This programme offers the opportunity to acquire the skills and expertise needed to become advanced Group Relations consultants, directors and field stewards at Group Relations Conferences.

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The Programme

This is a certification programme designed for Group Relations Conferences (GRC) consultants ready to deepen their consultancy capacity and take up more complex roles within their local and the international GRC community.

The programme addresses urgent contemporary challenges: digital acceleration, geopolitical unrest, intergenerational shifts, ecological anxiety and crises of trust in leadership. 

Our goal is to cultivate practitioners who can work with authority, role, boundary and task in real-time institutional settings, applying the landmark methodology of Group Relations.

Programme Philosophy

The programme emphasises experiential learning grounded in Tavistock tradition theory: psychoanalytic insights into unconscious life of groups and institutions, Gestalt attention to embodied presence, systemic thinking about boundary/authority/role/task, and complexity theory’s appreciation of emergence, uncertainty, unpredictability and creative tensions.

Participants develop their capacity to use themselves - body, mind, and the unconscious - as instruments of learning, working with projections, enactments, transference, countertransference, social defences and the social unconscious as they manifest in real-time organisational settings.

Training Structure

The Programme consists of 2 in-person modules lasting three full days each plus 8 online sessions to extend learning.

Core Module 1: The Consultant in the System – the Consultant as Container

In-person in London

Participants enter a temporary learning institution to explore consulting in real-time. Practitioners rotate through multiple roles - member, consultant, convenor, administrator - while working directly with projections, enactments, and resistances.

The module cultivates “negative capability”: the ability to remain present under pressure without rushing to premature certainty.

Core Online Components

2026: 4 Nov, 25 Nov, 16 Dec 

2027: 13 Jan, 3 Feb, 24 Feb, 10 Mar, 31 Mar

The programme continues as a living online institution with ten three-hour sessions, with themes including:

• Faculty-led theory seminars on socioanalytic, psychoanalytic and systemic concepts and other methodologies
• Co-designed seminars shaped by participants’ emerging questions and contexts
• Supervised Review & Application Groups examining national and regional GRC landscapes, with experienced international faculty
• Self-organised study groups for peer-led reflection and peer-supervision
• Required staff role at a recognised GRC (with pre/post-conference supervision).

The sessions will be three hours long and take place on Wednesdays 13.00 – 16.00 GMT/BST

Core Module 2: The System in the Consultant – Critical Incidents & Beyond

In-person in London

Participants work closer to the system’s edge, encountering institutional crises, container ruptures, and ethical dilemmas. A Critical Incidents Event examines moments of breakdown and unexpected learning. 

Participants design and direct an experiential event in the period between Module 1 and Module 2, and then present and analyse it during Module 2. The event may be in-person, hybrid, or online, depending on the opportunities available to the cohort and their local organisational context.

Certification

Professional Portfolio

Due July 2027

A 3,000 - 5,000 word reflective inquiry into a significant GRC consultation, examining embodied / emotional / unconscious responses, institutional dynamics, theoretical frameworks, and development of negative capability. Must include reflection on the training programme as a whole system.

Certification requirements

• Full participation in both in-person modules
• Active engagement in all online components
• At least one staff role during the programme
• Successful portfolio submission.

Award

Certificate in Advanced GRC Consulting (TIHR accredited)

Director

Build your Group Relations Conferences skills pathway

Are you interested in taking your learning further? We are offering two specialist modules that can be added to this Programme. 

Advanced Module 1: Online GRCs

Advanced Module 2: Directorship

Venue

Modules will take place at the Institute offices at 63 Gee Street, London EC1V 3RS. Situated between Farringdon, Barbican and Old Street, this is a bright and flexible space. Hotels can be recommended in the local area.