Certificate in Other-Centred Environmentally Based Therapies
This programme consists of:
- five practice-based on-line Distance Learning Units
- an equivalence of 90 hours (15 days) training taken through attendance or online options
- An optional second year involving a mentored practicum and 40 further training hours
Participants will have opportunities to work in their own spaces and in both urban and rural settings. This provides useful experience for those wanting to take their learning into therapeutic or community work in settings where access to the wild is limited, as well as for those who work in wilder spaces.
The training will normally be completed in a year. There is a strong emphasis on collaborative learning and shared enquiry on the course, and most work is done in groups, either in person or online. There is support for students to gain skills in working with groups or one-to-one.
Scroll down on this page for details of practicalities, costs and requirements. For details of this year's Ten Directions programme content including dates, please click here to see course dates and content for this academic year
Introduction
Mental health is a function of our ability to connect. Working in the environment, whether locally in urban or suburban settings, or by taking clients further afield, brings positive benefits, exposing people to new and challenging situations, and opening them up to experiences which support change at all levels of psychological functioning.
The Ten Directions Programme, which started in 2011, offers a thorough introduction to working outdoors. Suitable for qualified therapists, those interested in working with community groups or others who work in a psychologically informed way, it presents a theoretical model grounded in ten modalities of working, and aligned with the Other-Centred model taught on other Tariki training programmes. Whilst students should generally have relevant experience, their backgrounds vary, and in practice students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and include qualified counsellors and psychotherapists, people working in education or outdoors activities, workshop leaders, and forest school leaders. This creates a rich melting pot of ideas and the course is as much a learning community as a fixed programme.
What do people do with this qualification?
People who join Ten Directions come from a variety of backgrounds and many have skills in related fields already. Some are qualified counsellors and go on to take their practice outdoors. Many are not, but build on other kinds of therapeutic, educational, environmental or community-based skills and develop practices as ecotherapists. Here are some links to work which some of our graduates are doing:
Vanessa White trained with us and has now set up Heartfelt Ways.
Stephen McCabe also did this training and set up Nature Therapy Online. Listen to his podcast interview with Caroline Brazier and download his e-book.
Read more about past students' work
The Ten Directions Model
The ten directions taught on the programme fall into five pairs or dimensions. These broadly reflect the therapeutic container, core principles of the model, the personal relationship to the environment, the collective relationship, and our physical engagement with the world. Within these we employ therapeutic and creative methods, practical learning, and discuss issues of professional boundaries, safety and organisation.
The Ten Directions are:
Containing conditions: embodied contact & sacred space
Theoretical frame: therapeutic triangle & object related identity
Personal dimension: conditioned view & encounter
Collective dimension: myth and ritual & creativity
Engaged practice: vibrancy & embedded living
Course Delivery
The course is delivered primarily through experiential work out of doors, reflective process, and theoretical integration. The five core online units explore different dimensions of the model, using a series of online learning exercises which are delivered daily by email and to which students respond by posting a short paragraph describing their experiences on the web-based group. The exercises are practical and mostly involve going outdoors to reflect and connect within the locality where the student lives. The programme is not academically demanding, but requires personal reflection and the development of creative awareness and competency.
Whilst originally developed as a combination of practical attendance based units, with the Covid19 lockdown we decided to diversify the programme by introducing different kinds of online learning to replace the attendance part of the requirement. This has been done by retaining the five core online units and adding a range of other options so that students can complete the equivalent of the 15 attendance days in a variety of ways, introducing more choice into the process. In addition to the core online study units, there is therefore a requirement to complete a further 90 study hours, either through the online units on offer or through attendance when this becomes a possibility again.
One advantage of this new format is that we are now able to offer online units on more specialist topics and involve other staff in teaching units which fit within their area of expertise. It also means that, as well as attendance elements, some units are offered 'real-time' through Zoom or other platforms, whilst others are taught, like the core units, through daily emails and an online discussion group. This flexibility allows overseas students, or those who have home commitments which make residential weekends difficult, can complete the course without coming to the centre.
Most of the units are open to anyone with suitable interest, to take the full programme you must be registered and must complete all the core units. These five units must be completed over a year, but the 90 training hours can be taken within two years of registration and are subject to availability. If students exceed these time frames, a re-registration fee will be charged.
For those wishing to continue training, who show aptitude and hold suitable qualifications, a second year mentoring and apprenticeship scheme will allow a full integration of the work.
The Core Units
The Ten Directions Programme includes five core units, each involving 21 days of online study (about an hour a day). These units cover the core theory of the programme and roughly follow the five sections of the course text book, Ecotherapy in Practice. Each day that these units are delivered, students receive a short introduction to the day's theme, often including links to further reading, and instructions for the day's activity.
