Summary
The Pellin Institute has been providing foster carer training to Banya foster carers, social workers and staff for over 3 years and trained some 80 people in this time. This training is based on the ‘Pellin Workbook for Foster Carers: Foundation Course’. The Calm of the Pendulum is one of the most fundamental tools and the common theme in the foundation course. We would like to take this opportunity to provide an insight into this training to the wider fostering community in the form of a workshop on the Pellin tool of the Calm of the Pendulum.
Background to the work
Peter Fleming, the founder of the Pellin Institute, developed Contribution Training (CT) following on from his work with his mentors David Pellin & Fritz Perls. CT is a unique integration of Psychodynamic (Freud), Behavioural (CBT) and Humanistic elements of psychotherapy and psychology. It provides a practical, accessible psychology made up of what we call the Pellin Tools. Some of these tools have been brought together in the ‘Pellin Workbook for Foster Carers:
Foundation Course’ which is the backbone of the well-established successful foster carer training Pellin runs for Banya.
Whilst these tools are applicable to everyday life situations from the run-of-the-mill parenting issues like bedtime, homework and good manners, they also provide powerful insights into, strategies and techniques for managing major trauma that foster parents in particular encounter.
The workshop
One of the most fundamental tools and the common theme in the Foundation Course is ‘The Calm of the Pendulum’. It is used to recognise our emotional state and, if we are not in a good emotional state, provides strategies & techniques to bring us to a better emotional state. A poor emotional state is, for example, blind anger or rage where our words and actions are at best erratic and at worst destructive and we tend to make poor decisions (we call this a Pendulum High). A good emotional state is a much calmer, reflective place where our words and actions are much more considered, reasoned and constructive and we tend to make much better decisions (we call it the Calm of the Pendulum).
Conclusion
We feel that this workshop will be helpful to the participants and provide an insight into the greater work done by Pellin & Banya.
