This two-hour presentation is entirely experiential. Major sources are Bowen, Bradshaw and Naranjo. The participants will first form an Opening Circle. They will do a Visualization with Music in which they return to their childhood home where they will allow themselves to re-experience early moments of vulnerability and the actions they took to defend themselves. Perhaps, they were overwhelmed with the anger in the house and hid in a closet. The withdrawal was the defensive posture. In pairs they exchange these stories. Afterwards they have an emotional dialogue about this with one of their parents in the presence of their partner and their Higher Power. Now participants from each type will compose a panel to tell how they are still playing out this initial wounding. What triggers the habitual response? Do we see it coming? Do we try to alter or diminish the power of it? Finally, there will be a closing circle and a short period for feedback.

The theoretical belief is that, by expressing the wound to another, the witnessing removes the belief that the wound is not real; by expressing the feeling to the source of the wound, the need to act it out (projection) is diminished.

Lila Caffery, MA, CCHT took her Masters degree in Counseling at the University of Maryland. She is a graduate of the Georgetown Family Center’s two year training program in Family Systems Therapy, Murray Bowen, M.D., founding director, and a is a graduate of Jay Haley’s Strategic Therapy training. She later trained at Saybrook Institute as a clinical hypnotherapist under Ian Wickrammasakera, PhD, and took her certificate at the Palo Alto School of Hypnotherapy. Later influences include John Bradshaw, Virginia Satir and Maureen Redyl, MFCC. Her own spiritually based work combines family drama, art, music, visualization and role playing. She has presented her Intensives in the Bay Area and Japan since 1990 and has a private practice in San Francisco and Belmont, CA. She specializes in couples work, and in food, love, sex, Internet and chemical addiction. Her study of the Enneagram has included conferences and workshops with most of the leaders in the field, including her most recent Authentic Enneagram training in England. Since 2003 she has integrated this work into all her therapy. She is a professional member of the NCIEA,. Her recently published article in the December issue of Enneagram Monthly is available on her website: www.innerchildhealing.com.