THE MARATHON WORKSHOP
(and its value as a counseling tool in emotional growth schools)
by: Linda Shaffer, Ed. Consultant
Sandpoint, Idaho
208-263-8394
All emotional growth schools are not alike! In their counseling tools, nineteen among the more well-known schools use a tool the others do not, the Interactive or Marathon-Like Workshop.
In most emotional growth schools it is standard practice to utilize the group session process 2 to 3 times a week with feedback among peers as a major counseling tool ? all guided by the staff facilitators. Individual counseling also is implemented on a regular basis with an assigned therapist. The more informal version of this style of counseling is the ride in the pick-up truck or the walk down to the pond or the farm.
Not every school, however, utilizes the Interactive or Marathon-Like Workshop. I find in assisting families that some are open to this counseling style for their children and for themselves (in the parent workshops). And, some prefer to participate only in the more private one on one family counseling sessions a school may offer.
Those schools who Do Use these workshops are: Cascade School, Whitmore, CA; Mount Bachelor Academy, Prineville, OR; Swift River Academy, Cummington, MA; Hidden Lake Academy, Dahlonega, GA; Crater Lake School, Sprague River, OR; CEDU Schools, CA and ID; Spring Ridge Academy, Spring Valley, AZ Cross Creek Manor, LaVerkin, UT; Paradise Cove, Apia, W. Samoa; Tranquility Bay, Mandeville, Jamaica; Spring Creek Lodge, Thompson Falls, MT; Copper Canyon Academy, Camp Verde, AZ And for the over 18 year old students ? Northstar, Bend, OR and Benchmark, Redding, CA
Two other schools considering implementing the Interactive Workshop are Aspen Ranch in Loa, Utah and Montana Academy in Marion, Montana.
Various Components of these interactive workshops include psychodrama, role playing, dads, bioenergetics, creative visualization exercises, supportive music, and various types of ?stretch? exercises to take one outside one?s comfort zone.
Students in the interactive workshop often are excited about them because they indicate Points Of Passage within their school and their goal of getting ?to the top of the mountain? and completing all the workshops.
Where did these workshops come from? From creative minds. They came from often controversial influences and beginnings ? Synanon, Lifespring, est, ? out of the ?60?s ? and from many of the earliest creative innovators in the mental health field. Through years of evolution, and years of individual creativity in adapting these workshops to adolescents, came ?workshops? and ?seminars?. I see them, if designed with care and sensitivity to the individual, as benefiting anyone ? but, especially the frightened and refusing child, the counseling savvy/issue dodging child who knows what to say, and the intellectual child who tries at all costs to not touch upon feelings.
Training for the originators of today?s workshops often involved participation themselves in some earlier workshops in Their Own Growth Process and, thus, redesigning these workshops for their own schools. Some have established companies that offer various versions of these workshops today for Corporate America and also design special programs for emotional growth schools.
I would suggest the spread of these workshops in the emotional growth school setting says something about the insights and results for participants. And after all, isn?t that what it?s all about - Results Education, both academic and emotional.
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