The schools and the early influences
Lineage · Anatomy · Among the therapies · Side by side
The schools of Circling and Authentic Relating beside the practices that both Coutts’s history and the Circling Guide name as Circling’s early influences, and T-groups, which encounter groups grew out of. A dotted thread marks an influence that a school’s own founders name; the list under the chart gives the sources.
Schools only · Early influences · All earlier practices
The earlier practices
Who names each one, and the sources.
Not named in Circling’s histories1
- 1947T-groups
Training groups that studied their own here-and-now process, begun at Bethel, Maine, in 1947.
The Circling Guide likens Circling to them. Digges traces Authentic Relating’s roots to T-groups Susan Campbell led, which her own biography doesn’t mention.
Early influences7
- 1951Gestalt therapy
A therapy of awareness and contact, named among Circling’s roots. Circling shares its rules for speaking and its refusal to push for change, but has no experiments and no patient.
Named by: Coutts; the Circling Guide
- 1960sEncounter groups
Groups for personal encounter, linked above all with Carl Rogers in the 1960s. Circling’s own histories name them among its early influences; Coutts says Circling’s first hosts ran encounter groups from 1991.
Named by: Coutts; the Circling Guide
Sengstock has warned against mixing encounter-group methods into Circling.
Grew out of: T-groups. Rogers traces the group movement to Kurt Lewin’s T-groups, and to his own counselling centre in Chicago. Rogers, 1970 ↗
- 1968
Lafayette Morehouse
An intentional community in Lafayette, California, that Victor Baranco started in 1968; it also went by More University.
Named by: Coutts; the Circling Guide, for its ideas about men and women
Influenced: Authentic World. Authentic World’s founders trace their Hot Seat game to Baranco and the Morehouse community in the 1970s. Bayer & Cunov, Games Night Handbook ↗
Sources: Witt, Future Sex, 2016 ↗, Coutts, 2018 ↗, Circling Guide ↗
- 1970s
Holotropic breathwork
A method of breathwork that Stanislav and Christina Grof developed while he lived at Esalen, from 1973 to 1987. Their training in it took its present form in 1989.
Named by: Coutts; the Circling Guide; Sengstock
Influenced: Arete Experience. Named among the tributaries of Circling in the Integral Center’s 2014 interview with Sengstock, a pre-history of Arete. Integral Center, 2014 ↗
Sources: Grof Transpersonal Training ↗, Stanislav Grof ↗, Coutts, 2018 ↗, Circling Guide ↗
- 1971est and Landmark
Werner Erhard’s est trainings and their successor, the Landmark Forum. Circling’s own histories name them among its earliest influences.
Named by: Coutts; the Circling Guide; Sengstock, writing about Candelaria
Coutts remembers the first Circling course as like a Landmark course, only warmer.
Influenced: Arete Experience. Named, as the Landmark Forum, among the tributaries of Circling in the Integral Center’s 2014 interview with Sengstock, a pre-history of Arete. Integral Center, 2014 ↗
- 1979
Sterling men’s weekend
Weekend trainings for men and for women from the Sterling Institute of Relationship, founded in 1979. Sengstock and Candelaria, who began Circling, met at its men’s division.
Named by: Coutts; the Circling Guide; Sengstock, of Candelaria
Sources: Sterling Institute of Relationship ↗, Integral Center, 2014 ↗, Sengstock, 2017 ↗, Coutts, 2018 ↗, Circling Guide ↗
- 1995
David Deida
A writer and teacher on sexuality and spiritual practice, whose first published books were Intimate Communion (1995) and It’s a Guy Thing (1997). He was a founding member of the Integral Institute.
Named by: Coutts; the Circling Guide
Sources: Deida, biography ↗, Coutts, 2018 ↗, Circling Guide ↗