Working with teachers in workshop - therapeutic and educative processes in small group

Abstract

The psychological workshop for theachers is a specific form of education within a small group which appeared at a time when the need arose amongst teachers for new insights into the psychology of children and for support fom their colleagues and experts, when they felt personal and professional insecurity in confronting the after-effects of war amongst children and when existing methods and forms of education for achieving these goals proved insufficient. The general purpose of workshops for theachers, which developed in Croatia especially during the recent war, is to educate and train for work with children after the war, by relaying information from the domain of traumatic psychology, by giving support to the teachers and prompting the development of empathy, tolerance, coping with stress and similar capabilities. The workshop is a form of small group where many therapeutic changes besides the educational ones take place. These therapeutic effects take place incidentally and facilitate the process of education. Within the workshop, educational processes (associative learning, instrumental learning, learning through imitation, introjection and identification) take place at the same time as the therapeutic processes (insight, empathy, mirroring, affective changes, behavioural changes).