Frequently Asked Questions

Internship in Process Work (IPW) : FAQ's

The dialogue below is intended to find answers for questions that are asked by (and not asked) by the members of Internship In Process Work community who join us each year. We have tried to make this as comprehensive as we can, however, please feel free to dialogue with the Program Director – IPW or Co-Deans - IPW for further/detailed understanding.

1. What is internship in process work all about? I mean I have enrolled but what do Sumedhas expect from us?

We believe that Internship in Process Work is about investing in & developing process workers & facilitators, change agents, leaders, catalysts and trainers in your communities, organizations and in other settings through a process of experiential learning and community living.

It encourages you to:

• Learn about yourself, your propensities and proclivities through self-disclosure, group reflection and feedback.
• Learn how to use group settings to build resilience and reduce the impact of negative experiences and trauma, if any.
• Learn and understand identity processes both at individual and collective levels and its implications in our lives, our personal and work systems, our community and in our larger context.
• Question or reexamine your existing framework of beliefs, values, opinions and ways of engaging with self, systems and the larger context.
• Learn about meaning making, role taking and choice making processes and apply to individual, systemic and collective context.
• Explore the roles and the nature of membership that one tends to take in primary and secondary systems.
• Understand the nature of social character that we are influencing and are influenced by and its implications in our lives, family, society, organizations, community and the larger context.
• Learn and work with our nature of commitment and action orientation and make new choices to act, and finally,
  

We believe that the internship in Process Work is NOT about:

1. Problem solving and finding prescriptions for oneself and for others. It is however aboutcreating opportunities for exploration, reflection, and experimentation for Self and Others.
2. Teach-Train-Transfer of process work settings or cognitive learning alone but for learning by doing and learning from experience.
3. Indoctrinating interns onto a common ideological platform, but to enable the intern to shape his or her own philosophy of living.
4. Externalizing the sources of one's own struggles and sorrow, a process reminiscent of witch-hunting of the "other" or finding the common enemy outside, but of discovering and working with the blocks within, and taking responsibility for actions that have shaped one's life.
5. Finding out the "right way to be", as spelt out by some Guru but discovering one's own Dharma.

 2. Why do I have to write a review at the end of module and another review in September? What do you do with them?

• First of all, the review statement is intended to map the salient movements of the individual across the internship, and/or to reflect on the residues, the confusions, the resolutions, and the unfulfilled commitments that have impeded one's action or experimentation. We believe that while you write your review, you are dialoguing with yourself. The review statements become an important building block for you to create a cogent narrative for yourself that provides a sense of integrating learning, insights, and action.
• Writing a review becomes a key systemic process as this becomes the principal mode for the Dean(s) - Process Work, in gleaning and in keeping in touch with the intern, and his or her learning processes.
• You need to write two reviews:
  
  • The first review is to be written at the end of the Module (1, 2 & 3)
  • The second one is a mid-year review and requires to be written within two months after completion of a module. This review needs to reach the Co-Dean(s) by 1st September of the year, definitely. 

The Internship Review Committee anchored by the Co-Dean(s) - Process Work, offers its collective reflection and the way forward for each person, whose reviews are received within the stipulated time.

Please note: Your data and reviews are confidential and are shared with no other member of Sumedhas, except members of the Internship Review Committee. Certainly not with your organisation or any other internship participant.

Your participation in the next module will depend upon:

• The reflections of your first and your mid year review,
• The Nature of your reflections, questions and action choices as reflected in your review and in your dialogue with us. 

Unlike in typical organizations, where decisions are often based on what is best for the organization, in Sumedhas, it is the Intern's wellbeing and readiness that is paramount.

3. What happens in the time between 2 modules? What does the Intern do?

• A lot can happen but will depend upon your inclination and initiative. We hope that you would join the chapter meetings and better still, initiate one. We believe chapter meetings are a great way of learning, sharing and relating to one another.
• There will be mandatory and elective webinars/virtual learning spaces that will comprise the cognitive aspects to compliment the experiential learning.
• You have the option of keeping in touch with us through your mentors, mail, calls and through the following networks:

  Through the e-group (http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/sumedhas),

  Through Sumedhas blog (http://sumedhas.blogspot.in) or

  Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/sumedhas/) or

  LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Sumedhas)

  All of these are open groups and you can become a member anytime you feel like.

• You can attend any one of our four Meta Labs that are offered across the year (as of now in July, September, December and February). The details would be updated on our website.
• You need to attend Module 4 that focuses on basic disciplines, macro context, and development  of personal philosophy & perspective. We recommend that you attend this module after you finish your Module 2. Attending this module is part of internship requirements.
• You can offer programs in consultation with us for interested groups and organizations.
• You can share your experiences, through articles, stories, poetry, and any other form of expression, at the various community spaces mentioned above.
• You can share your opinions, thoughts, critiques and hypotheses about Sumedhas and its body of work at the same forums. 

4. Why is the transition from one Module to the other based on 'invitation'?

We believe each individual has a salient pace and appetite for learning and maturation.

The process of learning here is experiential, reflective & experimental rather than acquisitive and accumulative. And therefore there is a unique pace for acting, reflecting, sense making, validating, and examining ourselves as well as the world around us. This pace varies from person to person.

