Lectures, working groups and meeting fill the days from January 3 to 7, 2025.
Four working groups are available to choose from: Pesso therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Art …
Registration is open online here from Oktober 1th until December 10th, 2025.
The Academy Center at Lake Sankelmark offers the fine ambience.
Resonance
in pastoral care and therapy
The quality of the therapeutic relation is the most important aspect of the client`s healing, more so than specific methods in pastoral care and psychotherapy.
The German sociologist Hartmut Rosa has described this quality of human relationships as ,Resonance‘. His concept sheds a new light on the reasons for therapeutic success.
The more accelerated, digitalized, optimized and physically distant our daily lives become, the stronger we are longing for a resounding and responding world. We desire an answering contact on a deeper level. We wish to feel moved, touched, or transformed; by others, by arts, by nature, by God.
In the bible text, Elijah is discouraged and withdraws to a cave (1 King 19). He does not encounter God in wind, earthquake, or fire. Only after „a sound of sheer silence”, a whispering wind, is he again able to receive and listen to the Other. Elijah is invited to experience resonance. He has endured the frightening experiences and walks to the opening of the cave.
In a resonant relationship, both sides are willing to step into the unknown and to be changed through the contact. How willing are we as therapists and pastors to endure the ,not knowing’ with the client, and are we prepared to be changed in this shared space?
We cannot force resonance by will, and we cannot buy it. However, we can attempt to be ‘reachable’ and to make ourselves available.
We want to explore the theme of „Resonance“ in different workshops and lectures.
On behalf of the planning group
Ruth Knaup (D) Psychologist, dancer and author
André Sjåvåg (N) Parish priest at the Church of Norway
Cover | Titelbild: Gerd Altmann by Pixabay
EN_GB