Arron Mannix

ABOUT ME: Besides teaching, I have worked in multi-disciplinary teams as a psychologist within services that provide care for adults with addiction, children with severe traumas as well as a self-employed psychotherapist.

LESSON ORIENTATION: To ensure students develop the requisite skills that a psychotherapist/psychologist employs with their clients, I like to use a mix of exercises that oscillate between requiring preparation and absolute improvisation. All exercises used will be as authentic as possible to ensure there is external validity to everything that we do and lessons learned are directly transferable and applicable to the desired context of the student - be it in your organisation, in relationships etc.,

There are a couple of guiding principles that will provide the new schema to approach communication dynamics, enable the student to contrast the subtleties and nuances of the new approach, based on understanding, with the dispositional communication method that is employed the world over - the solution-focused approach to communication.

On a micro level, some conceptual tools will be provided so that students can analyse each sentence stated and ensure that the student can generate an alternative that is more aligned with the new approach.

All in all, after a couple of sessions getting to know the theory and engaging in practice, the student will be able to harness these skills going forward in all settings where a non-judgmental, understanding approach could be of benefit.