The recommendations for your next steps are built on the inferences, speculations, assumptions, wisdom and judgments of the Internship Review Committee - these are based on the in-program and post program Reviews statements. Another key input for the Internship Review Committee is the facilitator's experience of the intern during the modules.

5. Why do I have to write another review if I decide to come back after a gap of one year or more, even when I was invited to the next module the last time?

Firstly, we believe that both you and Sumedhas would have evolved during the gap between your last participation and the intended present. Thus a re-engagement is necessary. This process is best taken through writing a review and dialogue between you and us.

Secondly, we believe that writing a review helps you to be ready for the next level of participation through reflections and questions that are pertinent to you.

This review is not shared with your group facilitator(s).

6. What are Meta Labs all about? Why do I have to attend one of them in completing my internship?

Meta labs are labs that are designed to offer space for exploration that are beyond individual centric themes that you would explore in modules 1, 2 and 3. The Meta Labs are about exploring the implicit constructs of meaning making processes of individuals around phenomena, in some sense moving away from the personalized narrative towards universal themes associated with being human.

Attending at least one Meta lab is compulsory to complete the internship because it provides you with additional perspectives and frames for working with human phenomena, which the personal growth lab formats (as in Modules 1 to 3) may not engage with at a specific depth.

The detailed notes on each of the lab are already part of your suggested reading material. For more information, please get in touch with the respective Program Director(s).

7. What are my role and responsibility as a member of the program community?

We would like to stress that your continual engagement and interventions are a key to learning both for yourself and the community. We hope that you would not be a mere consumer of the learning opportunities provided. This also implies voicing your sense of disconnects, disappointments, conflicting perspectives, and potential confrontations. This will create opportunities for new learning and experimentation for the community and you thus become a co-shaper of the learning process, as opposed to being a passive recipient or much worse - a cribber and a silent sufferer in the galleries.

We expect that you would maintain confidentiality, and dignity of fellow participants who share data - events and experiences from their past as also of what happens in the group. This means not sharing these with other participants or the facilitator community, or with any one inside or outside Sumedhas.

We would expect you to maintain dignity in relating with each other and respect individual and systemic boundaries.

We hope that you would be authentic, curious, expressive, and that you would encourage others including the facilitator community, to do so.

8. Are there boundaries between facilitators and participants?

The primary task of the two sub-systems are different and hence there are boundaries that both group need to maintain.

The facilitators are expected to create learning opportunities as also to maintain time and task boundaries. They are expected to maintain personal boundaries of dignity, intimacy and confidentiality with members of the participant community. The facilitators will not engage with you about your data outside the group and will encourage you to bring the data back into the group. The facilitators from other groups will also not engage with you about your personal data or what is happening in the group, irrespective of your prior personal relationship with her/him.

You are expected not to work with your personal or group's data with any facilitator in private, irrespective of the nature of prior relationships. We hope that you would maintain this boundary and will encourage others to do so.

9. When and how does my Internship Process culminate? Do I receive a Certificate of Completion of Internship in Process Work?

Your Internship ends with your finishing Modules 1 to 4 as also participating in at least one Meta lab, and the prescribed webinars/virtual learning spaces. Thereafter you are eligible to receive a certificate of completion from us.

10. Do I get invited as a Resource Person after having completed my Module 3?

You will be invited as a Resource Person after you complete Modules 1-2-3 & 4 as part of our ongoing investment in your development as a group process facilitator. This invitation is made by the designated Program Director of the Summer Program each year. However, the invitation is valid only for the year following your completion of Module 4 and will not extend further.

11. What happens after I complete my Internship formalities? How do I become a Fellow of Sumedhas?

After you complete your Internship formalities, please get in touch with the Dean(s) - Process Work. The Dean(s) will then invite you to write two papers:

• The First paper is a personal narrative of your internship journey and your insights, perspectives and actions choices; and
• The Second paper may take the form of a narrative about your understanding of process work, its usage and application in your work context and your learning from this experience. 

It may also take shape of a conceptual framework.

Once you have completed these papers, you will be invited to attend and present your papers at the Institution Meet of Sumedhas. Members present at the Meet will reflect on your papers and offer their thoughts, views and suggestions.

Members present at he Institutional Meet make a recommendation on extending an invitation to the Fellowship of Sumedhas to the Board of Sumedhas.

The Board of Sumedhas formally decides to invite the person to the Fellowship of Sumedhas.

Thereafter, the Executive Director will write to you about the formalities involved towards completion of the process. Once you have completed all formalities, you will become a Fellow of Sumedhas.

12. What opportunities do I have to work with Sumedhas facilitators for various offerings? How is time and effort valued?

Sumedhas works on principles of volunteerism and the unilateral commitment of its Fellows and Interns. Offering one's time to the Role holders, and Program Directors and dialoguing with them on how you might support Sumedhas, and in turn identify opportunities compatible with your interests is a possible way. No remuneration is involved.

Fellows of Sumedhas facilitating groups from time to time extend opportunities for facilitation roles to Interns and other Fellows in their engagement with client systems (that is, outside of the Sumedhas umbrella). Valuing of time and effort in such contexts are matters settled by the concerned members and Sumedhas does not enter the picture.

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For any further questions, clarifications, views and comments, please write to:

Roop Sen, Executive Director: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or

Sharad Jhunjhunwala, Dean : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

You may also speak to any member of the Fellows community.