A Satir Lens for Working with Couples

The couple relationship within the family system is central to the family's health, structure, and growth. This workshop explores couples work from a Satir perspective by examining key concepts such as the Five Freedoms, coping stances, congruence, and family rules. Participants will learn how these concepts support clients in navigating the change process to foster deeper connection and growth.

In this experiential training, we will discuss practical applications of these principles and explore why they are essential tools for professionals working with couples.

Congruent Co-Parenting in Cases of Divorce

Divorce and parental separation are among the most challenging circumstances families experience. The process involves profound grief and transition that impacts all domains of family life. This workshop explores how practitioners can actively support and coach families through the divorce process and the complexities of co-parenting using core concepts from the Satir Growth Model.

Participants will examine the role of congruence, coping stances, the change process, and the 7 A’s as practical tools for supporting individuals and families during this transition. Through discussion and experiential learning, this training will highlight ways practitioners can help family members move from the identity of formerly married partners toward restored human beings who can engage fully and responsibly in their roles as co-parents for the benefit of the entire family system.

Exploring the Mandala: An Interview of Stephen Buckbee by John Banmen

Interview of Stephen Buckbee by Dr. John Banmen about his interest in the Mandala and its applications.

Mental and Emotional Harmony

This workshop begins with a short introduction of the workshop process and applying the COACH State (physical movement) with all to get a focused state.

It continues with reciting the poem “I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having…” by V.S. as a short meditation that introduces the spirit and builds the connection to her meaning of “becoming more fully human” (as I understand it).

Next, the process of the core workshop is introduced in the breakout rooms, including a link to a virtual campfire where 3–5 people are sitting around the campfire in nature to go through the process. At the end of the session in the breakout room, the “star” and the others (resources) tell each other one key word they learned or transformed in the session and that they may want to activate in their daily life with others.

The workshop concludes by coming together again and bringing the learnings and experience to the audience, if wished.

The Dawn of Everything: What We Can Learn from Early Human Communities

Cultural archeology is giving us a glimpse of what early human communities were like. And while these communities were no garden of Eden, they were largely based on deep communication, human connection and cooperation, and a communal understanding of morality. They were also largely influenced by full female participation in the lives of those who chose to form communal groups. To be fully human was to depend on each other, to know each other, to be open to change, and to make room for differences. Coupling the messages/meanings emanating from these early communities with defining attributes essential to modern communication, we can more clearly define what the actual attributes are that define being more fully human.

The Leaders' Journey: From Titles to Congruence

Participants will gain insight into the power of the leaders congruence and strategic use of self. This experiential workshop offers new perspectives on the expectations and perceptions that people hold about leaders, themselves and others. The Iceberg Metaphor will be used to transform perceptions and open new possibilities which move leaders beyond titles to become more fully human.

Understanding Change: Leadership, Resilience, and Growth

This workshop is grounded in Virginia Satir’s model of human growth and systemic change and explores how individuals and organizations respond to disruption, stress, and transformation. Participants examine character, accountability, ethics, leadership, and culture through the lens of the change process, the status quo, and the dimensions of being human.

Families Together: Promote Healing - Restore Hope

An Experiential Session to Promote Healing & Restore Hope

 Satir and Nature: From Distress to Hope-Based Climate Action 

In this workshop we will reflect on how connection with the more-than-human world and our planet might be integrated into the Satir Model. We will reflect on yearnings, context and self-and-nature energy. We will then discuss the importance of supporting ourselves and our clients experiencing climate distress through evidence-based interventions: reducing isolation, increasing nature-based relationships and congruence, and offering options for hope-based action.

Fully Human Families Experience Over Decades: The 50 year Ongoing Legacy of Satir Family Camp

Satir Family Camp (SFC) will be marking the community's 50th year in 2027! Members of the SFC community will share the impact of Virginia's work and legacy on their lives, family lives, and professional and justice work in the world. Presenters will have known and worked with Virginia in the early decades of the camp, other presenters will have experienced Virginia's legacy since her illness and death.

 “I “ and “We”: Becoming More Fully Human Together in Couple Relationships

The couple relationship can be a place where the experience of becoming more fully human can be a very enriching experience for both partners and the relationship can be fulfilling which can contribute to the process of each partner’s journey in becoming more fully human. The workshop will address how congruence of each partner affects this process. The presenter uses Satir Transformational Systemic therapy in helping couples with relationship problems. The workshop will focus on how the couple can learn to navigate the relationship problem while they are in their survival energy; first by connecting with themselves and one another. As each partner becomes congruent and is more in their life energy “I “ and “ we” can enrich each other enabling to become more fully human together.

