• Ensure that healthy boundaries are established and maintained within the classroom and school context;
• Model unconditional positive regard and validation when interacting with students and colleagues;
• Monitor and critically reflect on group experience and the different roles present within the group;
• Process the phenomena of transference and counter-transference and identify ways of how they can managed within the classroom setting;
• Critically reflect on one’s self-confidence and self-actualization within the context of the sensitivity group.

• Define the processes of emphatic listening, understanding response (including S O L E R) and unconditional positive regard;
• Differentiate the emotions that arise and examine group dynamics as perceived within the sensitivity group;
• Identify ways to manage confrontational situations and how to become more assertive within the educational setting;
• Describe and discuss the complexity and sensitive nature of interpersonal relationships as emergent within the sensitivity group and during personal reflection.

• Process any feelings and group dynamics that arise during the sessions in a meaningful and insightful manner;
• Demonstrate sensitivity to underlying emotional expressions of others shared within the context of the sensitivity group;
• Practise listening and understanding skills within the sensitivity group and within professional interactions;
• Practise unconditional positive regard both within the practising sensitivity group and also within educational interactions;
• Practise and reflect upon the skill of giving and receiving feedback both within the sensitivity group and also within educational interactions;
• Process and articulate and/or verbalise emerging personal insights within the actual sensitivity group and/or whilst journaling.

This module will be assessed through: Role-Play; Case Study; Reflective Journal.

Core Reading List

1. Egan, G., & Reese, R. J. (2019). The Skilled Helper: a Problem-Management and Opportunity-Development Approach to Helping(11th ed.). Cengage.
2. Jennings, P. A., & Siegel, D. J. (2019). The trauma-sensitive classroom : building resilience with compassionate teaching. W.W. Norton & Company.
3. Hendershott, D., & Hendershott, J. (2020). Supporting the Wounded Educator: A Trauma-Sensitive Approach to Self-Care. Eye On Education, Incorporated.
4. Westergaard, J., Bassot, B., & Cosgrove, A. (2017). An introduction to helping skills: Counselling, coaching and mentoring. SAGE Publications.
5. Wright, J. (2018). Reflective writing in counselling and psychotherapy. Sage Publications.

Supplementary Reading List

1. Attwood, A. (2010). The learning relationship. Psychoanalytic thinking in education. Psychodynamic Practice, 16(1), 119–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/14753630903458473
2. Honsinger, C., & Mavis Hendricks Brown. (2019). Preparing Trauma-Sensitive Teachers: Strategies for Teacher Educators. 12, 129–152.
3. Weiss, S. (2002). How Teachers’ Autobiographies Influence Their Responses to Children’s Behaviors: The Psychodynamic Concept of Transference in Classroom Life. Part I. Emotional & Behavioural Difficulties, 7(1), 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363275202007001002