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Bob has a gift for making otherwise confounding and complex material accessible, not only through his masterful grasp of theory and ability to create nurturing community but also through his wonderful storytelling. He enlivens and brings the material down to earth. The entry he invites into object relations and Heidegger’s thought and the context he provides, continues to empower my work, relationships and ability to grasp beauty.
His excitement for the material’s immediate usefulness toward deepening the poignancy of one’s experience, is infectious.
Heidegger questions the foundations of assumptions that most thought is based on. My work - in documentary film and evolution of medicine and healing - is about shifting thought paradigms, so Bob’s courses gave me a
new ability to assess existing structures of thought in areas where I am seeking to create change. Bob’s creative approach to his subject matter profoundly enriches lives of the participants in a way that subtly mirrors the materials being taught.
Paige Ruane
President
Integrative Medicine Foundation
New York, New York
Both of Bob’s trainings are grounded in and impart a sophisticated, intellectually rigorous and stimulating framework for understanding what it is to be a human being. The clinical implications of looking at both a range of psychoanalytic concepts through an existential lens as well as the work of philosopher Martin Heidegger are far reaching, exciting, as well as challenging.
I have been in private practice for over twenty five years and still find the framework imparted in Bob Fox’s trainings invaluable. Ongoing clinical supervision with Bob has been unfailingly helpful in my work as a clinician.
Bob is a dedicated, involved teacher and supervisor who has helped keep the work fresh and never waivers in his capacity to grasp the dignity of those we work with.
Andrew Geller PhD
Bob has been absorbed in his subjects over decades and brings an unmatched command of theory and clinical experience. He creates a dynamic learning environment where you learn as much about yourself as you do about ways to better help your clients. His strong opinions spurred my own thinking, yet I was also gratified by his open-mindedness and willingness to refine his own positions. In short, Bob’s classes are a generosity of learning and collegiality.
In Bob’s “Existentialism and Psychoanalysis” seminar we were treated to a comprehensive over-view of developmental and psychoanalytic theory and its practical applications in treating clients. Meanwhile, our forays into existentialism kept us rooted in the dilemmas of authentic human becoming. Bob’s Heidegger seminar followed, profoundly exploring the theme of authenticity— what it is to be a human being in a particular time and place, from a particular family, and surrounded by world already decided upon before we arrive on the scene (“throwness”). These considerations become powerful meditations on our relationship with our own existence, prompting Heidegger’s “call” to take responsibility for our life’s unfolding rather than unknowingly living out someone else’s expectations. Wading into these issues with Bob and my seminar colleagues was like church in its best sense— engaging, inspiring, and communal.
Gary Simoneau, M.S.W., L.I.C.S.W. Private Practice, Lakeside Counseling, Wakefield, MA
The Buddhists state: “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”.
How fortunate I am that Bob Fox was that remarkable teacher who showed up for
me and subsequently illuminated a way of thinking which has shaped my work as a therapist and also has forever impacted my life. Bob was teaching a way of “Being-with” oneself and others, awakening me to the mattering of my own and other’s existence, and to the possibilities which may emerge from the perspectives of phenomenological and hermeneutic thinking.
Although I took Bob’s trainings, Introduction to Existential-Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Heidegger Being and Time class, over a decade ago, I realize that the ideas so carefully taught by Bob have become my professional and personal grounding. I have learned to pay attention to what is, or more accurately what already is, circular thinking that opens the possibility to a new way of experiencing, even in the face of enslavement to repetitive patterns. Bob’s insistence on recognition of multiple truths has opened the way for my holding of this human experience of dialectical ways of Being, including our desire to be in the existential truth of being responsible for our own Being, yet our terror of and need to flee from that very responsibility. And, finally, from Bob’s teachings, I am open to the discovery of new ways of finding meaning for self and others as we struggle with our finite existence. I strongly recommend Bob’s trainings as means of building a firm, relevant foundation for doing therapeutic work – an extraordinary experience.
Margaret Crummey LMHC
Private Practice, Norwell and Concord, MA
I have done an infinite number of trainings in my twenty-five years as a psychotherapist and Bob’s trainings are without question the best that I have ever experienced. On a professional level, Bob’s lectures offer a comprehensive grounding in object relations theory. He then exquisitely introduces existential philosophy to make theoretical concepts come alive in a non pathologizing, paradoxical way that can profoundly deepen clinical work.
In addition, the exploration that Bob encourages can be felt on a personal level. I was fortunate enough to study with him during a challenging major transition in my life. Having a paradigm of existential understanding gave me a way of holding and making meaning of what was happening to me that was life changing. Having taken both of Bob’s courses has enabled me to understand clinical theory to a much greater depth. It has offered me both the community and the foundation to continue to read modern theorists in the field and I have now fully integrated an existential framework into my clinical work. Perhaps, most importantly, it continues to shine a guiding light for me to use in my personal world.
Pam Mullins, LMHC - private practice in Jamaica Plain, MA and adjunct faculty at Lesley University
Every once in a while you come across a teacher who doesn’t just teach, he inspires you in a way that changes your life. Bob Fox has been and is such a teacher for me. I met Bob taking his Object Relations class at Lesley University. I was immediately taken in by the way he made such abstract material tangible and immediately practical. He always insisted on understanding in the context of the philosophical, personal, and clinical. For me, his teaching was as much about the experience of being in the world as it was about becoming a therapist. What could be more appealing? When I found out about his trainings I knew immediately I would attend and that they would be exceptional experiences. I wasn’t disappointed.
I started with the Object-Relations training. In school I recall feeling that we are merely exposed to theories. It was never enough. Bob’s class was filled with theoretical material from beginning to end. But it was so much more. He grounds psychological theories with existential-phenomenology. We don’t start with theories, we start with the question of how do I experience the world? How do I know what I know? I wonder how one can be as good a therapist as one can be if one doesn’t start there. Our primary project involves applying theory to our personal lives. Bob insists on this. I found that using my personal experience to light up what the theory describes is one of the best and most effective ways of feeling it, understanding it, recognizing it in my work, and learning how to use it as a therapist. This is as true in my clinical work as the Service Director of a psychiatric day treatment program for adults who have chronic major mental illness as it is for my private practice with clients who have less severe issues. What I learned about Object-Relations theory each week was available in a way that I could use it the next day.
My experience with the Object-Relations class and with Bob’s invaluable way of teaching made it an absolute necessity for me to take his two year Heidegger training. Focusing on Being and Time has been one of the most important experiences of my life. The subject matter itself is relevant to anyone who is interested in becoming a better therapist, but also to anyone who is interested in the experience of being in the world. Again, Bob’s incredible ability to put such difficult material into a context that can be understood and used in everyday work with clients is uncanny. As is typical of Bob’s style, he teaches Being and Time in a way that has made it possible for me to be more disciplined in “doing” existential-phenomenology. This has been invaluable in the service of understanding my own existence, doing clinical work with clients, and supervising other clinicians. In this respect Bob’s trainings have been an integral part of my career development.
If you are interested in existential philosophy and object-relations as a vehicle to understand your own experience and to become a better therapist, Bob Fox’s Object-Relations and Heidegger trainings are for you. Be prepared to change your life.
Richard Freid, MA, LMHC
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