Satir Coaching and Dementia

This workshop will connect dementia and the practice of coaching.  We will explore guidelines for working with people living with dementia and how these relate to the Satir Model.  The presenter will share her lived experience in her journey with her spouse and connect these experiences to the concept of becoming more fully human. 

Timeless Philosophy of Satir: An Exploration of Satir’s Approach Through Stoics, Aristotle and Kant

This workshop aims to connect perspectives from philosophy with Satir’s approach. We will present Stoic, Aristotelian, and Kantian viewpoints towards the human experience, and explore how they may relate with insights into Satir’s tools in the path for growth. By presenting different philosophers from different time periods we also aim to highlight how Satir’s ideas are timeless and have been discussed by different thinkers throughout centuries.

In this workshop, participants will be invited to reflect on how different viewpoints across time can contribute to a more timeless and enduring understanding of what it means to become fully human. These philosophical perspectives provide a conceptual foundation that deepens our understanding of Satir’s approach to personal and interpersonal transformation.

The Art of Transformation: Mastering Satir Tools in Therapy and Coaching

This workshop explores the transformational power of the Virginia Satir Model in contemporary therapy, coaching, and systemic work. Drawing on emerging research, clinical practice, and insights from the upcoming book The Art of Transformation: Mastering Satir Tools in Therapy and Coaching (Routledge Francis&Tailor), this presentation demonstrates how Satir’s approach remains one of the most profound models for human change.

This workshop will bridge practice and science, presenting research findings, clinical case studies, and experiential demonstrations of key Satir tools, including the Iceberg metaphor, communication stances, and transformational change processes.

Participants will gain insight into how the Satir Model facilitates deep transformation. not merely symptom reduction, but by helping people access their inner resources, restore self-worth, and develop congruent relationships.

A Satir-Inspired Path Toward Nurturing Connection Within and Beyond the Family

This workshop explores how self-esteem shapes the quality of connection in relationships—within families and beyond. Grounded in the Satir Growth Model, it invites participants to reflect on how their inner experience influences the ways they relate to others in moments of connection and disconnection.

Rather than focusing on changing others, the workshop emphasizes strengthening one’s relationship with self as the foundation for more authentic, compassionate, and congruent interactions. Participants will engage in guided reflection and interactive exercises to deepen awareness, enhance relational presence, and nurture connection across personal and professional contexts.

Weaving Lives Together: Creating a Community of Healing and Empowerment based on the Satir Growth Model

This workshop will explore the ‘how to’ of building a growth fostering community ala the Satir Growth Model. In 1998, I developed and facilitated a Women’s Healing and Empowerment Group which has lasted over 20 years. I want to share the foundational pieces and essential aspects of this self-help support group model so as to emphasize the value of support groups for healing and family healing of group members.

Together we will explore the key components of community building which facilitate healing and empowerment i.e. a model for self-help support group work which includes weekly meetings, days of reflection, experiential learning, retreats, co-creating, use of ritual and ceremony; meaning and value of learning together.

You will be able to understand more clearly the importance of how sharing life stories brings connection and validation; how meditation enhances group process and the depth of connection among group members; how trust, vitality, and desire for more connection builds over time.

You will also discover how ritual and ceremony bonds group members together, giving meaning and purpose to group gatherings. And hopefully you will see how building a growth fostering community becomes a spiritual endeavor nourishing body, mind and spirit which in turn promotes healing from past pain empowering members into wholeness and life transformation!

Yes, No, and the Process of Change: A Satir Experiential Workshop

This experiential workshop uses a playful yes/no exercise to explore Satir’s process of change as it unfolds in real time between people. In a simple paired structure, participants respond to requests using only yes or no, which creates immediate material for observing choice, compliance, resistance, meaning-making, and adaptation. Through guided debriefing, the workshop links these lived moments to Satir’s stages of change and offers participants a direct, embodied way of understanding how people move from familiar patterns into new possibilities.

Infinite Possibilities in Present Moment Transformation: Zero Infinity and Satir’s Iceberg

Wendy has been fascinated in the simple complexity of Satir's Iceberg Metaphor and inspired by observing powerful sessions from facilitating this psychological concept in therapy. She was motivated to understand and to explain to others how to facilitate an experiential present moment for clients because of the deep changes that she witnessed. Through years of counselling others, teaching personal growth and sharing of Satir’s ideas, Wendy discovered and developed a simple yet complex idea of Zero Infinity to explain the flow of energy and how to experience the present moment. Helping people to become more present enables them to move towards being fully human.

