PDW 2023
2020 PDW finally happened February 22 to 26, 2023.
The oft-postponed 2020 PDW finally happened by hooking onto the Southern California Bioenergetic Conference (SCBC) at Lake Arrowhead California (USA). We had 12 people and while most were from North America, we had participants from Brazil, Europe and New Zealand as well.
The struggles to have the PDW actually happen did not end when the last participants arrived, for a blizzard came in, the roads were closed and we were left to play in the snow. The Conference Centre staff, who were locked in like us, were extremely helpful and reminded us that they never seen anything like this before. 155 cm of snow is a lot in 3 days.
Attaching a PDW to a conference has the benefit of a larger number of people who are committed to Bioenergetics and open and willing to talk about the life of the body. The SCB Conference protected much time for group processing to deepen and integrate the content presented. This fit with the time for individual work in a group setting that is an important component of a PDW. PDW participants joined other conference members for the morning Keynote presentations and afternoon workshops. The PDW met as a whole group and at times in two groups - Track 2 and Track 3, to focus more on Track objectives.
In summary, most participants got what they wanted from both the Conference and the PDW. It is an option that can be offered in future as we develop helpful guidelines. Some examples of content we were emersed in:
- Love is better than Prozac – Laurie Ure
- Embodiment and Bioenergetics through a feminine lens – Lina Hines
- Depression as restriction in the attachment relationship – Kate Dent Rennie
- Learning to Fly – Dante Moretti
- A Somatic- Relational Perspective on Anxiety - Homayoun Shahri
- Building Capacity for Vitality in the Self - Ann L-K Coleman
PDW Committee | Alex Munroe & PDW Faculty (Track 3) | Diana Guest