Global Effectiveness Training* courses are professional development and personal growth adventures. They combine relevant theoretical issues with a large measure of learner-centered experiential discovery. All of the courses will demonstrate applications of the Person-centered Approach within a particular context. This profound process takes place among a small group of motivated learners. The highly experienced staff will make themselves available personally as well as professionally. Their role is as much about facilitating personal awareness as it is about presenting professional, cognitive concepts. They will work to create a group environment that promotes trust and freedom. While these course are at times very serious, they are also occasions to laugh and have fun.

This largely experiential two-day learning is appropriate for all professionals who are engaged in the facilitation of personal change and that want to further their own journey into self-awareness. Being genuine and offering a client one's real self in a therapeutic relationship is perhaps the biggest challenge a therapist faces. The focus will be on using the core conditions of the Person-centered Approach - accurate empathy made known to the client, personal genuineness and unconditional warmth - to establish a climate of trust that will promote personal sharing. Participants gain insight into how they are perceived as relating - to others and themselves. Personal sharing provides opportunities not only for greater understanding of self, but also of one's peers, clients and significant others. Challenges to achieving and communicating deeply accurate empathy will be explored. Obstacles to setting aside judgements of clients will be examined. Participants report that this learning experience is very clarifying, rewarding and exciting.

This course is a two-day experiential learning opportunity for practitioners in the helping professions to focus on enhancing their ability to facilitate the small group encounter. This type of group therapy is sometimes referred to as a personal awareness group. Carl Rogers described this group process as 'probably the most potent social inventions of the century.' The same core qualities, or conditions, of relating that fosters effective facilitation of the small group process are also found in successful individual therapy. They are: accurate empathic responses, personal genuineness and unconditional warmth. Rogers felt these core conditions were both 'necessary and sufficient' to bring about therapeutic change. The trainer/facilitator will encourage an environment to emerge in which participants may struggle together to find their individual truths - and discover commonality, mutuality. He or she will also strive to confirm each participant as being who they in the moment. It is an opportunity to experiment and experience an empowering community and empowered self. This course is often intense, exciting and enlivening.

This skill building and personal awareness course is offered to groups of physicians or medical students. It can be adapted for other categories of caregivers. It is a two-day workshop with a one-day follow-up.

Summary: Learning to use the New Skills makes it possible for a doctor to relatively quickly establish high quality rapport with a patient based on empathic understanding that leads to genuine caring. Gaining the trust and confidence of a patient is a crucial first step toward establishing a relationship that promotes the healing process. The initial medical interview not only gathers crucial medical information, it also sets the tone for all future interactions.

In order for most physicians and others in the healing arts, to feel fulfilled in their practice, they must feel effective. A corner stone in the Western traditional practice of medicine is the doctor/patient relationship. That relationship begins with the first interview.

The initial medical interview has multiple objectives. One objective is to efficiently gather all relevant medical information. Today the psychosocial aspects of the patient's world are becoming recognized as an essential component of the medical profile. In order to access the patient's psychological perceptions and experiences quickly, there must be a climate of trust. The most efficient means of establishing trust or rapport is to be genuine and warm and give empathic responses to the patient.

That seems like a lot to expect from a busy doctor. However, when a physician is not able to offer the patient a genuinely warm relationship, both healing potential and personal satisfaction may be diminished. And, when physicians enhance their ability to establish genuine, warm and productive relationships with their patients. They report an increase in personal satisfaction.

This skill building and personal awareness course will give physicians insight into their style of relating. Strengths and weaknesses will be explored by a small group of practitioners who share an interest in bringing their best to the healing relationship and the healing arts. In addition to the sharing of personal issues on a meaningful level, role-plays will be offered as a means of exploring alternative models for conducting medical interviews.

For more information about GET for healthcare providers, click here to read the chapter, Applications of the Person-Centered Approach in Health Care, by David Meador, from the book The Person-Centered Approach: Applications for Living.

Building Effective Relationships
Appropriate for all people involved in the process of facilitating personal change.

Building Rapid Rapport
This course is for those who are very limited in the amount of time they are able to spend with a client or patient. Theoretical issues are explored and role-play is used to demonstrate and practice using the Person-centered Approach to quickly establish effective relationships.

Learner-centered Relationship Skills
A workshop designed for teachers, supervisors and administrators working at all levels of education. A strong emphasis on theory is balanced with exercises, role-plays and recesses.

GET will design a relationship training course for an organization's specific needs.

* Global Effectiveness Training is not affiliated with Thomas Gordon's Effectiveness Training Programs.