Amalia Garcia will be holding the workshop for us for the Spring Meeting this year, 16th May 2026, 2-4pm. The workshop will be held at  at Friends Meeting House, 91-93 Hartington Grove, Cambridge CB1 7UB and will be held after the AMBT committee meeting from 11.00am to 1.00pm (open to all members, in person and online), following a bring and share lunch.

​The afternoon workshop with Amalia is free for all members, and open to non-members at a cost of £20.

​Amalia's bio
Amalia is a Senior Lecturer in Dance and an Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioner, working at the intersection of embodied movement, creative process, and therapeutic presence. Her work brings together somatic practices, improvisation, and parts-work to support safety, self-leadership, and compassionate relationship with inner experience. She is a programme assistant on IFS trainings, leads creative health programmes, and facilitates movement spaces that honour both psychological depth and poetic embodiment.

Session Brief
This 2-hour session will weave Internal Family Systems with gentle, exploratory movement. Through simple somatic and creative practices, participants will be invited to listen to their inner world through the body, cultivating curiosity, safety, and connection with different parts of self. The emphasis will be experiential rather than theoretical, allowing space for presence, felt sense, and Self-led awareness to emerge. The precise focus and structure will be shaped closer to the time, in response to the group and what feels most alive and needed.

Email Yvonne Lentge to book your place: abmt.membership@gmail.com

Posted by Ruthie Baigent ABMT Vice Chair and Treasurer, 22/01/2026

A discussion referencing biodynamic psychology, and other spiritual, psychological and socio-political factors relating to the body's stress response

This presentation discusses the body's stress response, including medical, psychological and socio-political summaries, from a perspective of Biodynamic and Internal Family Systems (IFS) psychotherapy.

Watch this presentation to find out more about:
 -- ALLOSTATIC LOAD,
 -- ALLOSTASIS,
 -- the impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences)
 -- and other factors involved in a person's INDIVIDUAL RESPONSE to stress.

Watch also to learn more about the little-discussed impact of toxic stress on dental health. This is my own personal perspective covering what I have learned in my studies -- in particular, regarding
 -- MAGNESIUM,
 -- XYLITOL,
 -- BONE BROTH,
 -- and REMINERALISATION (of teeth and bones)

________________________________________

Key Texts, Links and References (including some that didn't show up on the video)


 -- https://www.naturallyyoudentist.com/cavities ---10-easy-prevention-tips.html
 -- https://www.youtube.com/@dr.elliephillips
 -- Study on Xylitol: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4232036/

________________________________________


Tooth decay and allostatic load

Studies on magnesium:

--- Oral manifestations of magnesium and vitamin D inadequacy, Anne Marie Uwitonze, Sayeeda Rahman, Nkemcho Ojeh, William B Grant, Harleen Kaur, Afrozul Haq, Mohammed S Razzaque. Inadequacy of those essential minerals is associated with delayed tooth eruption and with enamel or dentin hypoplasia. Taking calcium without magnesium results in soft dental enamel, which cannot resist the acids causing tooth decay.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32084549/

_______________

--- Magnesium and stress, Magdalena D. Cuciureanu and Robert Vink.

"Magnesium status is highly associated with stress levels, with both stress and hypomagnesemia potentiating each other’s negative effects. Indeed, hypomagnesemia has been associated with stressful conditions such as photosensitive headache, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, audiogenic stress, cold stress, and physical stress, amongst others."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507250/




--- Magnesium Status and Stress: The Vicious Circle Concept Revisited, Gisèle Pickering, André Mazur, Marion Trousselard, Przemyslaw Bienkowski, Natalia Yaltsewa, Mohamed Amessou, Lionel Noah, Etienne Pouteau.

"Numerous studies, both in pre-clinical and clinical settings, have investigated the interaction of magnesium with key mediators of the physiological stress response, and demonstrated that magnesium plays an inhibitory key role in the regulation and neurotransmission of the normal stress response. Furthermore, low magnesium status has been reported in several studies assessing nutritional aspects in subjects suffering from psychological stress or associated symptoms. This overlap in the results suggests that stress could increase magnesium loss, causing a deficiency; and in turn, magnesium deficiency could enhance the body’s susceptibility to stress, resulting in a magnesium and stress vicious circle."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7761127/



Bibliography

 -- Boyesen, G. Between Psyche and Soma. (BPS) (E-copy.)