Students are expected to complete the units within the time frame prescribed, but are given extra time at the end of each unit to make up any missed days. The intention is that through the daily practice of these activities, students build a regular relationship to the outdoors, so they are discouraged from stockpiling exercises.
Students need to complete the core units within a year. The sequence of courses are:
UNIT ONE (September) Establishing the Container: Embodied Contact & Sacred Space
UNIT TWO (October/November) The Theory base: Therapeutic Triangle & Object Related Identity
UNIT THREE (January/February) Personal Process in Narborough: Conditioned View & Encounter
UNIT FOUR (March/April) Myth and Ritual & Creativity
UNIT FIVE: (May) Vibrancy & Embedded Living
Applications:
to apply, please contact [email protected] for an application form or download one here Application form for Ten Directions
Cost:
£1450 for full training (£1350 if paid before May 2021).
Online Learning Units from the core sequence can be taken as a programme of five is £625 (or £550 if paid before May 2021) or individually at £140 each. Other units are priced at similar rates depending on their length.
Attendance for the workshops linked to the five core units is costed at £130 for a weekend/£65 per day if online
Fees are payable in advance and are non-refundable once the course starts.
Attendance for general interest:
Most of the seminars and workshops offered on the programme are open to people who are not enrolled as students unless otherwise stated. Note that if you attend any of these as a 'one off' and decide to enrol subsequently, these may be counted towards the 90 hours if you enrol within three months of attendance.
Course tutors:
Caroline Brazier, head of Tariki Psychotherapy Training Programme and author of seven books including Acorns Among the Grass - Adventures in Eco-Therapy (required reading); Other Centred Therapy, both published by O-Books and Buddhist Psychology published by Constable Robinson. Her latest book, Ecotherapy in Practice: A Buddhist Model will be published by Routledge August 2017.
Elise Tate, lead trainer on the Tariki Psychotherapy Training Programme and a psychotherapist working in the voluntary sector. Elise runs outdoor therapeutic groups for a charity and is a member of CAPO, a peer group of counsellors and therapists involved in outdoor work and ecotherapy.
Paul Maiteny: Why are humans so cruel and destructive to each other, other species & the ecosystem; and what might our human role be as members of the ecosystemic web? Since childhood, these question have informed my life and work - in ecological education and habitat management, research in ecological anthropology & organisational behaviour (UCL, Oxford & Open Universities), & psychospiritual therapy practice integrating ecological & transpersonal understanding. My teaching includes Transpersonal Ecopsychology & Psychotherapy, Education for Sustainability (since 1995) & psychotherapy research. Publications include: Ancestral warnings of ecosystemic holocaust, its psychospiritual causes, and clues to resolution (Self & Society Journal, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2015) Longing to be Human: evolving ourselves in healing the Earth (In Rust & Totton ed. Vital Signs, London: Karnac, 2012), Finding Meaning without Consuming (In Stibbe, ed, Handbook of Sustainability Literacy, Green Books. 2009), Psychotherapy as an Eco-Systemic Activity (The Psychotherapist, Winter 2008/9)
COMMENTS ON A TEN DIRECTIONS GROUP
The following was written by a participant in the group described in Acorns Among the Grass
The event I took part in was over five days, and was a completely immersive experience. We began each day with a period of meditation, often outside, (I have a striking memory of sitting in a bamboo grove, listening to the raindrops) and then were led through a series of exercises, including exploring nature on our own, exploring our relationship to specific parts of the environment, lots of close observation and spending time outdoors. During the retreat we had a couple of 'process sessions' in order to share our experience with other members of the group, this was valuable as the whole week was a shared experience and hearing others feelings and thoughts helped us not only decide some of the days events, for example some people chose to sleep outdoors, but also to recognise things in ourselves.
The week aroused different feelings in me - the most powerful experience was an exercise in which we were asked to imagine asking a question, directing our question to the natural world. I asked something about my path in life, I was in the process of moving out of the Buddhist community and asked about how I might keep some of the role I had there, with me in the outside world. With this question in mind I walked through the woods until I encountered a medieval track that runs across the land there. This road provided my answer, although it seems like a cliché the truth that life is like a journey, with no ultimate resting place in this world, struck me profoundly in that moment.
I also have a lovely memory of the final evening, we created a ceremony. I was asked to lead this ceremony, which felt like an honour. In the evening we took a lit candle from the shrine room, and then walked, quietly and meditatively, to a bonfire site that had become important to the group. I talked about the symbolism of fire and lit the bonfire from the burning candle. We sat and watched the fire into the night, sometimes chanting, other times quietly. Each in our own thought process, and in our own relationship to the natural world, but also together.