ESTEL, Personal Growth Centre and Integral Studies School, trains professionals specialized in Holistic Transformation
By Holistic Transformation, we understand a process aimed to improve health and well-being in all aspects: the different levels: body, primal-vital, heart, mind and consciousness; the two polarities: give-receive; strength-softness; receptivity-proclivity etc., and the two dimensions: Individual and social.
We understand that the degree of coherence and harmony between all these aspects is what determines the state or degree of health of individuals, including groups, structures and social institutions.
Training proposal
We understand this training as a support for students in order to know their capacities, shape them for an integral development of themselves, and for a professional task, as a complement, or as a Holotherapist. This is a new profession – not ruled – for supporting people through integral development.
Therefore, ESTEL training contemplates, first of all, what students already have, not their lacks. As they become conscious of their own innate capacities and shape them as above mentioned, the singular, professional identity will emerge, as the personal identity also does. Readings, experience and the contributions of other professionals will help him implementing and enriching their own personal and professional identity.
ESTEL’s training characteristics:
1. Begins with your own self-knowledge
3. Starts by experiential practice.
2. The year of schooling is not predetermined.
4.Theory is developed from the practices, and is understood like the “capacity to explain and argue both professional approach and practice, speaking and in writing, for oneself, for customers and for other professionals.
Main principles which prove the professional capacity of the care giver
A professional who works in Holistic Transformation must have enough human maturity to avoid deep contradictions between their personal and professional life.
That is the reason why it is a must for all our professionals to be able to help themselves before they help others. As well it is necessary for all of them to go through a series of supervision sessions with other professionals while they keep their professional practices. That helps them to be coherent and to keep growing professionally and personally.
A professional care giver, as we understand it, values their personal relationship as a key element in the changing process.
Therefore, the care giver must be able to accept the user and to settle a one-to-one relationship that helps them to develop their own human resources. On the other hand, the care giver must know how to handle efficiently and properly their experiences and feelings so they do not interfere with the user’s process.
A professional care giver must be able to create a global project based on the user’s —as well as their own— needs, deepest motivations and plans. (Read more) This plan must be based on the basic principles belonging to a harmonious, balanced and coherent functioning of every human being. But, at the same time, it should have in mind the individualities of every person which make everyone unique and genuine.
Even though techniques, from our point of view, are not imperative, they usually become essential in order to make the transformation process easier for the user.
Thus, by knowing different techniques, the professional is going to have a wider set of tools and resources. It is needless to say that all these techniques must be properly and opportunely handled by professionals. Techniques should be used according to the person, not the other way round.
It is referred to the care giver’s capacity to balance effectively the path, the specific conditions of the user and the different elements that join together in this holistic transformation process.
Professional ability includes the task of making the user’s mobilisation easier. They should also provide a sense of consciousness related to the mechanisms that interfere with the transformation process and they should work with everything that has been moved, such as integration in every level and polarity.
A professional care giver must have a clear theoretical structure that enables them to give an oral or written explanation of their professional decisions in front of the user or in front of other professionals.
Theory cannot be dissociated from professional practices, but it should be used to reinforce them and share them with other professionals instead.
A professional care giver must have a clear consciousness about their possibilities as a care giver and their limits —in a personal and a professional level—, as well as the user’s limits and the boundaries due to the surroundings.
Therefore, a professional care giver will always treat each case in a harmonious and coherent way. In case the professional care giver believes it is the best to send the user to another professional, they should do so as soon as possible. Professional honesty also implies to treat respectfully the user’s defensive attitudes and to avoid as much as possible chaotic situations and loss of control which cannot be reorganized.
Theoretical, educational and experimental areas
Holistic Transformation Training is divided into three main areas: experimental, educational and theoretical in this exact order.
Experimental area is about personal aspects of the student which are considered to be a priority.
If the student is living a period of their life with many personal conflicts, this situation must be handled as a priority in order to be able to learn from them.
Educational area is the professional training. It is a way of learning by practising. It consists of role play in which the student has to go through different roles and it helps them learn how to become a care giver (as if they would be so).
Theoretical area is in the first place an oral and written project done by the student as a result of the previous areas. This project will be checked by other colleagues, a supervisor and it should be done with bibliographic references. Giving opportunities to the student in order to help them create their own theories is regarded as a fundamental part of the learning process. By doing that, the student may be able to start their first draft which later will be part of their personal professional style and will be coherent with their personality. Bibliography helps them to find a contrast to their identity, which is still being shaped, with other professional contributions.
Teaching and learning are not an exclusive possession of books or teachers, but it usually comes from any experience and if it is well developed may be extremely worthy as a part of the learning process.
As it was mentioned before, the paradigm or learning focal point is the one which is based on different human levels, on two polarities and its two dimensions. This referent is combined with the Four Seasons paradigm.
Holistic Transformation Certificate
This certificate given by ESTEL School is private and has no legal validity. It shows that the student has learnt a new, unofficial profession. It is only taught in ESTEL and it proves that the student is ready to guide people in their holistic transformation process.
LEARNING PLAN
This learning program has two main phases: the basic program and the professional training program.
A.- Basic program: We learn how to value our own health and our healthy background.
First phase: Inner evaluation.
In this phase the student learns how to evaluate their own holistic health.
Tools:
a.- Gathering, in paper, autobiographical information.
b.- Holistic analysis of the autobiography.
c.- Writing about personal experience in a group frame based on these points:
- Objective description of the experience.
- How was this useful for my own personal development?
- What professional implementation can I see in a experienced work?
- Doubts and questions
d.- Individual arranged session with your supervisor
Second phase: Background evaluation.
In this phase the student learns how to evaluate individual’s health, collective health as well as the health of social structures
Tools:
a.- Gathering in paper of information which belongs to all the four fields evaluated: two individuals (man – female or adult – child), a collective and a social structure.
b.- Holistic analysis of all the four fields.
c.- Optional: first phase’s section c.
d.- Arranged sessions with your supervisor as individual and/or as a group.
B.- Professional training program: We learn how to take care of our own health and to take care of the health of our surrounding.
- Option 1: Specific professional training in the student’s particular field.
- Option 2: Training in Holotherapy.
Methodology:
- Internship in which the student has to write down all important information.
- Arranged sessions with your supervisor as individual and/or as a group. There student’s strategies and internships are holistically analyzed. Afterwards, some other strategic options are shown and argued. That is how the student gathers knowledge through experiences, while they build a professional identity which is coherent and genuine with their own personal identity.
Training length
As it was mentioned before, there is no limited amount of time. Its length depends on:
- The student’s previous preparation
- The amount of time the student can devote to their learning process
- The amount of arranged sessions with their supervisor
- The student’s learning capacities and particular path
Average length:
- Basic program: 1 or 2 school years
- Professional training program: 1 to 3 school years
