Jörn Scheer, Workshop on Ageing

Jörn Scheer, in qualità di Visiting Professor, ha condotto due workshop per gli allievi della nostra Scuola sul tema Constructions of Ageing.

Jörn ha voluto condividere alcune riflessioni su questa esperienza

ICP Padua, Workshop on Ageing, July 14 and 15, 2012.

Jörn Scheer

When Massimo Giliberto and Francesco Velicogna invited me to give a workshop for students participating in the postgraduate psychotherapy training at the ICP in Padua, we agreed that “Ageing” would be an interesting topic. We all age but normally we don’t care much about it while we are younger and the processes lie still maybe 40 years ahead, in the far future. But therapists should be knowledgeable in all walks of life, and they also might happen on older people in their professional practice when they are still young.

So I devised a one-day workshop for the students in the postgraduate training in psychotherapy, based on teaching I had done with medical students and students of education and sociology in Germany. As the ICP teaches constructivist psychotherapy the focus was supposed to be on personal construct theory as devised by George A. Kelly and the interviewing procedure known as the Repertory Grid Technique. Also, issues of research came into the picture as the institute intends to broaden its approach for it is deemed important for future therapists to have an understanding of the aims and methods of research.

So here we were in a group of about 30 on a hot Saturday in July but in the nice and cool rooms of the Goethe Institute, and I said “Buon giorno”, “Guten Morgen” – and “Good morning”. For the language of the workshop was English. The institute promotes competence in English because most of the relevant literature on constructivism is written in the modern “lingua franca”. But of course, English is neither the students’ mother tongue nor mine. So we had to find ways to deal with this. One way was to divide the students up frequently in small groups of 5 so they could develop their thoughts and ideas in their own language and then report to the whole workshop by someone in the group who felt confident in the foreign language. And I tried to speak as slowly and clearly as possible – because I know what it feels like to be a non-native speaker in an English-speaking environment. That worked fine.

By this procedure the students were also encouraged to remember their experience with older people, to come up with their own ideas what being old means, und especially what “happy” or “successful” ageing means. This helped with a hands-on approach, so the necessary theoretical information on theories of ageing, of successful ageing, and the personal construct approach to ageing, could become more than just theoretical.

The second half of the workshop began with a group exercise “developing a research project on ageing”, using the theoretical concepts and the research tools the students had learned about, beforehand and in the workshop. The groups worked in an impressively creative way, coming up with potential research projects, e. g. on the specific problems of ageing of foreigners living in a country other than their own, on sexuality in old age, or on the role of carers for older people. I was told later that some of the ideas developed in the groups found their ways into “real” research projects. Finally, the prime research tool in personal construct psychology, the repertory grid interview, was introduced, using as an example a grid with a focus on, not surprisingly, successful ageing. Normally taken in a one-on-one setting, the repertory grid technique can also be applied in a small group situation. It takes more time than was available in the workshop, but the students were able to get an idea of how a repertory grid with a special focus can be devised, and to experience how it is applied, and how it is analysed using computer-based programmes.

A full day workshop can be quite straining but the exhaustion may be felt less when the participants engage in an activity that is potentially of personal interest to them. My impression was that this was the case. I found the students very enthusiastic and eager to take something home from the workshop; the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. Overall, it was a quite rewarding experience also for myself.