Welcome to the Voice Dialogue Australia Newsletter.

This email is intended for people interested in Voice Dialogue and personal growth work.

This newsletter covers a range of topics and introduces new courses and training for the second half of 2009 and into 2010.

A highlight of the past year was the New York Voice Dialogue Convergence, a meeting of international Voice Dialogue teachers.

If you have received this email in error, and do not wish to remain a subscriber, please click on the unsubscribe link at left to be removed from the list.

Warm wishes,
Paul Gale-Baker
Director

News

Voice Dialogue Australia Moves!

Many of you are familiar with our centre in Alphington, which we operated from for over 10 years. After an extended period of renovation we finally said farewell to the centre in late June. While we were sad to move, it has freed us up to focus more closely on Voice Dialogue work. Paul now conducts Voice Dialogue sessions from Ivanhoe, just 2 km up the road from Alphington.

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Voice Dialogue training 2009 - 2010

We are offering Voice Dialogue Training beginning October 2009. Training in Voice Dialogue is offered in 3 Levels. Completion of the 3 Levels is designed to provide the practitioner with a high level of clinical skill and theoretical understanding in Voice Dialogue. >Read details, dates and cost here.

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New York Convergence

As teachers of Voice Dialogue for over 15 years, we were invited to the 2008 International Convergence in New York. The Convergence was a 5 day intensive exchange of views and planning for getting the Voice Dialogue message out to more people. It was an exciting way to reconnect with the energy of Voice Dialogue through the people who are most committed to the teaching and practice.

One of the most exciting things to come out of the Convergence was the interest in researching the evidence-base for the effectiveness of Voice Dialogue. Voice Dialogue Australia is co-ordinating information about this to assist in a wider acceptance of the method. We are particularly interested in the contribution that neuroscience can offer to our understanding of what it is that makes Voice Dialogue so effective.

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Course Update

Who's Running Your Life?

A One Day Course

Who’s really running your life? Not to mention your relationships and work!

In a fun, experiential format, this course will introduce you to some of the selves which play a major role in your life.

While the course is approached in a light-hearted way, the learning you will take away will be profound. In the course you will experience these selves at first hand and learn how to understand how they impact your life.

You will learn how you can begin to have more choice about when and how they come in. This course is suitable for everyone who has felt stuck, disempowered, self-critical or in some way at the mercy of parts of themselves they don’t completely understand.

It is suitable for those wishing to begin the Professional Training in Voice Dialogue, as well as those interested primarily in personal growth.

Paul Gale-Baker will lead the course. >Read more and book here.

Relationship Renovation is our next relationship course. A one-day course for couples and individuals, it is based on the Voice Dialogue model, it incorporates current research into relationship and helps by uncovering relationship patterns which are often unconscious. The course provides tools to assist in making permanent positive change. >Read more here about the course.

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Articles

More About the Voice Dialogue Method

Voice Dialogue allows clients to form a relationship with aspects of themselves in order to integrate aspects of the personality.

The core of Voice Dialogue work is the experience of meeting parts of ourselves in a structured way. Unlike role-playing, the experience of different selves in Voice Dialogue is a real one. People are very frequently surprised meeting these parts since selves have clear identities – feelings, attitudes and thoughts – very different from those of our everyday personalities.

While this can often feel challenging, it is important to understand that this is quite natural. Research in neuroscience is providing growing evidence of the way in which our brains are structured so that different ‘compartments’ – neural pathways – handle different areas of our life.

The current emphasis on neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to ‘grow’ throughout life – is evidence of this.Many forms of therapy can make use of neuroplasticity to allow us to change in helpful ways which allow us to change behaviours and responses to life.

The evidence from our experience and that of our colleagues internationally, is that Voice Dialogue is almost certainly one of the most direct and effective ways of making use of the plasticity of the brain (and therefore of the mind).

Our thinking about how this comes to be is that the facilitation of parts – having the client become present as one self – allows more complex interconnectivity in the brain/mind. That is, selves become more distinct, rather than simply being part of the complicated mass of thoughts and feelings which characterises our daily life.

We are able to relate to these parts rather than them being habitual behaviours or attitudes.

Ultimately this means that we are able to encounter the world from a more dynamic and flexible place. We are able to choose more freely, whether making decisions or in relationship.

All material Copyright © Paul Gale-Baker, 2009

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