Jonathan,

I think it is fabulous to be connected to the FAP
community over the internet, so please don't exclude
us who were not at the workshop! I am slowly digesting
the e-mail about assessment and research. I have
limited internet access at this time, so it is hard
for me always to stay on top of things, but I
definitely want to be included. My training in
graduate school that was most linked with FAP was my
Gestalt class, which focused a lot on the
experiential, here-and-now, immediacy, saliency, etc.
Very powerful and intimate. I loved the class but like
the behavioral theory better, because it makes so much
more sense to me.

Thank you so much for your e-mail and initiation of
discussions.

--- Jonathan Kanter <jkanter@...> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>





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