Deep Democracy Intensive

OUR 

DREAM 

• We aspire to co-facilitate with you a space for interactions between individuals, cultures, communities, viewpoints, value systems and religions – all to expand our experiences of who we are as individuals and as a collective. 

• We envision a discovery and celebration of the depth and beauty of our individual and collective natures. We apply Arnold Mindell’s Deep Democracy approach to self, relationship and community discovery. The stations along that journey might include conflict, disagreement, love, tension, and collaboration. 

• We want to co-create a space with you for collaborative learning experiences in relation to our individual paths as well as relationships with others, and how to discover and live the uniqueness of each of our beings in the context of the multi-dimensional diversity of this present world and universe. 

• We dream of a possible communion – each with ourselves and for some of us together as a collective – which includes conflict and the mutual spontaneous learning that results from working on it.

OUR GOALS

This year’s DDI Intensive will place a microscope on complex issues of rank and privilege at the intersection of power systems.

We will look at how the manifestation of rank and privilege changes moment by moment according to context and process, how this reflects our inner conflicts and inner lives, and how we as individuals and as a community can expand beyond the confines of our historical identities.

It will include working on religiosity, the study how religion influences culture, role structure, and more.

In the Intensive we will also work on tensions between the behavioral rules of our religious traditions, our personal inner experiences of creation, and the divine.

OUR CHALLENGES

We will be a highly diverse group of about 100 people, with diverse experiences in facilitation and coaching. Some of us will be experienced in Deep Democracy, for many it will be their first encounter. 

Our learning style is very interactive. We come with different degrees of mastery of the English language. 

Depending on culture and personal history, we have different relationships to conflict and escalation. From our past experience, a basic interest in learning is all that is needed to overcome these challenges.

Some of us are firmly planted in an identity, some of us barely feel that we have taken human form. Yet, our everyday lives require that we navigate within the boundaries of our cultures, personal identities, and communities and disavow the diversity of our experiences. However, we are all involved in pressing relationship and world issues around rank, privilege and overlapping intersectionality. 

DAY 1

Your Life-myth, Your Learning, Your Teaching:

Collaborative learning at the intersection of personal history, culture, and traditional role concepts.

DAY 5

Religion and Religiosity:

Diversity of the experience of the divine at the intersection of religious systems.

DAY 2

Aliens at the Intersection:

Identity, dreaming and essence of the facilitator at the intersection of vertical and horizontal communities.

DAY 6

Globalization and Sovereignty:

Mainstreaming of first world economical, psychological, and spiritual evolution paradigm (corruption, democracy, social justice, sovereignty, sexuality).

DAY 3

Avant-Garde and Community Development:

Political agency and facilitation.

DAY 7

Relationships and Money:

Social, psychological and spiritual ranks at the intersection of diverse paradigms of family, relationship, and money.

DAY 4

Intergenerational Relationships:

Family and timespirits.

DAY 8

Your Impact:

Vision, second training, inner critics, skills, and networking.

Ellen Schupbach, Ph.D.

and Max Schupbach, Ph.D.

Ellen and Max co-founded the Deep Democracy Institute and work in diverse settings in Africa, North America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia.
ELLEN SCHUPBACH is the executive director of DDI International. 
MAX SCHUPBACH is a founding member of the Process Work and Deep Democracy movements since their beginnings in the Eighties and has co-created Process Work communities world-wide.
Ellen and Max work with diverse groups, including Fortune 100 corporations, large and small NGOs, spiritual communities, social- activist groups, indigenous communities in Australia and Canada, and several governments. 

Ruth Weyermann

Ph.D. 

is a therapist and facilitator, and director of DDI Europe. Her interests include exploring the wisdom of body symptoms and unfolding the healing power of movements.  

Josef Helbling

Ph.D. 

is a psychotherapist, facilitator and supervisor from Switzerland. Josef is the Dean of Students in the DDI training programs. 

Xenia Kuleshova, Ph.D. 

is a Russian born physician and psychologist, living in Switzerland. She is the director of DDI Russia. She is producing films about intercultural relationships.

Yuliya Filippovska, M.A. 

lives in Kyiv and is the director of Deep Democracy Institute, Ukraine. She has brought the Hub Kyiv social entrepreneurship network and TEDxKyiv conference to Ukraine.

A. Gabryjelska-Basiuk,

M.A. 

is based in Warsaw, Poland. She is working with business, organizations, NGOs, and public institutions worldwide, facilitating change in multicultural communities. She is completing her Ph.D. on the topic of leadership, organizational culture and change. 

Nader Shabahangi, Ph.D.  

owns and runs elder communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and writes about re-visioning aging and a Process Work view of forgetfulness (dementia). 

