Report on Festival of Psychotherapy and Practical Psychology
Christmas-Tide Meetings-2006 (Sviatky)

Get ready for Sviatky in Summer

It is 6 months since the 12th Festival was over, and 6 more months left before the next, 13th Festival starts. Now it is the right time to gap the bridge between the two events, comprehend the present in order to look into the future.
Sviatky is no longer a local, discrete event. Now this is a continuum of events, meanings and feelings, shared by a small group of professionals called Sviatky Community. What are these feelings and meanings?

Logic of Evolution

Initially the Festival was meant to be a self-organising, self-evolving space that would have an impact on the organisation and the development of the profession. And all the years we have followed the development of our professional competence, our professional organizations, and the way these professional organisations and professions affect all that is going on around in life. This means that the Festival, that has been focused on the specialist, their knowledge and skills, on the professional community and the society at large, every time produced themes and issues that were of interest to the participants, thus reflecting and influencing all that is going inside the profession and around it.
In the early years it was the physical feeling of the newly developing community, the presence of people interested in psychotherapy that was of importance. We had great feeling of being pioneers and a thrilling feeling of belonging to the progressive culture of underground psychotherapy. We had everything ahead of us, and, in our fantasies, the future was ours. In those years we did not spare much thought to the content of the Festival. Whatever the participants did appeared important and interesting. Everything was for the first time and new! We enjoyed ourselves.
Later on we yielded the first fruit that we had planned: we started to gain acknowledgement from our patients and authorities, felt our professional skills, learned to tell interesting from what is not. There appeared a contest It was most prestigious and significant to us! Yet, the content of the Festival was not of paramount importance. More important it was competing with those like we, the ability to handle the subtle matter of relations with clients/patients, and the ability to demonstrate our competence. We enjoyed the communication among ourselves.
The 10th Festival, being a jubilee, made us, for the first time, formulate the key topic. This marked a transition to a new dialogue – the dialogue with the rest of the World. The scale of the themes, judging by the size of the dialogue-partner (the rest of the World) was based on the megalomaniac: The Common And The Different », «The Variable And The Constant » and, finally «The Feminine And The Masculine». The last of the themes, as if winding up a 12-year cycle, brought us back. To thoughts on our limits and dependency on our partners, on males and females, in our attempts to fathom the mystery of this World. It is only through co-operation that non-almighty specialists could go on solving the issues that the Festival has initially faced. This has driven us towards the theme for the next Festival - «The Hidden And The Obvious ». However, let’s not put the cart before the horse.

«The Feminine And The Masculine»

94 participants attended the 12th Festival (19 of those being part of the Child Programme), representing 18 parts of Russia and Norway.
The Festival included 3 key-note discussions, group and project presentation, Community meeting, Session of Academy, 21 workshop, an integrative supervision, 3 large groups, daily procedure groups. The evening entertaining programme included Welcome Cocktail, Christmas-Tide Skit, football matches for the Trophy of Sviatky, Carnival, and Farewell Party.

Gerd-Ragna Bloch Thorsen, psychiatrist, President of Norwegian Psychiatric Association, Leader of Psychiatric Information Foundation PsykOpp, who sponsored one of the professional prizes, in her welcome speech said that the Festival was “Unique for the entire World”. And she knows what she is saying, while the participants are happy to believe that, because that reflects their feeling of uniqueness of the experience they gain.
We can’t say that an experienced specialist would find something extraordinary in the Festival Grid. We are living not in the age of sensations. There is something different – a chance to get into the depth you need, together with other “depth-people” of the same kind, and to explore what is going on inside you, which is many-fold reflected in a stream of events, one coming out of another.
The theme was provoking, even before the festival. Looked like the programme would be pressed under the need to find and argue newer differences. The theme was involving in a bizarre way. It seemed that the inability of males and female to bring together and compare feminine and masculine experience, would reduce the whole Christmas-Tide Community to a non-productive discussion between people possessing just feminine and masculine viewpoints. Yet, this never happened. The specialists argued over eternal psychotherapeutic and human issue, staying well aware of their gender identity. This awareness aroused deep and burning interest to each other, while co-operation and responsibility appeared there, rather than competition. It might have revealed itself in a teenage way, sometimes (the Festival is 11), in an awkward reluctance to say “Good-Bye”, like after a summer holiday in a pioneer camp (this is why for some of them there was morning, when others went to bed, while, actually, outside the midday Sun threw millions of sparks onto the January snow), in a touching cry having no adult authority at the Christmas-Tide skit, and in funny characters that, all of a sudden,  became key figures at the Farewell Party.
Every event indicated that the Festival was growing.

