Tuesday 8 December 2026
19:30–21:00 Irish time · Online via Zoom
Language: English A 90-minute online evening with David Young and Simon Courtney
Fee: 20 Euros
“Can we make room for one another while remaining present with ourselves?” -Simon CourtneyAn Introduction to Collective Integration
How does “us” feel?
REGISTER HERE
WHY THIS SPACE
When we hear the words collective healing, we often imagine many individuals each doing their own healing, as if the collective were a sum of separate people, or something out there that we might one day help.
Collective Integration begins from a different place. Just as each of us has a physical body and a nervous system, there is also a collective body, and what we might call a collective nervous system, or what Carl Jung called the collective psyche. It is not an idea somewhere else. It lives here, between us, and in our own bodies, and with practice we can learn to sense it.
This evening is a first meeting with the work that David Young has developed as the Art of Collective Integration, and a way to feel whether the one-day workshop in Dublin in January, or the four-day training, might be right for you.
WHY COLLECTIVE TRAUMA?
What a family, a community or a people could not feel at the time does not simply disappear. It stays undigested in the collective body, and it keeps returning, in the charge that rises at the dinner table, in the tension no one names in a meeting, in the divisions that seem to replay themselves from one generation to the next. Much of what we experience today as polarisation, numbness or fragmentation is the tip of this iceberg.
We have places to digest our personal histories, in therapy and in our closest relationships, but very few places where a group can digest what it carries together. In Ireland we know something of this, in the famine, emigration, the loss of language and the long habit of silence, and the same is true, in different forms, for peoples all over the world.
“It is not an idea somewhere else. It lives here, between us, and in our own bodies.”
- Simon Courtney
WHO IS THIS SPACE DESIGNED FOR?
This evening is for:
Anyone who senses that their own healing is woven into something larger.
Therapists and somatic practitioners interested in the relationship between personal and collective experience.
Facilitators, teachers and leaders who encounter tension, silence or polarisation in groups.
People curious about how family, ancestral and cultural histories live in present relationships.
Those considering the January workshop or four-day training who would like to experience the approach first.
No prior experience of collective trauma work is needed. You are welcome to bring your curiosity, questions and lived experience.
WHAT WE’LL EXPLORE
The heart of the evening is learning to attune to ourselves and to discern between what is mine and what is collective.
This is not an idea but a capacity of our own nervous system. In one moment I am feeling my own life, and in another I may notice I have tuned into something we carry, as a family, a people or a country, and the sensations, emotions and quality of presence shift.
Rather than following the stories we tell about these things, we stay in the here and now and notice what actually arises in us as we attune.
In small groups of resonance we explore our experience of the collective together, paying attention to the somatic, emotional and relational changes that come as the we space becomes more alive.
A simple question will guide the exploration:
How does “us” feel?
EVENING STRUCTURE
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A short teaching.
An introduction to Collective Integration, collective trauma and the practice of attending to the collective body.
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A guided practice
Time to slow down, attune to yourself and notice what changes as your awareness includes a wider collective.
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Small resonance groups
An opportunity to explore together, paying attention to what arises in our bodies, emotions and relationships.
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Reflection and questions
Space to bring your experience back to the whole group and deepen your understanding with Simon.
Meet your Facilitators
David Young · Teacher
Teacher, Facilitator & Developer of the Art of Collective IntegrationDavid’s work explores how we meet polarization, conflict and collective trauma within our relationships and communities. Drawing on mindfulness, systems thinking and approaches to trauma healing, he supports groups in recognising the deeper experiences that shape how we relate.
His teaching invites people to stay present with complexity, listen beneath the surface of disagreement, and discover what becomes possible when we make room for one anot
Simon Courtney
Psychotherapist, Coach & Group FacilitatorSimon is an Irish psychotherapist and coach whose work explores the relationship between our inner lives and the wider histories and communities we belong to. Alongside his private practice, he works as a mentor and facilitator within Thomas Hübl’s training programmes.
With a particular interest in Irish identity, belonging and collective healing, Simon creates spaces to explore the stories we have inherited and how they live within us today. His approach invites a deeper relationship with ourselves and one another, through presence, curiosity and honest conversation.