 -- Juhan, Deane. (2003) Job’s Body (JB). NY: Barrytown/Station Hill.

 -- Martini, F; Nath, J; Bartholomew, E. (2012) Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology. San Francisco: Pearson.

  -- Multiple Authors (2022). New Collected Papers of Biodynamic Psychology (NCP). Galashiels: New Psychotherapy Publications. Boyesen, M L. “PSYCHO-PERISTALSIS: Part 1 - The abdominal discharge of nervous tension” (Article 1.3). Boyesen, G. “Experiences with Dynamic Relaxation and the Relationship of its Discovery to the Reichian and ‘Bioenergetic’ view of Vegeto-therapy.” (Article 1.1)

-- Rutishauser, Sigrid. (1994) Physiology and Anatomy, A Basis for Nursing and Health Care. London: Churchill Livingstone.

-- Strauffer, K. (2010) Anatomy and Physiology for Psychotherapists (APP). NY: W W Norton & Company, Inc.

New Collected Papers of Biodynamic Psychology available here: https://www.bodypsychotherapypublications.com/pub_22.html



​By Ruthie Baigent, 28 October 2025

​Our 2025 AGM Autumn Meeting will take place on 1st November at Friends Meeting House, 91-93 Hartington Grove, Cambridge CB1 7UB. Our afternoon workshop will be given by Kathrin Stauffer from 2-4pm. The workshop is open to members of ABMT free of charge and  members of the public can attend at a cost of £20.

More details below:



Working with low-energy states in Biodynamic Massage
A short workshop with Kathrin Stauffer for members of ABMT



Based on my 2020 book on psychotherapy with clients who were neglected early in life, I want to present my take on working in biodynamic massage with low-energy states. I will attempt to make a case that work with low-energy states needs to be radically different from work with high-energy states, and want to show both theoretically and practically why I think this and how it looks.


The presentation will include both a more theoretical perspective and practicalities for how the theory can be applied to hands-on work with clients.


Kathrin Stauffer PhD is the author of two books: ‘Emotional Neglect and the Adult in Therapy: Lifelong Consequences to a Lack of Early Attunement’ (W.W. Norton 2020); and ‘Anatomy & Physiology for Psychotherapists: Connecting Body & Soul’ (W.W. Norton 2010). She was born and educated in Switzerland. Originally a research biochemist, she retrained at the Chiron Centre for Body Psychotherapy in the 1990s. She lives in Cambridge and works in private practice as a body psychotherapist, EMDR practitioner, trainer and supervisor. She is also currently the president of the European Association of Body Psychotherapy.  www.stauffer.co.uk

​The ABMT Spring Meeting & Workshop will take place on Saturday 10th May. As usual the committee meeting begins at 11.00am and the workshop begins at 2.00pm. The Venue is CCPE (Centre of Counselling & Psychotherapy Education) 2 Warwick Crescent, London W2 6NE. The meeting is open to all members, and the afternoon workshop is free for members and non-members are welcome too, for £20.
​


Workshop Facilitator
This spring our workshop will be given by Carlien Van Heel. Carlien is originally from the Netherlands and came to London in 1985 to study Biodynamic Psychotherapy with Garda Boyesen. She has 38 years experience in private practice and is a senior trainer with the LSBP and a UKCP accredited supervisor. Carlien gained an MA in Body Psychotherapy in 2014. Carlien continues to be inspired by Boyesen’s concepts and theories and enjoys linking them to more recent findings.


The Workshop
Carlien will share two powerpoint presentation on Boyesen’s concept of Psycho-peristalsis and how it links to the concepts of primary and Secondary Personality. She first presented this at the Oslo Conference in 2024. In her view, psycho-peristalsis is now almost backed up by current findings in physiology and neuroscience. She is very much looking forward to sharing this topic with you, that is so central to our biodynamic work.


We hope to see you on Saturday May 10th!


To find out more and to book, please email ABMT Membership Secretary  yvonnelentge@hotmail.co.uk


Posted by Ruth Baigent, Vice Chair ABMT, 4th May 2025

Gerda describes a man with a masochist character structure to his body. He is Richard, one of her students. In the therapy training group that he was a part of, Richard connected with a "pact" he had made as an eleven month old baby, “to protect his mother and never, ever make her sad or hurt her; to keep sorrow and pain out of her.”

