The schools and every earlier practice
Lineage · Anatomy · Among the therapies · Side by side
Every earlier practice on this site beside the schools: the early influences, the later ones that Circling’s histories name, and practices no history names that teach some of the same moves. 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 histories3
- 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.
- 1978Focusing
A way of attending to the felt sense, the unclear bodily sense of a situation, until words come that fit. It resembles Circling’s attention to sensation, but turns inward.
Deep Relating, an offshoot of Circling and Authentic Relating, names it among its roots.
- 2004Circles of Trust
Parker Palmer’s circles of trust, run on published touchstones: no fixing or advising, speaking for yourself, turning judgement into wonder.
Circling Europe’s lineage page lists Quaker circles, and Palmer’s development of them, among Circling’s antecedents.
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 ↗
Later influences, as Circling grew6
- 1960sNVC
Marshall Rosenberg’s method of saying what you observe, feel and need. One history names it as a later influence; the Circling Guide calls it a possible precursor.
Named by: Coutts; the Circling Guide’s NVC page calls it a possible precursor
- 1962Zen
The Zen practice taught at the San Francisco Zen Center by Shunryu Suzuki, which one history names as a later influence on Circling.
Named by: Coutts
- 1969Vipassana
Silent meditation on bodily sensation, as taught in S. N. Goenka’s ten-day courses; one history names it as a later influence on Circling.
Named by: Coutts
Practised in silence and alone.
- 1976Diamond Approach
A. H. Almaas’s method of open-ended inquiry into experience, named as one of Guy Sengstock’s influences.
Named by: Coutts, as Sengstock’s influence; the Circling Guide counts it early
- 1994Radical Honesty
Brad Blanton’s practice of telling people, out loud and directly, what you notice and feel; one history names it as a later influence on Circling.
Named by: Coutts
Its institute dropped coercive practices in 2021.
- 2001Getting Real
Susan Campbell’s ten truth skills (2001), which Jason Digges says the first Circling schools all assigned; one history names Campbell as a later influence.
Named by: Coutts; Digges says the first Circling schools all assigned it