Julia Wolfson,

Ph.D.  

is the author of "Applying Deep Democracy in Human Services". She is based in Australia and facilitates and coaches worldwide change processes, many of them in connection with Human Services.

Gill Emslie,

Ph.D. 

co-founded the Processwork Institute Barcelona. She works internationally in diverse settings including social and environmental justice. She lives in the Findhorn Foundation ecovillage.

Deep

Democracy

(also called Process Work)

Is a global, whole system approach to facilitate change, self-realization and self-discovery for individuals, families, teams, organizations, and governments. 

It is a new paradigm developed by Arnold Mindell that brings out the deepest selves of individuals, the underlying spirits of teams and organizations, and the invisible unity that is present in the midst of diversity, conflict, and strife. 

It can also be considered a project in developing urban shamanism. 

It can be used to coach individuals, facilitate teams and organizations, and lead and support national and international processes across communities and borders. 

It is a scientific model that integrates perspectives from physics, psychology, and complexity science.

It is a community building approach and a conflict resolution model that works with the entirety of information that is present within a system – and it is more than that. 

For those of us who are searching for awareness and meaning in difficulties, conflicts, and challenges,

DEEP DEMOCRACY

is 

a WAY 

of LIFE

Process Work is multi-dimensional whole system approach, discovering the natural flow of evolution hidden behind polarizations and conflicts. Facilitators and leaders are supported to develop eldership, which is the ability to hold and facilitate hotspots. Eldership also means to co-create natural dialogue spaces by developing a deep understanding of the processes of diverse, often polarized stakeholders. 

The personal and ”spiritual” development of the facilitator has a large focus in our Intensives, as does the facilitation of daily large group processes of our learning community. We consider fluidity in inner work and accuracy in applying skills in group work as closely connected prerequisites for successful facilitation and leadership. 

Our training has been portrayed as useful by diverse people and groups with meditation practioners, athletes, health workers, institutions, and governments. Because of this view, we feel a connection and camaraderie with sisters and brothers in the fields of organizational development, social movements, governments, technological innovation, and psychology. 

We sense that we also share a wholeness, evolving towards more awareness about ourselves and one another, more mutual understanding, greater respect, and, finally, better collaboration. 
Given the diversity on this planet, this is a handful!

You will learn to use your awareness to notice and frame the natural occurrence of unity present in every system, understand different phases in long-term consensus processes, and work with a system in each of these phases.

We understand “spiritual development” as a search of the facilitator to discover their deeper purpose in this life and relate it to a larger whole according to their own awareness and experiences.

We learn from and work together with various religious communities worldwide, such as (in alphabetical order) Buddhist, Christian, Indigenous Spirituality, Muslim, and Yezidi communities.

Our Learning Community

Typically, the group is composed of about 100 participants from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Asia, and the Americas, and includes business and NGO leaders, artists, scientists, politicians, journalists, coaches and therapists, change management experts, and community leaders. Additionally, participants represent different religions and spiritual communities, as well as different political directions. They hold opposing views on just about anything and everything. However, they also share the belief that awareness and facilitation can make our personal development and the development of organizations and nations less difficult and more effective. 

Diverse Learning Dreams 

Our deep democracy Intensives are meant for all people interested in uncovering who they are deep underneath, and how they are blossoming!

We love and try to support you in the awareness phase in which you find yourself. (See more Arnold Mindell, “Conflict: Phases, Forums, And Solutions.”)

This means we respect and support that your momentary passion could be: 

a project development and goal-oriented creation of your vision, the development and practice of political agency, a force meant to wake everyone up around injustices, a deeper wish to understand others better and expand your own identity and/or, of course, to connect to your essence beyond your human form, which is the source of spontaneous creativity.

Collaborative Research in Learning

Collaborative Research in Learning

We are very excited about our fresh concepts in collaborative learning. We add concepts of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and body centered learning experiences, and facilitate new ways of collaborative learning that process and transcend the traditional roles with which many of us have struggled. We will include additional learning methods and tracks for different learning needs and levels of experience; for example, opportunities for participants to experiment with teaching as a method for enhancing learning of concepts, etc. 

Full

Immersion!

This is a full immersion learning experience including linear, theoretical learning in mini lecture style, inner work and personal development in dyads, and group facilitation practice with other learners. Daily tutorials will be held for individuals that would like further study of the process work paradigm. 

Special daily focus will be placed on your own project development and implementation, and how to apply what you learn to your situation “back home.”  This will interweave organically within the format of large and small group processes. 

There will be opportunities for individual coaching, case presentation, and case studies.

Language:

English, with Thai translation

When:

Start - Tuesday, October 15: 10:00am
End - Tuesday, October 22: 1:00pm

Course fee:

1250 Euro + working scholarships are available, please contact us!