Key-note discussions «Feminine And Masculine: Professional Communities», speaker Olav Thorsen (Stavanger), «Feminine And Masculine: Coming-To-Be» speaker Sergey Peshkov (Stavropol) «Feminine And Masculine: Ideals» speaker Vitalia Berezueva (Stavropol) and Sergey Ivanov (Stavropol) started every new day and stroked the key-note of the professional dialogue. The discussions, led by experienced specialists Elena Koryoukina, Natalia Popova (Stavropol) and Vladimir Romek (Rostov-on-Don) involved all the participants, allowing them face all the urgent issues and controversies. The general, integrative supervision focused primarily not on the content of the clinical case presented, but on the approaches to understanding that by various specialists. Alexey Koryoukin, together with the entire professional community, discussed approaches and viewpoints on the case presented by Andrey Grigorov.

Workshops
Twenty leaders from eight cities delivered twenty one workshops:

Tatiana Vasilets (Rostov-on-Don). «Male & Female – Mystery of Sacred Marriage».
Larissa Vassilieva (Lermontov). «Male Club. Male & Female in XXI Century. Female View».
Roman German, Ivan Korolevsky (Stavropol), Alexey Tochka (Nevinnomysk). «Male Club».
Vladimir Romek (Rostov-on-Don), Anna Gubanova (St. Petersburg). «Wedding Fuss».
Irina Eliseeva (Moscow). «Dance Is Life».
Natalia Zviagintseva (Stavropol).  «Jewish Mother».
Natalia Zviagintseva (Stavropol).  «Who Needs You?».
Sergey Ivanov (Stavropol). «We seduce, we are being seduced».
Sergey Ivanov (Stavropol). «Case presented by Luis Bunuelle «This Vague Object of Desire».
Alexey Koryoukin (Mikhailovsk). «Building a house? Just another piece of cake!».
Elena Koryoukina(Mikhailovsk). «About Psychoanalysis In Simple».
Ekaterina Loskoutova (Stavropol).  «Project For Restructuring Society Based On Theory of Homosocialism».
Galina Moskotinina (Stavropol) «Love & Hatred or On the Way to Adult Relationships».
Tamara Oleshko (Rostov-on-Don). «Love, Love – Mysterious Word?» (Theory).
Tamara Oleshko (Rostov-on-Don). «Love, Love – Mysterious Word?» (Practice).
Ilona Romanova (Yekaterinburg). «Men and Women in Psychotherapy: Gender-Role Identification of Psychotherapists».
Yuri Savrasov (Stavropol). «Go-ahead advertisement designer. Seminar-engineering of art».
Denis Sevryougin (Stavropol). « Feminine And Masculine: After…».
Andrey Taldykin  (Rostov-on-Don). «Dream And Fantasy Maps. Analytical Tradition With Psychodynamic Techniques Refraction».

The participants had a wide variety of options to choose from – experienced specialists representing various areas of mental health service presented their work. Traditionally, other specialists, feeling connection between their professional areas and the World of Psychology joined them, too. He participants’ attitudes well fit the aims set by the workshop leaders. Calm atmosphere was changed with a storm of feelings and emotions, which was later processed at large group meetings. The leaders of large groups – experienced “Christmas-Tiders”, conducted elaborate discussions so that to bring some order into the impressions from the day events. And the large groups themselves made it possible to follow oneself and the processes going on in the Festival at large. This year the leader of large groups was Andrey Grigorov (Moscow). The fact that he succeeded Vladimir Tsapov in this “Holy Position” gave raise to another issue for discussion – competition between the young and the elder, placing emphasis on the difference between different generations of specialists. The same issue was discussed at the community meeting (Leader: Elena Koryoukina). The issue of maturity – both professional and personal, the generation gap, the adult and the child – all this led to understanding the new mission of the Festival. Metaphorically that could be defined as the need to pass from the state of childhood of the profession to its adult state. The same issue was disc used at the Academy meeting. The Academicians did not just adopt the draft regulation, yet they started a serious discussion concerning mutual trust among specialists. By the way, is there any trust among specialists of mental health service? The answer seemed obvious and sad. They decided not to take any prompt measures but to allow the trust to grow and then, based on that trust, to compose newer tables of ranks. Yet, that discussion did not impede the process of electing the best ones at the 12th Festival. Here is the list of winners together with the funny explanations suggested by the Festival Jury. The Jury was constituted by: Larissa Apazheva (Nalchick), Dmitry Yurchenko (Pyatigorsk), Maria Gavrina (Nevinnomyssk), Ekaterina Loskutova (Stavropol), Gerd-Ragna Bloch Throsen (Stavanger).

