LFE and LLE workshops: explaining the history

Citation

Lees, R.H.a.J. (2014), "LFE and LLE workshops: explaining the history", Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 35 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/TC-05-2014-0017

LFE and LLE workshops: explaining the history

Article Type: Letters From: Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Volume 35, Issue 2.

David Kennard's response to Aldo Lombardo's paper (Lombardo, 2014) gives some very interesting historical points about the development of the experiential training, but does not fully capture the differences between the Kennard/Roberts/Hawkins “Learning from Experience” workshops (1978-1990) and the “Living-Learning Experience” workshops (1995 to the present).

The first of the new series of workshops, in December 1995, resulted from a disagreement within the original staff team about the finances of the workshop. As a result, the first workshop was staffed by Jean Rees, Neil Palmer, Debbie Felstead and myself. Because we were uncomfortable with the Tavi/Bion/Cassel-type programme that was originally envisaged, we decided to rewrite it. As Lombardo states, the Living-Learning Experience workshops were devised by myself and Jean Rees in 1995, but were not based on the preceding “Learning from Experience” ones – but the clinical timetable and community meeting agendas that we had developed together at Winterbourne TC over the previous year (Knowles, 1997). For the second and subsequent workshops, we also changed the title from “Learning from Experience” to “Living-Learning Experience”, which has continued to this day.

In terms of our theoretical base, we were certainly Foulksian, but possibly even closer to Maxwell Jones – and in many ways, a considerable distance from Bion and the Tavistock model. The intention was to produce a workshop where the total responsibility for the participants’ experience of the event was given to the community. The only structure is the timetable of large and small groups, and the agendas for the community meetings. We are not directly concerned with issues around authority, but much more with creation of the therapeutic environment “quintessence” (Haigh, 2013): “belongingness” (Pearce and Pickard, 2012), an emotionally safe psychosocial environment, openness, inclusion and democratic decision making, with responsible agency (Pearce and Pickard, 2012) and empowerment. Within this framework, we work with the projective processes and transferences that arise naturally, rather than artificially inducing them. As we would expect there are plenty, and it is the work of the staff group to understand, analyse and contain them – without interrupting the natural flow and process of the community.

Although, like the previous Learning from Experience events, we aim to provide an experience of “being on the other side”, with a generally playful and positive ethos, our learning outcomes (Open University Validation Service, 2008) go considerably further, particularly including the use of depth relationships in clinical practice, and understanding of one's own “blind spots”. Rawlings's ethnographic study (Rawlings, 2005) showed compliance with Community of Communities quality standards for clinical TCs, and a recent analysis of evaluation questionnaires (Haigh and Clouston, 2011) confirmed that we are successful in this, and increasingly so over the years for which we have been running the workshops. We are now planning further research with the “Bionian” Learning from Experience team, to compare the differences in process and outcome between the two different formats that Lombardo describes.

Rex Haigh and Jan Lees

References

Haigh, R. (2013), “The quintessence of a therapeutic environment”, Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 34, pp. 6-15
Haigh, R. and Clouston, C. (2011), “The living-learning experience evaluation”, presented as part of “Beyond Technical Skills. Experiential Learning for Biopsychosocial Medicine” symposium at World Psychiatric Association International Congress, Prague, 18 October
Knowles, J. (1997), “The reading model: an integrated psychotherapy service”, Psychiatric Bulletin, Vol. 21, pp 84-7
Lombardo, A. (2014), “LLE and LfA: two powerful tools for TC workers”, Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 35, pp. 5-9
Open University Validation Service (2008), The Personality Disorder KUF Partnership. BSc Accredited Module. Responding Effectively: Using Relationships in Practice, Open University, Milton Keynes
Pearce, S. and Pickard, H. (2012), “How therapeutic communities work: specific factors related to positive outcome”, Int J Soc Psychiatry, Vol. 59, pp. 636-45
Rawlings, B. (2005), “The temporary therapeutic community: a qualitative evaluation of an ATC training weekend”, Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 26, pp. 6-18

Further reading

Kennard, D. and Roberts, J. (1978), “Learning from experience in therapeutic community living – a residential weekend”, Group Analysis, Vol. 11, pp. 223-6
Kennard, D. and Roberts, J. (1980), “Therapeutic community training – a one-year follow-up”, Group Analysis, Vol. 13, pp. 54-6