Purpose
Many people in severe mentally disturbed states do not use language or other symbolic media well or coherently. Therefore, the non-verbal medium needs to be understood by workers with such people. The “Learning from Action” experiential workshop was developed in order to provide an opportunity to learn about hidden messages in the relationships and roles occurring in activities. In August 2017, a workshop was run for the first time in Japan. The purpose of this paper is to report the experience and dynamics observed by the three consultants, who are here the authors of this paper.
Design/methodology/approach
After the workshop all the staff and members, including interpreters, were invited to give feedback.
Findings
Analysis of the feedback data showed certain important dynamics, concerning especially dependence, cultural defences and the defensive role of activity in a multicultural context.
Research limitations/implications
This is an initial experience to be followed up by later feedback and further workshops.
Practical implications
Workers awareness of non-verbal communication within the roles of work activities is a training possibility. It faces various resistances including the mental health assumptions of meaninglessness of any communication outside the verbal.
Originality/value
This is a method of training not widely used even in European countries, and is the first in a country in the far east.
Purpose
The learning from action (LfA) workshop was born more than 20 years ago and held in various places in Italy. This study aims to provide a learning experience for therapeutic communities (TCs) workers. During these years, the LfA work has developed by creating a dialogue between the experiential conferences and the group relations conferences (GRC) run by the Tavistock Institute. In this paper, the author explores the dialogue between (the leadership-oriented) GRC and (democratic) TC culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors intend to show how this dialogue has developed in LfA, describing tasks, purposes and critical aspects of LfA specific events: decision-making plenary, decision-making, TCs, action, dialog between cultures, GRC, learning methodology, decision-making group, activity group, morning and evening community meetings.
Findings
The authors confirmed the idea that acting and working together is a way of learning and communicating with each other. The role activities and works the authors do together to provide for the community in LfA have a more authentic quality of life than the purely verbal reflective work of a GRC.
Originality/value
The paper describes how LfA has developed and consolidated over the years, constituting an original learning model inspired by the typical activities of the culture of democratic TCs and the learning methodology of GRCs.
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