapies, including Haven-style body and breath work, introduces participants to concepts and hands-on experience of working with energy and its movement.
• Various Experiential Forms including the theory and practice of gestalt, psychodrama, somatics, family systems, communication skills and group dynamics. This will be useful both to those who work with people as helpers and in participants’ own growth process.
• Looking at all aspects of our lives, including…. spiritual beliefs, cultural and environmental values, psychic phenomena, scientific concepts of Chaos theory and quantum physics, brain psychology, chakras, subtle energies… questioning and expanding our beliefs and biases as we are presented with a wide range of ideas and experiences.

The program is an experiential lab consisting of daily presentations, dynamic dialogue, experiential exercises, with experimental labs to learn through doing, both in small and large groups.  Honest and open feedback will be offered both from leaders and participants, using a framework of Haven’s Approach.

Investment: 

Accessibility and inclusion are important to us.  We are offering Earlybird tuition pricing of $3000 if you register by August 10th.  Full tuition is $3,240.   Dorm, Shared Basic and Private Basic room options are available.

• Haven’s Community Fund can help. We are offering limited partial bursaries to help you finance your investment in yourself.   We can also offer pre-payment plans.  Don’t let program fees hold you back. Learn more. Our funding is limited and applications must be received by Friday Aug 4th.

Schedule:

Your program begins with dinner at 6pm and your first session at 7:30pm

Daily schedule:

• Breakfast 8-9:00am
• Morning session most days 9:15am to noon, with a break midway
• Lunch noon to 1:00pm
• Afternoon session most days 3:00-6:00pm, with a break midway
• Dinner 6:00 – 7:30pm
• Evening session most days 7:30 – 9:00pm

Afternoon and evening sessions can vary.  Your program finishes at 11:30am on the last day, and lunch is included

Notes

Although it is highly recommended to take this program following the Living Alive programs, it can be taken at any time, bearing in mind individual needs, requirements and capabilities.  We recommend taking both 12 day sessions, with Part A as a requirement prior to Part B.  Part B dates will be announced at a later date.

Reading List

Note from Jane and Graemme

The Reading List is intended to start the process long before you reach the session room for Theory and Practice of Transformations.  The books have been well chosen to give you a wide invitation to explore the ‘why and what’ behind what we do in The Haven Process and to find what you think in the face of these ideas.  We strongly encourage reading as many as you can, even if it means browsing through them to get a ‘feeling’ of what we are going to explore.

Read what you are attracted to AND especially read what you have an aversion to.  In both, you will learn something about yourself and how you see the world around you.

YouTube is a great resource to get a flavor of the topic areas.  Many books are easily accessible online. The Haven has many of them, located in the Peterson Intern Room.  To sign them out, use the computer link in the Intern room.  If you need help, contact Jane (janeolynyk@shaw.ca).

Most Recommended – *available in Haven Bookstore

• *The Illuminated Heart– Wong and McKeen– a must and is a good overview of many concepts
• *Being: A Manual for Life – Wong and McKeen
• *Joining: The Relationship Garden – Wong and McKeen
• Civilization and its Discontents – Sigmund Freud
• On Becoming a Person – Carl Rogers– or anything by him.  Person Centered Humanistic Psychology
• Denial of Death – Ernest Becker -research on how we avoid/deny the knowledge that we are mortal
• Memories, Dreams, Reflections or The Red Book – Carl Jung
• *Eastern Body, Western Mind – Anodea Judith – integration between eastern thinking and various western psychological frames
• Body, Self and Soul – Jack Rosenberg – IBP – bodywork essentials
• Compassion and Self-Hate – Theodore Rubin
• *Traditional Acupuncture: The Law of the 5 Elements – Dianne Connelly – Chinese medicine/philosophy
• Between Heaven and Earth – A Guide to Chinese Medicine – Beinfield and Korngold
• When the Body Says No – Gabor Mate– illness and its relationship with our patterns
• The Greening of the Self – Joanna Macy– becoming present with our world and environment
• The Biology of Transcendence – Joseph Chilton Pierce– science of the relationship/integration of our brain and heart
• The New Peoplemaking or The Satir Model – Virginia Satir – family systems theory
• The ‘For Dummies’ books on existentialism, quantum physics, chaos theory, structuralism & post structuralism
• Toward a Psychology of Being – Abraham Maslow – Humanistic psychology

More Recommendations

• Encountering America – Jessica Grogan– history of the Humanistic movement in psychology
• Ken Wilber – read anything of his – No Boundary as a suggestion
• Vibrational Medicine– Richard Gerber – quantum physics and energy medicine
• The Biology of Belief– Bruce Lipton – brain science, epigenetics, and our beliefs
• Daniel Siegel– You Tube lectures on Attachment Theory
• Current Psychotherapies – Raymond J. Corsini – old editions are cheap and fine for our purposes
• The World Religions – Houston Smith– amazing work describing the essence of various world religions
• The Brighter Side of Human Nature – Altruism and Empathy – Alfie Kohn
• The Way to Vibrant Health – Lowen– bioenergetics exercises
• Oxford University Press Series– A Very Short Introduction series – Various books, including Nothing, The Meaning of Life, Into the Brain, Consciousness
• The Gift of Therapy – An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists – Irvin Yalom
• The Existentialist Café – Freedom, Being and Apricot Cocktails – Sarah Bakewell 
• The Path – Puett and Gross-Loh– on eastern philosophy
• Characterological Transformation: The Hard Work Miracle – Johnson
• Man’s Search for Meaning – Frankl – his personal journey to find meaning as a Jew in the Holocaust and existential psychology
• Body Psychotherapy: An Introduction – Nick Totto

Covid 19 Protocols and Mask Mandates:

Our goal is to make the session room as safe as possible.  Because we will be working up close with each other and that both leaders are at higher risk for Covid, masks will be mandatory for the first 2-3 days, using either a N95 or well-fitting KN95.  There will be breaks from wearing masks in open air spaces.

Participants are required to bring at least 6 masks with them.  To help reduce possible infection, we also request participants wear masks for 2 days before coming, particularly in any indoor settings.  If we keep Covid safe, we should be able to go mask-less after the first few days.

If able, bring some Rapid Antigen tests to have in your room.  In BC they are free at pharmacies.

Windows will be open at times in the session room and some exercises may take place outdoors so bring warm clothing suitable for both occasions.

Participants are required to self-monitor for symptoms of illness, and are asked to isolate from others when showing symptoms.

Review our current Communicable Disease Safety Protocols to keep us all healthy on property.

Admission requirements: The student must have the desire and ability to learn.  Must demonstrate a capacity for responsible self care, responsible self organization and sound mental health.  The student must understand and speak English.

This program does not require approval by the registrar of the Private Training Institutions Branch (PTIB) of the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training.  As such, the registrar did not review this program. What does this mean? Click here to learn more.