At the point he made this pact, a spit came into Richard’s life. He could no longer be free to be himself (to be a child) at the same time as maintaining his vow to “do his utmost” to protect his mother. If he was free to be a child, he might hurt his mother inadvertently and he might not want to help her. Gerda described a split between the mind and body, the Ego and the Id. Gerda says, “in Biodynamic Psychology, the ‘Emotional Regulators’… can create muscular armour and a rigid Super-Ego [in a neurosis].” The muscular armour is used by the Super-Ego to “suppress and inhibit natural impulses from the child, especially those that conflict with its direction of repression.” 

The child, then, is restricted in his or her development of the “primary personality”, and a “secondary personality” is formed. “The Super-Ego’s control eventually solidifies as the muscle tension becomes chronic” and a conflict emerges. The conflict is that feeling feelings that aren’t in line with the Super-Ego’s restrictive structure, though naturally pleasurable, become unpleasant, fearful and confusing. 

It was when he went into this place of the pact to protect his mother in his group work that Richard could feel his own (latent) feelings of impotence. The pact he had made was not something he was actually capable of fulfilling to the extent that he had wanted to, he was too young and it was too much. He was always going to fail.

Gerda describes Richard as a well functioning man, successful in his work as a therapist and psychologist and in his family and social life. ”He is what one could call a fully integrated personality in a social sense and from a quantitative concept of health. There was, however, on the qualitative side, a body-mind split which meant that the life energy… did not flow fully.” When this original conflict was “reactivated” by the group work, the blocks to his “libido flow” kicked in and Richard felt his “latent [fear] and underlying feeling of impotence.” In contradiction to appearances, Richard “lives, acts and functions without the full libido flow, and thus will never really feel content and that his life is fulfilling [while the restriction is there].”

Gerda says that “a pact a child makes with itself is incredibly powerful and one of the most difficult things to reach. This is because it is both secret and sacred at the same time. It is not told to anybody and has the power and involvement of the child’s whole being. Until it is reached, though, the neurosis cannot really be resolved, because the pact will always maintain the neurosis and neurotic pattern.”

For Richard, the pact was reached by the group work in his training with Gerda.

Gerda goes on to describe what makes this pact masochistic instead of healthy: it is only that the eleven month old Richard had taken on too much. He had committed to do “everything” but it would have been healthier for him to commit to do everything he could, everything he was able to, ie, nothing beyond his own capabilities! With Gerda's suggestion, Richard changed the pact to “I will do my best — what I can” and this "brought a smile to his face". With this, “the neurosis dissolved and became a healthy decision.”

“It is the pact with himself that keeps the suffering, and when that changes then so can the suffering.”

Richard’s healing of his neurosis was completed by following his own instinct to ask the group to hold him, physically, and to “cradle” him. With this, “he had allowed himself to be a little child again, without a care, and had allowed himself to receive.”

The most wonderful part of Gerda’s article is her attitude of love towards Richard, and her insight into the goodness of his eleven month old’s heart that led to this pact, which, if typically described as “masochistic” might come with a stigma and base misunderstanding.

Gerda says Richard, “took a very special burden on himself as a little boy. If he had not cared so much for his mother or if he had not been so full of love or wished to help, comfort and protect her so much, then he would not have reacted this way and become neurotic. It was from the very, very best qualities of mankind that he had acted, and now become neurotic and masochistic, and I believe that this raises a large question about the whole terminology and concept of masochism.”

Richard acted from a quality of nobility, love and strength, from his Higher Self, and this is what had made him neurotic. Gerda notes that,

“intelligent children are more prone to neurosis; because, perhaps, they understand more. Here was an instance of a little boy of eleven months old understanding so much, and reacting in an adult fashion, but with a little child’s body and abilities. So, again, it was from the best qualities that the neurosis developed. He reacted from the qualities of his Higher Self, such as intelligence, understanding, love, protection and concern and not from the qualities, of his Lower Self, like hatred and anger, which is often the case.”

This good child had “probably avoided the important ‘temper-tantrum’ phase, which brings individuality and self-assertion, and the freedom from the usual overlay of an internalised Super-Ego mechanism.” Richard could never be “difficult or impossible… he probably felt he had to protect her against himself, or a part of himself.” But the reality was, “it was too early; the burden was too heavy. It was doomed to make him neurotic and misuse his libidinous energy and force. This went into character armour and muscle armour in order to increase the strength, instead of flowing freely as a result of the strength. This is typical of the masochistic pattern.”

