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ForwardThe Center for the Study of Group and Social Systems Leading From Experience
This workshop is designed to strengthen participants’ ability to exercise leadership in a broad range of work roles through taking up a consultative stance. Participants learn to recognize the value of their inner experience - thoughts, feelings, associations, fantasies, daydreams, pre-occupations - and to articulate them to further the group’s purpose and task.
The act of acknowledging one’s experience and sharing it to further the group’s aim is the consultative stance. Whether taken up formally as a designated leader, consultant, member or participant, the consultative stance recognizes that people in a group are inevitably, though often without being aware of it, in touch with the emotional life of the group. Paying attention to what one is feeling, thinking about and reacting to may open a window into what is going on in the group, just outside of members’ awareness. Speaking to this experience from one’s role, while checking it against both the experience of others and the purpose of the group, can help the work of a group evolve, particularly as it leads to discovery of previously unseen contexts and potentially challenging dynamics. Taking a consultative stance creates an opportunity to exercise this form of leadership; this is leading from experience.
In the workshop, process groups and work groups are used to provide this learning opportunity. In the process groups, participants are invited to study the here-and-now unfolding group dynamics, evolving culture, emotional experience, etc., in relation to the task of the study of belonging. Belonging can be thought of as an experience of security, acceptance, and inclusion within a group, with the possibility of being better known and joined by others. In the process groups, designated consultants practice using the consultative stance to further the work of the group. Then, while other participants observe, the designated consultants join the faculty in a reflection about their experience. The second wave of groups are the working groups. In these meetings, members work at a real-life problem presented by the faculty in the form of a vignette. There are no designated consultants; any member is free to offer consultation as they work on the group task and learn about how sharing experience furthers that work. After each session, the entire group reflects on the process with faculty. (Consulting roles in the process groups are open to anyone with previous group experience (attendance at the workshop or other intensive group experience).
Date June 6 – 8, 2025 Time 6/6 6p-9p, 6/7 8:30a-7:20p, 6/8 9a-1p
Large Conference Room, Medical Office Building
Learning Objectives
- Describe the basic tenets of the consultative stance.
- Study and speak from one’s experience of the group’s dynamic as it unfolds in real time and as it relates to the process group’s task.
- Identify what impedes or facilitates each member’s ability to take up the consultative stance in each process group. Provide feedback to consulting members.
- Apply one’s learning about the consultative stance as one works at solving a real-life problem in a work group.
- Assess and reflect on the experience (of oneself and of other members) of utilizing the consultative stance in work groups.
- Compare the experience of taking up the consultative stance in the role of a member or designated consultant in both process/work groups.
- Identify and assess how one might utilize the consultative stance to further the work of their group in a real-life context (such as at work, school, home or in their community).
Faculty include Jim Krantz (who is also the convener of the workshop), Donna Elmendorf, Dannie Kennedy, Megan Kolano, Heather Forouhar, and Alan Ruiz.
James Krantz, Ph.D. is a consultant and researcher from New York City. His writing focuses on the unconscious background and the socio-psychological implications of work organizations, as well as the impact of emerging trends on management practice. He has been on the faculties of Yale and Wharton and is past President of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (ISPSO), Fellow of the A.K. Rice Institute and former Director of the Center for Socio-analytic Studies at IPTAR.
Donna Elmendorf, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, as well as the director of the Therapeutic Community Program and the Activities Program at the Austen Riggs Center.
Dannie Kennedy, PhD, is a leadership coach and advisor. She is a former president of the Board of Directors of the Boston Center of the A.K. Rice Institute and has directed conferences on authority and leadership in the Tavistock tradition. She is on the faculty of the Executive Coaching Program at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. As an adjunct faculty member at Simmons College and guest lecturer at Harvard University and Smith College, she has taught courses on leadership, executive coaching, organizational theory and consultation, post-merger integration, applied research methods, and group dynamics.
Megan Kolano, PsyD, ABPP is a licensed and board certified clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst working at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, MA. She is also the former president of CSGSS, an AKRI certified consultant, and works with children and adults in private practice. Heather Forouhar, MD, is a staff psychiatrist, therapist and assistant team leader at the Austen Riggs Center. She consults to process groups that are aimed at studying relationships to authority.
Alan Ruiz, MFA, is an artist whose work examines the protocols that shape and condition space through economic, aesthetic, and social systems. He is also the president of the Executive Committee at The New York Center for the Study of Groups, Organizations, and Social Systems.
Austen Riggs Center Inc. adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education. All those at Austen Riggs Center involved in the planning of this activity, including the presenter(s) listed above, report they have no relevant financial relationships with an ineligible company*.
The views and opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Austen Riggs Center.
* An ineligible company is any entity whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
Available Credit
- 11.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
ACCME - As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for a maximum of 11.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
- 11.00 APA
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this learning activity for 11.00 continuing education credit(s) (CE) for psychology. Continuing Education (CE) credits for psychologists are provided through the co-sponsorship of the American Psychological Association (APA) Office of Continuing Education in Psychology (CEP). The APA CEP Office maintains responsibility for the content of the programs.
Austen Riggs Center, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0115.
- 11.00 ASWB-ACE
As a Jointly Accredited Organization, The Austen Riggs Center, Inc is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organization, not individual courses, are approved under this program. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Austen Riggs Center maintains responsibility for this. Social workers completing this Conference / meeting will receive 11.00 continuing education credit(s).
Austen Riggs Center, Inc is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0843.
- 11.00 Contact Hours/ ParticipationA certificate of attendance for all Learners.