We are pleased to present the 4th annual Exploring Difference workshop, an experiential group workshop in the Tavistock tradition. Join us for this three-day non-residential workshop as we work to make sense of difference, authority, and irrationality, developing a “curious regard” for rethinking equity. The workshop will take place from May 1-3 at the University of Toronto. Register by April 15, 2020 to secure your place.
Director's invitation
We live in a moment characterized by increased polarization, where identities and identifications are becoming more and more rigid, where our choices about who we are and our differences are becoming more constricted by anxiety and by authoritative ways of thinking. These can limit possibilities for exploration and learning. In this moment in Canada, we need new venues for engaging with one another We need new ways to think about who we are and what we are trying to accomplish. And we need opportunities to practice what we call curious regard: to recognize systemic and structural inequalities while nonetheless pursuing connectedness; to grapple with the authorities that shape our unconscious and conscious selves.
On behalf of Insight for Community Impact (ICI)’s Exploring Difference 2020, I welcome you to our experiential 3 day learning event in the Tavistock tradition. It is a unique opportunity to study your own experience and that of other: to explore our multiple belongings as well as the unconscious group dynamics which shape these in real time, with out everyday distractions.
The Workshop is not a therapy space but rather a learning opportunity. Neither is it a teaching space. It is a space that offers immediate and direct opportunities to explore what’s going on - your own experience, feelings, and thoughts in relation to belonging, difference, and authority. It can be challenging. Its task is to allow for deeper insights into how we can make a different sense of the differences with which we must contend.
You will have opportunities to learn:
How people explore, defend, rely on differences to make sense of themselves and others – including but not limited to race, class, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, education levels, occupations.
How we and others block or enable curious regard.
How people join and engage in groups, resist authority, and develop roles and identities.
How people take up and resist the freedom to think and learn.
The difference between the stated task of a group’s work and the task it appears to pursue.
How people contribute to and obstruct getting the group’s task accomplished.
How members of a group exercise authority, power and influence in meaningful and appropriate ways — both as leaders and as followers.
Events
Workshop Opening: The opening welcomes members and consultants and presents the design, underlying concepts, roles and administrative details.
Here & Now Events
Storytelling groups – Large: (LSTG) is comprised of all workshop members and 2-4 consultants. The task is to explore a moment of difference that you experience now in your life and how you make sense of it, with the intention to reviewing how or if this moment or similar ones shift over the course of the weekend.
Small Study Group (SSG): is comprised of 6 - 10 members and 1-2 consultants. The task of the Small Study Group is to study difference and authority in the here and now as they unfold in face-to-face exchange.
Large Study Group (LSG): is comprised of all workshop members and 2-4 consultants. The task of the Large Study Group is to study difference and authority in the here and now as they unfold with limited face-to-face exchanges.
Movement events: are comprised of all workshop members and consultants. There are 2 movement events in Day 1 & 2 which are to provide opportunities for members to learn about difference through movement.
Reflection Events
Role Analysis Group (RAG): comprised of 4-8 members and 1-2 consultants at the end of Days 1 and 2, where the task is to examine the roles you have taken up, been assigned, or found yourself experimenting with, and the differences you saw as the Workshop progresses.
Application Group (AG): 4-8 members and 1-2 consultants. At the close of the Workshop, the AG Application Groups provide you with the opportunity to review and discuss the meaning of the events of the Workshop and how to apply your learnings. This offers a bridge between the here and now workshop experiences and the dynamics of life outside of the Workshop.
Workshop Closing: provides an opportunity for members to review their learning experiences with others.
Barbara Williams, Director
Barbara Williams EdD is Founder & Director of Bureau Kensington, Inc., a psychoanalytically oriented organizational consulting practice based in Toronto, Canada. The focus of her research and practice is on gender justice and anti-racism. She coordinates the Community of Interest in Applied Psychoanalysis and Insight for Community Impact in Toronto, is a Guest of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society, Associate Editor of the Journal, Organizational and Social Dynamics, Member of ISPSO, AK Rice group relations Institute in the US, and Associate of OPUS.
John Wilkes, Associate Director
John Wilkes discovered the world of psychodynamic approaches to understanding organisations when he attended the 1996 two week Leicester Group Relations Conference. At that time he was working as part of the corporate management team in the Whitehall Headquarters of a Government Department undergoing a change management program, downsizing its staff by a third. He holds a Masters in Consulting to Organisations from the Tavistock Centre in London. Over the last 20 years he has supported people who are perplexed by their leadership roles. He has also served as a Lay Panellist for the UK Nurses’ registration body, sitting on public hearings of cases about Fitness to Practice. In 2014 he supervised the coaching work of participants in a programme teaching Psychodynamic Approaches to Coaching to experienced Coaches in Krakow, Poland. He has worked as a member of staff at Group Relations Conferences in Leicester and in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Fabio d’Apice, Design Consultant
Fabio D'Apice is an Executive Coach and Organisational Development Consultant, trained within the Tavistock tradition. He is Executive Director of ISPSO (International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations), Director of Centro Coaching, and he works with public and private sector organisations with the application of systemic and psychoanalytic thinking. Fabio has coached a variety of clients including Senior Engineers in the private sector and Doctor Psychologists in the NHS. He works as staff on many international Group Relations Conferences in the UK and abroad.