But, Gerda says, Richard is a person, “Richard is Richard and no-one else” and “we want him out of his character pattern” so she only has types and character classifications in the back of her mind as “working concepts.” This makes room for challenges to the textbook classifications. Gerda remembers how she was touched by “this little boy carrying such a heavy burden of love on his young and unformed shoulders.” The pleasure he was getting out of the neurotic compromise wasn’t egotistic, but altruistic: he “wasn’t getting anything for himself from the pact he made, which was the neurotic solution to his mother’s, and hence his own, distress. ‘Masochistic’ is thus inappropriate as it implies egotistic pleasure from pain and suffering. [Whereas] this form of masochism derived a psychological satisfaction from managing to cope with difficulties for the good of a loved one.” It was a pleasure of giving, not a pleasure of suffering that motivated the young Richard in his pact. It has, says Gerda, “more to do with the Higher Self.” 

“Noble motivation… [might be] neurotic or unneurotic… but none of this takes away from the nobility of the higher qualities. I believe it to be very important that the origin of the forces within is recognised, and that those which emanate from the Higher Self are recognised as such and protected as such, and do not get dismissed as being just part of the neurosis. This is essential to my work.” 

“Conflicts between the Lower Self and the Higher Self can lead to Super-Ego formation, but this was not the case with Richard. His was a conflict between the Higher Self andthe Super-Ego. He made a sacred and holy pact from his Higher Self, but he was a child and the burden was too heavy. The Super-Ego’s demands were too great for his little boy. It took on the Higher-Self decision and made it compulsive. The neurotic solution was to adopt masochistic patterns. However, it came from motives that were of understanding and love. This was not egotistic, but altruistic. One can say that the child didn’t want to lose his mother, but there was no question of this. However, his heart couldn’t take it that she was unhappy and he wanted to do something for that. Isn’t that the most noble part of humanity?”

It is, and I agree with Gerda that it is imperative that we don’t “interpret the Higher Qualities through baser motives.” Gerda says, our future lies in a “move towards a psychology of the Higher Self, [where] we can value the noble qualities, recognise their origin and acknowledge the Higher Nature and the Divine… [the] beginnings of Esoteric Psychology.” This is the motivation Gerda has in her desire to discuss and broaden our understanding of the Masochistic Character.

* Character armour as described by Wilhelm Reich. See the following for more information, discussion and quizzes on character armour and character structure: https://www.bodynamic.com/blog/shapes-of-experience/ ,  https://bioenergetics.org.uk/characterology/ and https://reichandlowentherapy.org/Content/Character/Overview/general_character.html

** The 'New' Collected Papers of Biodynamic Psychology, Massage & Psychotherapy: 2022, published by Courtenay Young, available here: www.bodypsychotherapypublications.com/pub_22.html


By Ruthie Baigent; first published here, 8th December, 2024

Jan Trewartha, founder and director of The Fascia Hub, the British Fascia Symposium, and Body in Harmony Training (focusing on light touch work, especially working with scars and adhesions) came to deliver a workshop for the ABMT 9th November 2024. Her knowledge is extensive and a powerful complement to the working knowledge of Biodynamic Massage. We have a lot to learn from her work and experience.


Jan has been in healthcare since 1979, originally training as a State Registered Nurse in the Queen Alexandra Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC), working at grass roots level with patients on the wards and spending time in the operating theatre; a superb if non-deliberate foundation for her future career.  
 
In 1988 Jan took time out to go travelling for three years, where her life was to dramatically change direction. Trained by a blind massage therapist to really ‘feel’ the body led to a lifetime passion for body work.  Her work now is the culmination of many years of training and experience in different disciplines. She has been in practice since 1992 where her clients have been willing guinea pigs in her ongoing development of light touch therapy work.  
 
Jan has been teaching since 1993, and in 2014 became the first accredited UK teacher in Sharon Wheeler’s ScarWork. Having had surgery in Great Ormond St. Hospital as a young child, resulting in major scarring, Jan experienced great relief and lightness after being treated by Sharon Wheeler; this has given her an awareness of the effect of adhesions and empathy with her clients. 
 
Apart from a missionary zeal for spreading the word about the effects of scarring on the body, Jan’s passions are for travelling and for anything that gets her outdoors and moving.

