On the weekend of December 8 – 9 the School for Peace successfully completed its 34th facilitator training course. The course included an experiential component comprising intensive workshops over two weekends, a series of lectures providing a theoretical background to the approach on which the facilitation is based, as well as development of practical facilitation skills through peer facilitation.

The course was directed by Wasim Biromi and Yaron Tal, themselves SFP facilitators as well as clinical psychologists. The course participants learned to analyze the dynamics of the relationship between Jews and Arabs through various layers such as power relations, conflict, the motivations, interests, needs and fantasies of each group, and characteristics of each group’s identity.

After the participants were able to identify the group dynamics that are active in group sessions, they learn to intervene in a way that advances the group process. Their learning takes place experientially, as these processes are being felt personally in a powerful emotional process. The insights they gain provides them with a lens they can use also in looking at the actual relations between the groups.