[UPDATE APRIL 2016: The course below was a great success (see the feedback page.). Please see here for the next one in September 2016.

Are you someone whose career or lifestyle is about helping others? A therapist, a social worker, a teacher, a nurse? A parent? Sometimes, when our focus is on others, we lose sight of our own creative purpose, that part of us which is not about pleasing others, but about finding and using our own voice.

Creativity for the Caretaker is a twelve-session course on Saturday mornings in Capel Street, Dublin. Based on Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and its companion book, The Artist’s Way at Work, the course will be designed around your needs for creative expression – writing, drawing, whatever it is that you’ve been neglecting. It will be a supportive space to encourage you to ring-fence a dedicated time in your life solely for you and your creativity; to be encouraged to ask for help in keeping that time sacred, from your friends, colleagues and family.

What this course is not

This course won’t be a critical skills-oriented workshop; unlike a writing class or workshop, for example, where your output is critiqued with a view to polishing up your craft, this will be more about looking at the many ingenious and plausible excuses you have come up with to prevent you doing what you know you “should” be doing, in the best possible sense. It is assumed that you have a skill; it is assumed you have a long-ignored passion; it is assumed you know what you are doing. If what you are lacking is the confidence/encouragement/belief to get “stuck in” and do it, then this course is for you.

Although I’m a psychotherapist, the course is not a therapy group; we will, however, be working to create a safe, enjoyable, and supportive space for each other to take risks. We will also be looking at how our “inner critics” operate, those voices inside us that tell us we’re being selfish and indulgent, that we’ve no talent, that it’s a waste of time to do the thing that brings us the most joy.

The Artist’s Way

In my fifteen years practice as a psychotherapist, this is a workbook that clients have repeatedly found useful. Granted, it has to be translated from Californian, but, in essence, the tools are sound and effective, there’s nothing flaky about them. If you don’t have a copy yourself, let me know, and I can order one for you. I have been a participant in a twelve-week course in The Artist’s Way at Work in the noughties, in London. And also in a course called Overcoming Creative Blocks in the City Lit, London, in the 1990s. The issue of working through creative blocks is something I work with regularly with my clients.

The dates

The course is on twelve Saturday mornings, 10.30 am to 1pm, from Autumn to Spring, on the following dates:

• October 3rd
• October 10th
• October 17th
• October 24th
• November 14th
• November 28th
• December 5th
• January 16th
• January 23rd
• January 30th
• February 6th
• February 13th 

The venue

The venue is in my office on the top floor, 6 Capel Street, Dublin D01 A9W3. (Sorry, this course is not open to those with reduced mobility, as there is no lift to the office.)

The group

The minimum group size is six, the maximum twelve. The only requirement is that you have a creative life that perhaps you’ve neglected, and that you spend most of your time looking after others’ needs, in whatever form that takes. All ages and professions are welcome. CPD certificates will be issued at the end for those who require them. (30 hours).

The cost

The full cost of the twelve weeks is €500, and can be paid in three instalments: €100 deposit before September 19th, and €200 on both October 3rd and November 28th. 

Please email me here before you book, if you have any questions, or if you would like details such as where to send a cheque, or my electronic banking details. Please do not book this course if you can’t attend all the sessions, or at the very least, are not sure you can attend the first two sessions. Once we get going, we will work out a support network to help you, should you be unable to attend one of the mornings.

Please book your place, before September 19th. You may pay the deposit online by visiting here.

If you choose to pay all up front, the fee is €450 in total, (if you pay €100 deposit before September 19th, you may pay €350 on the first day we all meet together.)

If there’s enough interest, there will be another course in the New Year, as I love doing this kind of work.

Dermod Moore is a psychotherapist, supervisor, and trainer of students of psychotherapy. He was also an actor (with the Abbey, in the eighties), a Speech and Drama teacher, and was a columnist for Hot Press magazine for 18 years. A collection of his articles was published in 2005, Diary of a Man. On returning to live in his native Dublin in 2006, he has largely immersed himself in working as a therapist and teacher, which he enjoys very much. Bearing in mind the old adage “the plumber’s tap is always dripping”, he has decided to offer this course not only to have fun and pay the rent, but as a way of examining his own considerable capacity to procrastinate; his teaching style is participatory, inclusive, and, hopefully, fun for all.