How Do Bodies Know?: Engaging the "ineffable" in Therapeutic Practice and Quality

The workshop will bring together Systemic Constellations - a therapeutic method that addresses ‘hidden’ patterns and dynamics within systems, such as transgenerational trauma – with reflections on ethnographic practice. Together, these will be used to explore how meaning-making might emerge through bodily attunement, intersubjective resonance, and sensitivity to the relational and affective dynamics encountered in qualitative research and group therapy.

The first part of the workshop will create space to examine the tacit processes of body-based knowing that shape qualitative inquiry and therapeutic encounters. Participants will be invited to reflect on the often implicit, embodied dimensions of meaning-making in qualitative research, and to consider how greater reflexive awareness of these processes might contribute to methodological depth and coherence.

The second part of the workshop will offer participants the opportunity to experience a Systemic Constellations session. The aim will be to explore this method’s potential to illuminate areas of enquiry in the medical humanities. At the same time, we will consider how concepts from the medical humanities or other academic disciplines might help to articulate and critically examine what occurs during Systemic Constellations sessions.

This workshop will be of interest to people interested in embodied methodologies in qualitative research, transgenerational trauma, moral injury, grief, and, more generally, in exploring the relational dimensions of health and wellbeing. Through a combination of experiential exercises and guided discussion, the workshop will create space to rediscover and critically examine the sensory and relational capacities that inform both therapeutic practice and qualitative research. Participants will also be invited to share their reflections on their research contexts and practices.

No prior experience with Systemic Constellations is required, and participants are invited to engage at a level that feels comfortable for them.

About the facilitators

Gaye Donaldson is Strategic Director of The Centre for Systemic Constellations (CSC), having held the position of Managing Director for many years. She is a member of the Senior Teaching Faculty and, with faculty input, she also designs many of the Centre's courses. She found constellation work in 1994 and has trained extensively in both family and organisational constellations. She teaches, facilitates workshops, and works as a systemic coach & consultant in film, theatre and other creative initiatives both in the UK and abroad.

Sitna Quiroz is an Assistant Professor in the Study of Religion and a social anthropologist. Her research explores how Christianity has shaped kinship and gender relations in postcolonial contexts, with a focus on Latin America and Africa. In addition to her academic work, she has trained as a Systemic Constellations practitioner and somatic coach. These two dimensions of her work now intersect in her current research, which explores colonial entanglements in people’s intimate lives and the emerging spiritualities within “secular” somatic therapeutic and well-being cultures in the UK. She is also interested in embodied methodologies in qualitative research. She is currently completing advanced-level training in Systemic Constellations at the CSC.

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If you have any access or dietary requirements, please get in touch with us at imh.events@durham.ac.uk.

Please note that this event is free to attend.

This event is hosted by the Spirituality, Health and Wellbeing research theme of the Institute for Medical Humanities, led by Sitna Quiroz, Loretta Lou, Adam Powell, Fran Cettl, and Arya Thampuran.