Becoming Fully Human: Aligned and Connected, Naturally  

This workshop will address both the process of "becoming" and what it means to be "fully human." With regard to "becoming", reference will be made to spiritual principles that align with STST's core tenets and emphasize the process of divesting oneself of unhelpful survival patterns and increasingly relating to life as it is, harmoniously in alignment with the life force. With regard to the "fully human" element, reference to the pivotal times in which we find ourselves, including climate change and our relationship to the natural world, will be made, insofar as they impact how we define and manifest the "fully" element in "fully human." I will be drawing from STST and Indigenous traditional wisdom (see "Two-Eyed Seeing" coined by Mi'kmaw Elders, Albert and Murdena Marshall).

Coming Home to Congruence: Cultivating Authentic Presence in the Healing Relationship

In Virginia Satir’s model, the therapist’s greatest contribution is not technique, but the quality of their presence. When therapists are grounded in congruence - aware of their internal experience while remaining open and connected to the humanity of the other - a relational environment emerges in which clients can access their own inner resources, resilience, and capacity for growth.

This experiential workshop invites participants to reconnect with the concept of congruence as a lived and embodied way of being rather than simply a therapeutic concept. Drawing from Virginia Satir’s humanistic philosophy and experiential approach, participants will explore how therapist presence, self-awareness, and relational authenticity shape the conditions in which transformation becomes possible.

Through guided reflection, experiential exercises, and small-group dialogue, participants will explore moments when they feel most aligned in their work and identify signals that indicate when incongruence begins to emerge. The workshop will include practical practices that support therapists in reconnecting with their internal resources and cultivating greater congruence in their therapeutic presence.

Together we will explore how returning to congruence allows therapists to meet clients not as experts who fix problems, but as fellow human beings who help create the relational conditions in which healing and growth can unfold.

Exploring Banmen's Iceberg IV: A Guided Meditation Experience 

The presenter will take you on guided meditation journey to explore a number of concepts that relate to Banmen's Iceberg IV (Co-creation with Divine Energy).

What is Becoming More Fully Human?

In this workshop we will explore what it means to be fully human from a Satir Model point of view. We'll include the 4 births Satir talked about, our relationship to the Universe and how the 5 Icebergs can help point the way in our evolution.

Detachment with Love, Giving from Abundance: Satir-Informed Parent Work in Addiction

This workshop presents a Satir-informed framework for working with parents of individuals with substance use disorders (SUD). Drawing on the work of Virginia Satir, the presentation examines how parental anxiety, reactivity, and coping stances contribute to family system dynamics in the context of addiction. Participants will explore the Satir Iceberg Model as a tool for understanding the internal experience underlying parental behaviors such as overfunctioning, control, and emotional reactivity.

The workshop will focus on developing clinician interventions that support parental regulation, congruent communication, and boundary-setting, while reducing maladaptive patterns such as enabling and over-responsibility. Emphasis will be placed on helping parents shift from outcome-driven attempts to control their child’s behavior toward increased self-awareness and values-based responding. Integration with Twelve-Step principles, including detachment and acceptance, will be discussed. Clinicians will leave with practical strategies for supporting parents in maintaining emotional stability and relational clarity within high-stress family systems.

The Tree of Life: Integrating Hierarchy and Seed to Become More Fully Human – A Satir-Inspired Evolution

Grounded in Virginia Satir’s teachings, this 90-minute experiential workshop explores how the tension between hierarchy (structure, power, roles, judgment, meaning) and seed (sacred worth, uniqueness, process, growth, connection) is the very dynamic that makes “becoming more fully human” possible. Drawing directly from Chapter 3 of my forthcoming book Self-Connection:Connect to your Self, Change the World, I contrast Satir’s original models (using her four core beliefs about self, relationships, events, and change) and introduce the Tree of Life as their living synthesis: roots in the seed, branches in healthy hierarchy, and the trunk of Self-Connection resources (truth, wisdom, choice, trust) that mediate both.

Participants will experience Satir-style sculpting to embody rigid hierarchy, disconnected seed, and the integrated Tree; reflect on personal toxic pattern and practice moment-by-moment dialogue that reconciles “should” with “soul.” Personal illustrations include a father-son sink moment and my own Chinese-immigrant family’s hierarchical upbringing. The session ends with practical tools for therapy, families, and organizations so attendees leave able to hold opposites in creative tension, fostering congruence, growth, and deeper connection with self and others—exactly the Satir-inspired journey to becoming more fully human.