​Jan's book is available here: uk.singingdragon.com/collections/author-jan-trewartha-pid-300246
​
Find out more about training with Jan for "Sharon Wheeler's ScarWork", "Fascial Unwinding and Energy Awareness", and "Specialist training working with abdominal and pelvic scars" here: www.bodyinharmony.org.uk

And Jan's Fascia Hub can be found here: https://thefasciahub.com/

​By Ruthie Baigent, 22nd November 2024

Patrick Casement, psychoanalyst and author of several books and numerous papers on clinical technique, most famously: On Learning from the Patient.

In The Emperor's New Clothes, Patrick Casement discusses power dynamics in psychoanalytic training that can patronise, pathologise and, ultimately, even dismiss students. Psychoanalytical theory is capable not only of drawing into the light, but also of eclipsing the reality of the person in its projection. What Casement describes in terms of group dynamics and narcissistic projection are issues that are common to all institutional trainings -- including schools (for children) -- and, potentially, in all relationships, so we can all learn something from his article, whether we are working with clients, students, children, or simply being with each other in daily life. 

​​Casement says, “…projection comes into play in the services of narcissism…”. If we are unguarded and unaware we risk walking in illusion and not seeing or giving space to the reality outside of ourselves and our “group”, be that a psychoanalytic society, training committee, or, I would add, staff-room friendship group, or beyond. It is the power dynamics of exclusion, of fascism (as I have written about elsewhere), to which we are all prey since it is an easy place for us to go to in our (unwitting, secondary personality) narcissism and insecurity. Casement shows how this is possible, and even normal, when we are inattentive.

(available here: pep-web.org/search/document/PPTX.038.0082A ) which illustrates Casement's approach to his work.

Casement’s focus in The Emperor's New Clothes is the particular area of psychoanalytic training schools, and the danger of students being evaluated based on their character rather than on their competence. He says “students are expected to learn within a context in which a particular way of thinking, and of working, is often given priority over intellectual freedom and honesty.” Casement believes this wouldn’t happen in a university to such an extent, so he sees a problem that may be inherent in psychoanalysis itself. I’m not sure how different a university setting is to a psychoanalysis training school, or how similar or dissimilar psychoanalysis schools are to psychotherapy trainings, but I certainly recognise what Casement is describing from the trainings I have attended myself, in the realms of therapy and spiritual direction. But, and this may undermine Casement's main point, I have also witnessed these dynamics in universities and schools, too. I have witnessed these same dynamics being enacted by therapists towards clients, and by teachers towards children in school. Always with devastating results.

​Issues arise, according to Casement, when all problems, dissatisfactions, challenges and conflicts raised by the student body are seen as being rooted in transference and regression. In fact, there is a reality outside of transference and we will not necessarily be meeting that reality if we do not accept that disagreements, challenges, and other issues arising might not necessarily be solely addressable by the student in their process. 

Along with Casement, we can surely say (like in so many spheres of life) problems “might occasionally be genuine and not necessarily an indication of pathology…”. Furthermore, problems can also be iatrogenic, a direct result of malpractice in training or therapy itself, in which case it is not pathological to feel disturbed by them! Being disturbed by mistreatment is not pathological, "but it can be pathological to accept it.” This is where the quote “…projection comes into play in the services of narcissism…” comes into force, because trainers, being human, with inner insecurities, have their own process, defences, projection and transference, and the human being will use such defences in the service of their own protection -- to protect themselves from criticism, feelings of failure, or material consequences in terms of professional status and standing. Failure to keep these forces in check is a failure to face reality, and the consequences for the student (or client) may be serious and extensive.

The consequences are also there for the person, or people, doing the projecting, as they risk mis-interpreting, and mis-diagnosing the reality of the situation and getting stuck in speculative closed loops, vicious circles.

“Wild analysis in committee” is the name Casement gives to a situation where a student is analysed by trainers in committee, “almost as if the student were the committee’s patient”. This happens without the permission, the knowledge, or the participation of the student/patient. Casement says, “there is always a risk [then] of assumptions being made that may go unchecked…". These are assumptions "...that may later be treated as if they were facts, which can lead to decisions being made upon an insufficiently firm foundation.” Casement says this way of working is so common in training committees that it is taken to be the norm, and tends to go unchallenged.

