The Existential BOOM – Hold the Press!
Join us (IN-PERSON!) from 10th to 13th July 2025 for a weekend to ignite the
Awareness about RELATEDNESS through the SPIRIT OF PLAY
Lectures by Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and Dr. Betty Cannon
Experiential Group Process with Dr. Yaqui Martinez and Bárbara Godoy
Forget stiff upper lips and Freudian slips…
We meet from the 10th to the 13th of July at Rudolf Steiner House, London NW1
“Existential psychotherapy places pivotal significance upon the inter-relational aspects of human experience. By so doing, the therapeutic relationship itself becomes the principal means through which the client’s presenting symptoms and disorders are disclosed as direct expressions and outcomes of the client’s overall “way of being” rather than as isolated and disruptive impediments. At the same time, existential therapy emphasises the actual relationship that emerges between psychotherapist and client and argues that it is via the contrast and comparison of this lived experience with that of their ‘wider world’ experience that clients can find the means to reconsider and reconstruct their “ways of being”. It is the mutual emphasis upon inter-relatedness as a foundational value for human enquiry that reveals substantive and intriguing points of connection between existential psychotherapy and phenomenological enquiry.” – Prof. Ernesto Spinelli
“The spirit of play allows us to embrace the circumstances of our lives without being swallowed up by them. It gives us the space in which to recognise our freedom. The spirit of play is not so much a way of thinking as a way of experiencing. It is a lived encounter with the lightness of being. This does not mean that we escape from painful emotions or life situations, but that we approach them with a sense of agency – with the capacity to see possibilities and engage in opportunities. In a contemporary world characterized by a staggering amount of change and uncertainty, the spirit of play may help us to meet these challenges with curiosity and openness rather than terror and overwhelm.” – Dr Betty Cannon
What to Expect:
This will be a playground for therapists to nurture the imagination, release inhibitions and mobilize therapeutic insights.
Lectures + Dialogues + Meditation + Group Process + Fringe Events + Food & Drinks + Live Music + Much More!
We will aim for an Opening to perceive the world around and inside each of us more clearly, in order to grasp the many opportunities to review our sedimented patterns. Gradually, new ways to communicate with others will become available to us through playful creativity.
During the weekend, we will engage in experiential group process work, offering a space to openly, respectfully, playfully, and warmly explore the different dynamics of interpersonal interaction.
Bárbara Godoy and Dr. Yaqui Martinez will serve us as “Vestals: Guardians of the sacred fire”, in order to bring to life the themes from the lectures and dialogues.
The Existential BOOM Schedule
Get to know our main Speakers
Prof. Ernesto Spinelli was Chair of the Society for Existential Analysis between 1993 and 1999 and is a Life Member of the Society. His writings, lectures and seminars focus on the application of existential phenomenology to the arenas of therapy, supervision, psychology, and executive coaching. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS) as well as an APECS accredited executive coach and coaching supervisor. In 2000, he was the Recipient of BPS Division of Counselling Psychology Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Profession. And in 2019, Ernesto received the BPS Award for Distinguished Contribution to Practice. His most recent book, Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World 2nd edition (Sage, 2015) has been widely praised as a major contribution to the advancement of existential theory and practice. Living up to the existential dictum that life is absurd, Ernesto is also the author of an on-going series of Private Eye novels.
Betty Cannon, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who has taught and practiced in Boulder, Colorado, for over 40 years. She is Professor Emerita of the Colorado School of Mines and president and founder of the Boulder Psychotherapy Institute, which has trained mental health professionals in Applied Existential Psychotherapy since 1989. In addition to existential philosophy, especially the philosophy of Sartre, AEP has roots in Gestalt therapy, classical and contemporary psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology (especially the person-centered therapy of Carl Rogers), and body-oriented psychotherapy. Betty is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal for the Society of Existential Analysis and Sartre Studies International. She is the author of Sartre and Psychoanalysis and numerous articles and chapters on existential therapy. Her mentor was Hazel E. Barnes, who translated Sartre into English and who was the world’s foremost Sartre scholar until her death in 2008. Betty is her literary executor, and her book on Sartre is dedicated to Hazel.
Get to know our Vestals
Dr. Yaqui A. Martínez-Robles is a psychologist with Masters, PhD and PsyD in Psychotherapy. He has training in Gestalt Therapy; Music Therapy; Transpersonal Psychology and Holotropic Breathwork (with the Grof Transpersonal Training Association); Narrative and postmodern therapies and Social Constructionism; and in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (with the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and MAPS-Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). He is the author of four books, and co-author of another two, focused on the existential perspective. He has participated with chapters in several books and with articles in several journals. Yaqui is the founder of the Circle of Studies in Existential Therapy, in Mexico City and in Medellin, Colombia,. He teaches existential-phenomenological psychology and therapy in Mexico and different countries of South America. He is the current president of the Latin American Association of Existential Psychotherapy (ALPE). He works in private practice as an existential-phenomenological therapist and coach, in modalities one-on-one, couples and groups.
Bárbara Godoy M.A., Adv. Dip. Exi. Psy, UKCP accredited Psychotherapist and Supervisor, MBACP and SEA – Director of Therapy Harley Street. Bárbara’s academic experience in London since 2008 includes lecturing and researching on the theory and practice of Phenomenological Existential Therapy on Doctorate, MA and professional courses at the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology, Regent’s University and the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling directed by Emmy van Deurzen. Bárbara has facilitated therapeutic Group Work internationally since 1997. The question about the meaning of Being-Woman was the topic of her thesis completed in 2005 and evolved into two main Women’s Groups: “Nine muses” and “Four Seasons” which she leads in addition to her individual private practice. Currently, as the clinical director of THS, Bárbara leads a team of over 20 professional practitioners in the area of Psychological services and Wellbeing consultancy. Bárbara is also the founder-director of THS’s Personal Development and CPD Programmes.