Official Professional Nominations

Virtuoso of practice of Christmas-tide meetings – for the most striking presentation of practical application of professional skills – Elena Koryoukina (Mikhailovsk), for the ability to demonstrate  psychoanalytical approach even at Christmas-Tide Meetings

Genius of Enlightenment – for ability to share the richness of one’s knowledge in creative atmosphere – Sergey Ivanov (Stavropol), for the tears of the men who were seduced

Master of feelings of Christmas-tide meetings – for creation of affectively charged atmosphere, for careful and effective use of feelings – Natalia Zviagintseva (Stavropol), for becoming the participants’ Jewish Mother (in the best meaning of the word)

Other Official Nominations

Soul of Sviatky – for most enthusiastic and favourable comment concerning professional and personal qualities demonstrated at Sviatky – Sergey Popov (Astrakhan), for hearfulness both in the programme events and beyond those

Discovery of Sviatky – for the brightest and creative work demonstrated by a new participant – Ilona Romanova (Yekaterinburg), for personal and professional variety

Client of Sviatky – for the openness to one’s own feelings and involvement in solving inner psychic conflicts at the Festival – Nadezhda Parshikova (Lipetsk), for the variety of ways to stir feelings and attraction

Healthiest Person – for physical and mental health, for a healthy attitude towards Sviatky and the participants – Yury Scherbakov (Stavropol), for a healthy approach in verbalizing the Christmas-Tide Spirit, which is not always healthy

«Christmas Scum» – for an uncommon creative way of communication, for an ability to play near foul – Anna Vetlitskaya (Stavropol), for dynamics in male and female relationships

«Richest Person of Christmas-tide meetings» - for generosity, passion and biggest contribution to the next Festival – Nadezhda Parshikova (Lipetsk)

Christmas-Tide Chosen One – for the ability to remain a real man/woman even when at a professional event
Dmitry Gavrin (Nevinnomyssk)
Irina Kondratenko (Donskoe)

Non-Official Nominations:
Mark of Jury – Dmitry Gavrin (Nevinnomyssk) – for regular supply the energetic beverage stimulating brutal mental activity
Mark of Directorate – The Grigorovs (Moscow)
Child Mark – Alla Kharkovskaya (Pyatigorsk)
«Christmas-Tide Lamer»
Evgenya Ishkova(Stavropol)
«Christmas-Tide Alarm Clock»
Marina Vlasiuk (Astrakhan)

Non-Child Sviatky

The feeling of the professional community’s maturity went on together with the process of maturity of those participating in the child programme. Along with the programme for adults, there was a strong and unanimous youngsters’ uproar. This time our children managed to win the traditional Christmas-Tide Trophy when matched against the never-getting-old Psychodynamic Elks and the local semi-professional team Dynamo (Kiev).
The Christmas-Tide Children’s ability to offer adult stubborn competition and, at the same time, the feeling of their prematurity to be included into the adult programme, well matched the position of our professions and specialists in the nowadays world. The feeling of one’s capacity along with anxiety over being not demanded in the modern society tear us apart between the burning desire to occupy our own niche and hidden in the cosy world of adolescence.

«The Hidden And The Obvious»

Facing the real world of human relationships is always full of bizarre, awful and good mysteries. The professional community of Russian mental health service, as we see it, is currently going through its adolescent stage, which perfectly characterises the Christmas-Tide community. We have always found it gripping to solve together the issues of development that we face, nor are we going to stop now. Join us! Looking forward to meeting you!