Casement describes a training environment where students are "infantalised," and where they “risk being pathologised if they are too vigorous in challenging either what is being taught or the ways in which things are being done in the training.” This almost inevitably encourages an atmosphere where students feel anxious not to ‘raise their heads above the parapet’, and feel it is “foolhardy to risk it all for the sake of one’s own intellectual integrity” by speaking up or showing their true self in all their difference. It might not be the right 'fit' for the training programme. In this environment, there will be a fear of what will be said behind students' backs... might a “healthy persistence [be recognised as a student] ‘being difficult’ or as ‘wishing to be treated as special’, and then—by a simple act of pseudo-interpretation—external problems, with which a student may be needing practical help, can be regarded as merely a symptom of some assumed pathology of the student [which] would then require no further action, except maybe for the student’s training analyst to attend to the complaint as if it were some ‘acting out’.” Reaching out, then, leads to more pain, not actual help (understanding and support).

We all need to be watchful of ourselves becoming convinced by our own theories —“a closed system that can become immune to external challenge” — but the especial leverage... or power... that therapists have is the inference that they “know the patient better than the patient knows themselves.” It is a "power" shared with religious people such as priests, and with teachers and parents with children.

The wrong help, or lack of help, that comes out of this speculative analysis by committee (or any other place that speculative analysis takes place), is likely to result in the student being “less able—not more able” to take care of themselves, leading to a “false self development rather than to something more resilient and clinically useful”. Casement uses analogy from Winnicott in how to support a mother with baby, in order to actually help, rather than interfere and make things worse, because “it is not surprising to find a student’s clinical work being affected” by levels of anxiety “about how the supervisor is going to view their clinical work [so] that they begin to feel watched in the session… [and feel] paralysed when… with the patient.” Casement says, "these intrusive influences are not sufficiently taken into account” when making assessments of students.

Inevitably, “the narcissism of any analyst is that which most frequently persists beyond the training analysis, or most readily returns after it”, so Casement encourages us all to “be more consistently aware of our own part in the difficulties that we have with those around us, including our analytic colleagues and students”, especially when we have 'finished' therapy. He cautions us to not fetishise neutrality or other psychotherapeutic techniques and devices. Ie, to not be so limited by the structures and theories of the therapy that we are unable to “[step] outside of the usual boundary of the analysis [and training structures] when it is necessary” in order to adequately meet the human being in all their needs, experience, knowledge and strength, in reality. “It may thus become possible for training analysts to be more ready to acknowledge that they do not necessarily always know best and be more open to those occasions when they could actually be getting things wrong…”.

In this way, we may be less reliant “on an illusion of sureness", "more alert to the seductiveness of ‘wild analysis in committee’ ”, and more able to be present with the discomfort of differences and disagreements in ways of thinking. Wild analysis, especially when it is in committee, can be damning and impossible to escape. To avoid all this is something Casement says we must do for ourselves, because “it is likely that others will see through our self-deception more readily than we will ourselves,” hence the title of the article. There is information to be learned from each other, things we might have missed!

One thing I particularly like about Casement's writing is that he sees the power and importance of bottom-up movements in hierarchal systems. Every person inside a system, every part inside a person, has a channel to keep open for life to flow through it, and we can all step up in some way towards keeping that system truly alive. Casement says it's important not only not to be a "yes-man" to authority but also for the authority to make genuine space for disagreement and dispute. Diversity and inclusion are key in enabling free movement of the spirit, life force, through the body. We can't shut out any parts without blocks entering the system, blinding us to directions that bring systemic health; blinding us even to the potential for change. Like a sail boat on the sea, adjusting her sails to the wind direction and speed, an organisation (/therapeutic relationship/friendship/family...) finds a balance in direction and discernment with the tensions brought naturally by the life and difference of its members, opening ourselves up to new horizons through the otherness of what we don't already know. Difference is a gift we can use, an energy, like wind upon our sails, to follow and move in healthier directions, towards inclusion, love and acceptance, and away from rigidifying stagnation of our comfort zones, be those personal or organisational.
​
​By Ruthie Baigent, 22 November 2024

Also published here: https://elrupiria.weebly.com/blog/the-emperors-new-clothes-review-of-patrick-casements-article

The Emperor’s New Clothes, was published by Patrick Casement 22/02/2005 and is available here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1516/58N3-PXKL-PDGE-VLXA

Comments and thoughts will be gratefully received!