Hi everyone,

This is really an e-mail for those at the workshop and for presenters
specifically. I'm not sure if a smaller list would be more appropriate, but for
now here it is:

The workshop/research meeting was really exciting for me, and I am eager to help
plan FAP II for next summer again in Seattle and start a discussion of the
myriad issues raised this year. Most exciting to me was to get a large chunk of
the FAP community in one place at the same time, for more than a dinner. It has
amped up my enthusiasm and commitment.

Having everyone together for the first time also highlighted a number of issues
related to FAP that there is apparently little consensus on, which I am eager to
start to discuss. To me, the larger context of these issues is similar to what
Kirk said (Kirk's talk is already being cited as the greatest FAP talk in
history, and will be quoted for decades!): FAP has evolved and changed since
1991, but these evolutions and changes have not been published or formally
agreed upon. How does one decide what is and isn't FAP? The Reno FAP/Seattle
FAP distinction has been clarified for me, and I prefer to call it the
Bill/Mavis continuum, with Bill representing a sort of behavior
analytic/scientific precision/skepticism/conservatism on the one hand and Mavis
representing a sort of experiential/clinical/intuitive CRB2-focused openness on
the other hand, but that characterization caricatures both of them quite a bit,
does not acknowledge that either appreciates the other end which of course they
do, and is a bit polemical, so take it with a big grain of salt.

I'm just up for airing differences to see if some consensus, compromise,
agreement, or statement can be reached about these issues, to move FAP ahead in
a planful manner, rather than multiple FAPs developing. Something about
multiple FAPs bothers me. I sort of blocked discussion that could have led to
this during the research meeting on Monday, so I'm opening it up now.

I actually have a list of around 7 issues, but in order to keep listserve
discussion from being of the typical meandering/tangential type that often
occurs on these lists, I'll present one at a time. Of course, my list isn't
definitive; it's just my list.

This is the one that generated the most discussion.

1) The role of experiential exercises in FAP workshops, and the role of
mindfulness/genuineness/emotional
connectedness/whatever-is-targeted-by-those-exercises in FAP itself. It is
clear that some workshop attendees were quite offput by these moves, while
others loved them, and it is also clear there was mixed opinion about them from
presenters. Reaction to the exercises that I have heard have been characterized
fairly accurately as on the Mavis/Bill continuum. I know there is a lot of
opinion on this that some may be reluctant to share, especially as criticizing
the exercises may be taken as criticizing Mavis or others who did them. I'm
working under the assumption no one will take my comments that way.

Discussion? I'll start: Some of the experiential stuff worked on me -
connected me to the material in a way that nothing else did. I've wanted stuff
like that in workshops for years, and now I have a template and a model to work
from. I like the more explicit connection to the ACT material that the
exercises facilitated, specifically how the acceptance/genuineness/showing up
repertoires so important to ACT actually are crucial to being a good FAP
therapist - I hadn't seen that as clearly before, and have no problem simply
borrowing stuff from ACT and that Steve Hayes has done, tweaking it a bit for
FAP, and using it. With all of the exercises, however, I think a more explicit
connection to the FAP principles would help a lot. With one or two of the
exercises, however, I thought, "what the heck is this?" and not only couldn't
see the connection to FAP but thought there probably wasn't one. I agree with
Bill that the impromptu, spontaneous, and surprising connections that occurred
during the workshop were powerful to watch and did not feel forced or arbitrary
the way some of the exercises did at times, but I still think there's an
important place for some of the exercises, with some tweaking and more
behavioral analysis of them and connection to principles.


O.K. - someone say something.

Jonathan




Jonathan W. Kanter, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor and Clinic Coordinator
Department of Psychology
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
P.O. Box 413
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Office: Garland Hall 238C
(414) 229-3834