Kristin Mueller-Heaslip, Director of Administration
Kristin Mueller-Heaslip is Director of Communications and Administration at Bureau Kensington, where she leads communications and event planning teams. Kristin has studied organizational psychoanalysis at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and attended group relations conferences and workshops in the US and Canada. Her research on advancing group relations and psychoanalytic knowledge among youth was presented at the 2015 ISPSO annual meeting. As ICI’s administrative lead, Kristin organizes, promotes, and administers ICI’s workshops and events. A musician and theatre artist, Kristin performs regularly in Toronto and elsewhere.
Danielle Benton, Associate Director of Administration
Danielle is a passionate volunteer coordinator, facilitator, and trainer. She is inspired by the impact of quality engagement opportunities for meaningful dialogue can have on individuals to build relationships and strengthen communities. Danielle has been working at West Neighbourhood House, a multi-service non-profit organization since 2015 in Volunteer Developer, Volunteer Coordinator and Community Relations positions. The 2018 Differences Conference was Danielle’s first dive into group relations and in May 2018 completed a Human Interactions Laboratory through The Centre for Human Relations and Community Studies, Concordia University.
Tanya Lewis, Director, Small Study Group
Tanya’s work experience includes direct service within community-based non-profit organizations for people with disabilities and their families. Tanya has coordinated and facilitated program reviews for Big Sisters of Ontario and fostered team development and conflict resolution for L’Arche Ontario and L’Arche Toronto. For the past eighteen years, Tanya has worked in the educational sector and is currently the Director of Accessibility Services St. George campus at the University of Toronto. She has a PhD in Education from the University of Toronto. For the past five years, Tanya has been studying and training in psycho analytic approaches to organizations and groups. Tanya Lewis is a registered Analytic Network Coach.
Janelle Joseph, Leader, Movement Sessions
Janelle Joseph is an internationally recognized and award winning scholar and higher education administrator committed to disseminating knowledge about equity using perspectives of indigeneity, multiculturalism, diaspora studies, critical race theory, and post-colonial studies. She holds two positions at the University of Toronto: Director of Academic Success, Student Life and Assistant Director of the Transitional Year Programme.
Lubna Khalid, Practitioner Consultant
Born and raised in Pakistan, Lubna Khalid moved to Toronto in the year 2000. She holds a Master’s degree in Physiology from University of Karachi and is a member of Ontario Society of Medical Technologists. Lubna is an active member of her community working with immigrant women from South Asia. She coordinates a women’s leadership training program Women Speak Out at Working for Change, a not-for-profit organization which provides employment opportunities to people with mental health issues. Lubna believes that social exclusion of women affects all the aspects of our communities and integration is the key to erase stereotyping and stigma. Following her interest in psychoanalysis, Lubna has attended several group relations conferences both in Toronto and the United States, has studied Organizational Psychoanalysis at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute, and is an active member of the Community of Interest in Applied Psychoanalysis.
Rouya Botlani-Esfahani, Practitioner Consultant
Rouya Botlani works at the University of Toronto's Accessibility Services, as the Coordinator of Student Learning and Transition. Through this work she cultivates a community for students to develop, connect and discover their leadership capacities, so that they may have the agency to navigate the barriers and challenges they face. She has been involved in the group relations community here in Toronto for the past 5 years, and is very much interested in learning more about the unconscious life of groups and how to work through and across difference. She is also pursuing her MA in Organizational Leadership at the University of Guelph, and has found the parallel between the group relations methodology and her studies extremely interesting and grounding.
Linzi Manicom, Practitioner Consultant
I currently coordinate a community-engaged learning program at U of T where I teach a course in which students reflect, individually and collectively, on social justice issues arising in their placements with nonprofits. I spent my formative years in South Africa, becoming a political exile at 24, remaining intensely involved in the anti-apartheid movement. I came to Canada in 1984 on a student visa after working for several years in Tanzania and Mozambique, and stayed on. Have taught academically in women/gender studies, development and popular education. I have a daughter, a partner, love performance arts and pilates and want to write more creative non-fiction.
Stewart Morton, Practitioner Consultant
There is formal training for just about any discipline one can think of, and yet for such an important, and sometimes risky, experience in everyone’s life -being in a group- little that is useful is available, little is said, little, it seems, is known. This is interesting to me and keeps me interested in this important work. I work in the environmental field and live in Toronto with my wife and child.