A Closer Look at the Beauty of the Pearls and Diamonds of Virginia Satir for Becoming More Fully Human 

Thalia Skerlj, in collaboration with Sharon Loeschen, will be sharing a social media project she designed to promote her work in Italy as a Satir Coaching and Mentoring Specialist. It presents Virginia Satir’s teachings and their practical application as “Pearls” and Diamonds”. The “Pearls” are sayings taking from the book, Simple but Profound, and the “Diamonds” are universal principles of human interaction that Virginia taught. These will be used as starting points for reflection and experiential sharing.

Transitions and Self: Guiding Our Path to Becoming More Fully Human

The inherent challenges of life can both deepen and disrupt our connection to Self. The process of becoming more fully human invites an exploration of our internal experience, particularly within the context of transition and change. Drawing on frameworks of the iceberg model, stages of change, self-esteem, and the process of letting go, this workshop integrates reflective and experiential practices to support participants in examining how they navigate life’s transitions as it relates to increasing awareness of and connection with Self. Participants will be invited to engage with theory, their own life journey, and small group discussion to foster greater awareness as we navigate the path to meaningful change.

Guideposts for the Journey of Becoming More Fully Human

This workshop will introduce the participants to five guideposts to assist in the journey toward becoming more fully human. Pace slows us. Place grounds us. Pace and Place together create the conditions for SPACE to live. These guideposts are ways of being that we embody and which can be identified by the acronym SPACE.

(S) Spirit--Being connected to the source of one’s own life energy, the life energy of others, and the Universal Life Force: the fountain of energy that contains our inner resources.
(P) Presence--Being fully here, awake: the gift of being with what is—without agenda, without distraction.
(A) Awareness & Acceptance-- Being aware and letting it all belong: the heart of healing and integration.
(C) Choice--Being conscious of one’s choices to make changes for one’s well-being: the movement from reaction to response and from coping to congruence.
(E) Energized--Being aligned so there is energy flowing within and between: the fuel that brings forth creativity and connection.

Spirit anchors us. Presence opens us. Awareness illuminates us. Acceptance holds us. Choice frees. Change unfolds. Energy flows. In every moment—with ourselves, with others, in any context--we can return to SPACE, not as a technique, but as a way of being.

In this workshop, we hope to create a space for participants to get access to their life energy, the life energy of others, and of the Universal Life Force. We will stop at each guidepost to describe what it stands for and offer opportunities for the participants to explore the impact of the guideposts and share what they discovered on their journey for becoming more human.

Four Questions, One Path: Your Journey to Becoming More Fully Human

This workshop introduces four questions that go straight to the heart of what it means to become more fully human.

These are the questions Dr. John Banmen has asked for decades during his work in China—simple enough to remember, deep enough to last a lifetime. They are companions and guides for the journey.

Behind these four questions lies a map of human evolution: the five icebergs. Iceberg III represents the Third Birth—becoming your own choice maker, responsible, with high self-esteem. This is the foundational goal of the Satir Model. Iceberg IV represents the Fourth Birth—a more spiritual state of consciousness where you co-create your reality in partnership with the universe, experiencing joy, bliss, and harmony.

These four questions guide us through this evolution. Each question opens a doorway to the next stage of becoming.

Becoming More Fully Human through Embodied Congruence: Experiencing Harmony through the Integration of the Satir Model and Dao Yin

This experiential workshop explores becoming more fully human through embodied congruence, integrating the Satir Model with Dao Yin practices.

Through simple, mindful movements and breath awareness, participants will explore moments of imbalance and self-judgment as entry points for awareness and acceptance. These embodied experiences help make the Satir “iceberg” more visible through the body.

By returning to center and restoring balance, participants will experience how congruence emerges as a felt sense of harmony—within oneself, with others, and with the surrounding environment.

The workshop emphasizes direct experience, offering a grounded and accessible way to connect body, awareness, and presence.

Making the Invisible Visible: Micro-Experiential Design for Systemic Transformation in Online Satir Practice

This workshop share how I facilitate wholeness in online settings with non-professional participants who seek connection and inner exploration when facing a central challenges of how to facilitate systemic depth within limited time.

By deconstructing the Satir Iceberg into focused, embodied entry points, this approach enables participants to access different layers of their internal system in manageable ways. It suggests that transformation is not driven by accumulating insight, but by accumulating coherent moments of lived experience.

This workshop offers a conceptual and practical bridge between depth-oriented Satir work and the realities of time-constrained online facilitation, proposing a redefinition of wholeness as something that is felt and built over time, rather than achieved all at once.