Over the next two days I'm due to run a two day training workshop in Glasgow on "Psychotherapy with couples & other close relationships".  Here are the downloadable slides for the first day on "Working with couples" (sadly with the cartoons removed for copyright reasons) and here the slides for the second day on "Close relationships".  There are lots of relevant handouts - here are the details.

                                       "The way is not in the sky.  The way is in the heart."           Dhammapada

           "Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life,                                                                    by far the most important is friendship."           Epicurus

        "Friendship is the single most important factor influencing our health, well-being, and happiness."                                                            Robin Dunbar, Oxford emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology 

“

The impediment to action advances the action.  What stands in the way becomes the way.

” - Marcus Aurelius

                       Social networks: Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model (assessing how we're doing)

key points: 

1.)  Please would you download a personal community map (see below) and begin to fill it in. 

2.)  While filling in the map and afterwards, answer the items on the associated questionnaire ... and start to jot down possible intentions too.

“ There are no paths, paths are made by walking. ” - Australian Aboriginal saying

               Social networks: Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model (sympathy group & full active network)

key point: 

“ To stand and stare, to watch the rising sun, fills me with such calm happiness, I am sure I have dwindled away too much time on inessentials. ” - Diana Gault (when dying of cancer)

                         Social networks: Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model (support clique/closest relationships)

key point: 

In this first part of three on Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 personal social network model, I introduce the crucially important inner layer - the 'support clique' of closest relationships.

“

People say how creative the All Blacks are, but creativity is just practice that's camouflaged.  It comes from hard work.

” - Wayne Smith, All Blacks rugby coach

Personal social networks are hugely important for our health & wellbeing, as I've underlined in the first of this six post sequence - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model".  However our personal networks are also regularly affected by conflicts, especially with those we're close to.  It's not a surprise - if you're very close to someone, it's likely you'll sometimes step on each other's toes.  Here are a set of four slides that illustrate this point:

I've recently written three blog posts about relationships - "Personal social networks (1st post): Dunbar's 5-15-50-150 model", "Personal social networks (2nd post): the sympathy group & the full active network" and "Personal social networks (3rd post): assessing how we're doing".  Towards the end of the second of these posts I said I particularly like the paper "Do birds of a feather flock together?"&nbsp

If you'd like to clarify and potentially look after your personal social network better, a good place to start is to chart it. You can download a simple blank chart here either in Word doc or PDF format.  Filling in the whole "Personal community map" can take a good hour or two, so possibly ... at this stage ... just put your support clique into the most central circle.