Humainologie creative dialogue structured exercise for our team practice on Wednesday November 25

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

The topic for our next creative dialogue team practice will be Resilience and Empathic Listening. I will append below this message the 5-step BATHE technique as provided by Sloane (and previously circulated). In this email, I’ll describe the structured approach to team practice for this coming Wednesday November 25, following the format Sloane Dugan has sent to me. In essence, we will practice the BATHE technique in groups of three. (So we’ll need the breakout function for the Zoom session, and I will ask Shinobu or Greg to help with that.) Here are the details:

Part I will be a 15-minute orientation from Sloane, to give us the conceptual framework for the exercise.

Part II, in breakout groups of 3 people to a group, will give each of the 3 participants a chance to play a specific role in the BATHE exercise, as follows: The first person presents a problem they are facing here and now in their own life. The second person then goes through the steps of the BATHE technique with the first person. The third person is the observer, and uses a checklist to identify what is going well in the conversation between person #1 and person #2. That exercise should be completed in 15 minutes. Then the three participants should change the roles and repeat the exercise (a new problem is presented by the person who now takes the first role), again aiming to finish in 15 minutes. And then the exercise is again repeated, so that each of the three participants get to take each of the three roles. Ideally, the entire breakout session would be done in 45 minutes.

Part III will be the plenary session in which we reconvene to hear from the participants what they experienced in the breakout group exercise. This part is projected to take 15 minutes, so that the entire structured team practice would be 15 + 45 + 15 = 75 minutes.

With that structured team practice experience fresh in our minds, we can discuss what we have learned using the following questions: 1) What important connections do you see between the BATHE exercise experience and the topics and experience from previous creative dialogue team practice sessions? 2) What can we learn from today’s experience that we might use to enhance the value of future sessions? 3) How can your experience in this session be used to enhance your creativity (your ability to think about things in new ways)?

Here again is the Zoom link provided by Shinobu:

Nov 25, 2020 06:30 PM Dec 2, 2020 06:30 PM Dec 9, 2020 06:30 PM Dec 16, 2020 06:30 PM Dec 23, 2020 06:30 PM Dec 30, 2020 06:30 PM Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89466067851?pwd=TzY2T1ZrVWNjdGo5aWhMSFV1cTVBQT09

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Amor Fati,

Arthur

From Sloane: The following brief summary of the BATHEing the Heart process has provided me with a technique that I’ve used in my work with persons in therapy, coaching, and relationships with adults and students over the years. It is an instrumental process that usually helps the Other and has the potential for also empowering him/her. The process seems quite simple, even simplistic. It is neither, but its five steps are learnable. Students in one of my MBA courses become familiar with the technique early in the course and practice using it during the term.

The period of time for working through the five steps may occur in a matter of five to ten minutes. Alternatively, the unfolding process and its subsequent discussions, especially the implementation component after the last step may extend into multiple meetings.

Summary of

BATHEing the Heart:

a Five Step Problem-Clarification and Empowering Process.

The initial four steps have an objective and a key, guiding question. The fifth step has an objective and three follow-up questions.

B for BACKGROUND.

Objective: Help the Other (person) to clarify what happened in their life that seems to be causing suffering.

Focusing Question: “What happened to you?”

A for AFFECT

Objective: Identify what feelings are associated with the suffering. That is, help the Other become more aware of the ‘melody’ that goes with the words from the intellect.

Focusing Question: “And how does that make you feel?”

T for TROUBLE

Objective: Help the Other identify the primary core of the suffering from his/her perspective, right now.

Focusing Question: “And what troubles you the most now?”

H for HANDLING

Objective: Help the Other identify the resources available to her/him that the person can use to cope with what he/she is experiencing and to more proactively begin to change the situation.

Focusing Question: “And what helps you the most to handle this?”

E for EMPATHY

Objective: 1) Demonstrate that you understand key dimension of the situation and thus are an ally for them in their suffering. 2) Summarize in your own words and feelings what the person has experienced in the previous steps. Minimally, the listener may carry out this second objective by restating what s/he has heard. Also, the listener can demonstrate even more empathy by expressing the feelings s/he experienced thus, mirroring the person’s presentation and developing resonance with the Other on multiple levels.

Questions to ask by the end of this step:

What did you learn? Is this incident and your reaction a new experience (that is, for the first time)? and

What did you affirm (that is, what did you already know and learn again)? And (what are the) Next Step(s)?

Source: “Listening with the Heart”. From The Instinct to Heal by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD