Topic Groups

Creative Self-Exploratory Process Music Experiment

After a concise opening circle, instrumentalists, singers, a conductor and some listeners/witnesses will plan, practice and perform a short piece of music, which will be recorded on video. We will then watch and listen to the recording, and discuss the experience. There will be places for 2-3 instrument players, 2-3 singers, 1 conductor and 3 witnesses. Musical training or background is not an obstacle but not needed, either.

Maximum participants: 10

Brúnó Fuchs

Bruno Fuchs, musician, philosopher, person-centered facilitator, family guy.

Let’s paint together!

hello!

we’re painting this year again!

there will be space
and tools (aquarell, paper and brushes)

and time
to be together
to be with ourselves
to create and talk…
no previous experience needed, only openness for something new to come to creation as a picture, and that might something change inside you as well
Looking forward to seeing you soon!

I am asking you to bring 500-1000 HUF to the session to cover the cost of the materials we use. thank you!

Maximum participants: 10 people

Bora Bredár:

I love when we paint together. Come, let’s see what comes to life this year!

The Taste of Community: Building Authentic Connections (the method of M. Scott Peck) – ONLY IN HUNGARIAN

This is the HUNGARIAN version of this topic group. It will also be held in English with another facilitator pair during the week.

Which dynamics do you experience the most in your relationships?

Do you feel like constantly trying to prove your truth, or do you feel seen and deeply acknowledged?

In this topic group, we can explore the meaning of Community and the four stages that characterize our relationships. We will also have the experience of “Listening from Emptiness”, which is a central skill of the Community Building Process and is necessary for building authentic relationships, creating unusual safety, and extraordinary respect.

The Community Building Process was developed by M. Scott Peck M.D., a renowned author of “The Road Less Traveled” and “The Different Drum” in response to the level of polarization, isolation, and the loss of civility. It is a method of open, authentic communication in groups, which for more than two decades has empowered hundreds of people with skills and the experience of healthy, safe, and honest communication, deep, authentic connection, and mutual respect. The method is used in various social spheres, in personal development, human services, in NGOs, and well as business. It teaches how to look beyond the cultural, political, and religious differences that prevent us from embracing our common humanity.

The Mission of Community Building International is to encourage people and groups to connect and heal in “True Community”, so that they thrive and experience peace and belonging.

Arina Matveyeva, PhD, Latvia:

I’m a certified facilitator and representative of Community Building International in Hungary, an artist, a coach, a guide through the process of personal transformation, a creator of women’s empowerment programs and retreats, ceremony master.

I’m exploring the process of reaching community with oneself, others, and the natural world through rituals, dance, embodiment, and authentic communication.

Tünde Simanecz

I have been working with people and communities for over twenty years – as a trainer and teacher, I support them to move on their own path more consciously, effectively and with greater self-identity through the power of communication.

I not only accompany, but also live the development: while experiencing the practical side of community building firsthand, I am also actively present in the business world – currently working in the healthcare sector to ensure that our client’s experience becomes a real, meaningful value.

I first encountered Community Building in 2022 and immediately felt that I had found something truly important. During the process, I experienced a deep security, authentic connections and real, mutual respectful presence that is rare – and incredibly valuable.

As a Community Building facilitator currently in training, my goal is for as many people as possible to experience this experience – and learn to bring the kind of attention, connection and community quality that this process gives into everyday life.

Zsuzsa Csák, Hungary

I have studied and practiced various methods of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness for the past 16 years. I have been a certified self-awareness coach and facilitator since 2015. During COVID, I developed a 30-day presence-awareness meditation course, which I led online for several groups. Last year, I participated in a training with Community Building International (CBI), and it resonated with me so deeply that I enrolled in their two-year facilitator training program.

As a result of my personal journey and learning processes, supporting the cultivation of sensing presence, emotional intelligence, and community integration has become the central focus of my life.

Discover your inner drive to communicate – Being moved to speak – ONLY IN HUNGARIAN

This is the HUNGARIAN version of this topic group. It will also be held in English with another facilitator pair during the week.

In this workshop, we will explore a particularly important, yet rarely acknowledged aspect of human functioning—something that deeply influences the dynamics, mood, and outcome of our conversations, and yet is seldom discussed in everyday life.

Being “Moved to Speak” is a new concept to many and unique to the method of Community Building by M. Scott Peck.

The central questions we will be exploring are:

What inner impulse prompts you to speak?
How do you decide whether to speak or remain silent?
On what basis do you choose between expressing and receiving?
We will focus on those human situations where we seek closeness with someone through conversation.
In the workshop, we will help you recognize and differentiate between various types of inner impulses and become more aware of a unique internal drive for communication. Tuning into and following this drive opens the doors to deeper, authentic connections and intimacy in relationships.

Join us as we slow down, listen inward, and learn how to connect more consciously with others and with ourselves.

Róbert Bőr

In my early twenties, I had a defining experience in a conversation-oriented group about how close soul can come to soul. This experience became a defining guiding principle in my life, as a result of which I later turned my attention to developing the method of Embracing Attention.

I studied integrative psychology, transactional analysis, nonviolent communication, transformative mediation and trust-building techniques. I am currently studying in the two-year training system of Community Building and with astrologer Tibor Takács.

For 10 years, I have been accompanying individuals and couples, facilitating communication-oriented trainings, and helping individuals and couples to explore and transform repetitive behavioral patterns. I have been leading Embracing Attention groups in Budapest for three years.

From my own, my clients’ and my social environment’s countless examples, I can clearly see how easily the lack of quality attention leads to separation, and how much suffering it causes. That’s why developing relationships and strengthening compassion became the focus of my work.

Zsuzsa Csák

I have studied and practiced various methods of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness for the past 16 years. I have been a certified self-awareness coach and facilitator since 2015. During COVID, I developed a 30-day presence-awareness meditation course, which I led online for several groups. Last year, I participated in a training with Community Building International (CBI), and it resonated with me so deeply that I enrolled in their two-year facilitator training program.

As a result of my personal journey and learning processes, supporting the cultivation of sensing presence, emotional intelligence, and community integration has become the central focus of my life.

Discover your inner drive to communicate – Being moved to speak

In this workshop, we will explore a particularly important, yet rarely acknowledged aspect of human functioning—something that deeply influences the dynamics, mood, and outcome of our conversations, and yet is seldom discussed in everyday life.

Being “Moved to Speak” is a new concept to many and unique to the method of Community Building by M. Scott Peck.

The central questions we will be exploring are:

• What inner impulse prompts you to speak?
• How do you decide whether to speak or remain silent?
• On what basis do you choose between expressing and receiving?
• We will focus on those human situations where we seek closeness with someone through conversation.

In the workshop, we will help you recognize and differentiate between various types of inner impulses and become more aware of a unique internal drive for communication. Tuning into and following this drive opens the doors to deeper, authentic connections and intimacy in relationships.

Join us as we slow down, listen inward, and learn how to connect more consciously with others and with ourselves.

Arina Matveyeva, PhD, Latvia:

I’m a certified facilitator and representative of Community Building International in Hungary, an artist, a coach, a guide through the process of personal transformation, a creator of women’s empowerment programs and retreats, ceremony master.

I’m exploring the process of reaching community with oneself, others, and the natural world through rituals, dance, embodiment, and authentic communication.

Zsuzsa Csák, Hungary

I have studied and practiced various methods of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness for the past 16 years. I have been a certified self-awareness coach and facilitator since 2015. During COVID, I developed a 30-day presence-awareness meditation course, which I led online for several groups. Last year, I participated in a training with Community Building International (CBI), and it resonated with me so deeply that I enrolled in their two-year facilitator training program.

As a result of my personal journey and learning processes, supporting the cultivation of sensing presence, emotional intelligence, and community integration has become the central focus of my life.

Experiential learning with games

I first experienced the importance of and possibilities in experiential learning with games 50 years ago, while I worked as a researcher in Zoltán Dienes’s Institute for Psychomathematics in Canada. I would like to give a Dienes-game to play for 3-4 members groups, and than open a discussion on the role of games in learning.

Sándor Klein

Forty years ago I attended a three-year training In PCA and it had a great effect on my life. I left my job at the Technical University of Budapest and concentrated my efforts to humanize teacher training in Szeged at the teacher training college. During the six years spent in Szeged in 1984 and in 1986, I invited Carl Rogers and his coworkers to hold Cross-Cultural Communication workshops. We try to revive the spirit of these meetings each summer since 2009. I believe that congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathy – if they are realized as a “way of being” – improve the quality of life in families, schools, and the workplace.

Self-hypnosis for Health and Wellbeing Experiential Workshop

We offer the experience of hypnotic induction with affirmations that you choose for your own health and well-being.

Hypnosis is a natural state – we all experience periods of self-hypnosis – for instance when we are absorbed in a book, film, or music; when we listen to a charismatic orator, when we dance or exercise, even when we are doing everyday tasks that don’t require all our concentration.

Nobody can hypnotize you without your cooperation. A hypnotist can only facilitate you in your journey into hypnosis – and you can do this for yourself. You choose to take yourself into hypnosis and can use hypnosis for your health and benefit.

The power of the mind is immense, and we can so often use it in a negative and damaging way, telling ourselves off, making ourselves ill, undermining our self-esteem, and repeating introjected messages from others that limit our freedom to be.

We – you – can use hypnosis to heal yourself, boost your confidence, to aid your organismic growth. Join us and learn how!

Bernard Mooney

I have practiced as a Person-Centred counselor since the late 1980s, and subsequently as a Hypnotherapist. I am a founder member of BAPCA (the British Association for the Person-Centred Approach – now tPCA, The Person-Centred Association.

Sara Callen

I worked for over 50 years in the NHS in the UK and came to understand the power of the Person-Centred way of being in my professional and private lives. Through my association with Bernard I have understood why I resisted hypnosis at first, and have come to realize how useful it can be for my health – and helping me sleep much better.

We have organized small Person-Centred Encounter groups (PCAN) for the last 17 years in England, and now including a spring holiday encounter in Cyprus.

The Taste of Community: Building Authentic Connections (the method of M. Scott Peck) – ONLY IN ENGLISH

Which dynamics do you experience the most in your relationships?

Do you feel like constantly trying to prove your truth, or do you feel seen and deeply acknowledged?

In this topic group, we can explore the meaning of Community and the four stages that characterize our relationships. We will also have the experience of “Listening from Emptiness”, which is a central skill of the Community Building Process and is necessary for building authentic relationships, creating unusual safety, and extraordinary respect.

The Community Building Process was developed by M. Scott Peck M.D., a renowned author of “The Road Less Traveled” and “The Different Drum” in response to the level of polarization, isolation, and the loss of civility. It is a method of open, authentic communication in groups, which for more than two decades has empowered hundreds of people with skills and the experience of healthy, safe, and honest communication, deep, authentic connection, and mutual respect. The method is used in various social spheres, in personal development, human services, in NGOs, and well as business. It teaches how to look beyond the cultural, political, and religious differences that prevent us from embracing our common humanity.

The Mission of Community Building International is to encourage people and groups to connect and heal in “True Community”, so that they thrive and experience peace and belonging.

Maximum participants: NOT LIMITED

Arina Matveyeva, PhD, Latvia:

I’m a certified facilitator and representative of Community Building International in Hungary, an artist, a coach, a guide through the process of personal transformation, a creator of women’s empowerment programs and retreats, ceremony master.

I’m exploring the process of reaching community with oneself, others, and the natural world through rituals, dance, embodiment, and authentic communication.

Zsuzsa Csák, Hungary

I have studied and practiced various methods of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and mindfulness for the past 16 years. I have been a certified self-awareness coach and facilitator since 2015. During COVID, I developed a 30-day presence-awareness meditation course, which I led online for several groups. Last year, I participated in a training with Community Building International (CBI), and it resonated with me so deeply that I enrolled in their two-year facilitator training program.

As a result of my personal journey and learning processes, supporting the cultivation of sensing presence, emotional intelligence, and community integration has become the central focus of my life.

Garden and walls

The idea for this workshop came from my life experiences when I was preparing for the second half of my life.

The title and the thought behind it come from the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho. He writes in his book ’Brida’ that people take two basic attitudes in their lives: they either BUILD WALLS or LOOK AFTER A GARDEN. BUILDERS build the walls of their buildings making a lot of effort for a long time, but when the construction is ready, they finish their activity and go on living, closed within those walls that never grow further. GARDENERS, who plant and look after their gardens learn to cope with the adversities of weather, learn to care for and renew the things that regularly die and need renewal. The life of a gardener is a continuous challenge and adventure.

This metaphor inspired me a lot when I was preparing for CCC in Pécs in 2011, not long after I had left the walls of my stability in Hungary, worked in England for 9 months, and had very hard life lessons there. Since then I have regularly checked my answers to the following questions:

• Is it true, that people either just BUILD WALLS or just LOOK AFTER A GARDEN? Isn’t it possible, that they do both depending on which period of life they are in?
• Do I have WALLS, and if so, what are they?
• If I am aware of my WALLS, am I brave enough to step out of them from time to time to learn something new?
• Do I have a GARDEN, and if so, what am I growing in it? Am I a good gardener?
• Do I love my work?
• Am I the captain of my life or do I live someone else’s life?

Since 2011 ’Garden and Walls’ has become a traditional workshop of CCC-s in Pécs. Using a technique well-working on my English lessons, once or twice during the CCC week we answer those questions in pairs with various partners, and after speaking we make the visual representation of our answers in a green spiral-shape paper garden and on the wall. Let’s talk about those answers again and see if they have changed! Newcomers are most welcome, too!!!

Maximum participants: NOT LIMITED

Ágnes Bánátiné Tóth:

I am an English teacher, a person-centered counselor, an encounter group facilitator, and a yoga instructor.

I became an encounter fan in 2009 on CCC in Szeged. Still, my personal story in person-centredness started in 1991, when – as a newly graduated  History and Russian grammar school teacher, who had to get retrained because the Russian language was no longer taught in Hungarian schools,  – I had a great opportunity and good luck to get into an alternative, person-centered English teacher training system that had been established and built up by Leslie Simonfalvi, EFL teacher and teacher trainer, the Hungarian translator of  Rogers’s book ’On Becoming a Person’. In that training environment I first became a teacher, then a teacher trainer, and had countless memorable group experiences.

In that environment, I got to know my yoga teacher with whom we made friends, and discovered so many similarities between the principles and values of yoga and person-centredness. I still thank her every single day that I have been practicing since 2000 and teaching since 2006 the system ’Yoga in Daily Life’ (YDL).

It was Leslie Simonfalvi who encouraged me to take part in the first encounter event of my life in Szeged in 2009 when Í did not have any idea about what an encounter group might be like when we did not speak about learning or teaching English.

The CCC in Szeged was an important turning point for me, it showed me my path and direction for the second half of my life. Since then I have completed the person-centered counselor training, and being in encounter groups, like practicing yoga, has become an organic part of my life. I have spent more than 3000 hours in smaller and bigger groups, facilitated or without appointed facilitators, both as a participant and facilitator, in Hungary and abroad.