Swimming Upstream – Worldwork + Process Work Intensive – Morocco+Online by Deep Democracy Institute International
5 Day Hybrid Leadership Development Intensive for Facilitators, Coaches, Community Builders, Corporate Leaders + Spiritual Seekers
Join us for this year’s annual Deep Democracy Institute Intensive for Facilitators, Coaches, Community Builders, Corporate Leaders + Spiritual Seekers, lead by Drs. Ellen + Max Schupbach and the DDI team.
We look forward to study and practice together the Second Training approach, and explore Process Work as a living awareness practice — a kind of Big TOE, or Theory of Everything — that brings together dreams, body experience, relationships, conflict, nature, science, and spirit.
Swimming Upstream (in the mainstream) is a space for demonstrating and practicing what Arnold Mindell called The Second Training for Leaders. It is also the title of his final book, completed before his death. In it, he summarizes his lifelong research into a universal, holistic framework that helps individuals and communities cultivate ongoing awareness practices, develop greater agility and fluidity, facilitate conflicts from a innovative perspective, relate creatively to health challenges, and bring flow to stuck processes.
The Second Training is not about self-improvement. It is an invitation to an adventurous discovery of the hidden miracles within ourselves, in one another, in the world, and in the vastness of Space.
Swimming Upstream is a multidimensional awareness practice of Process Work as a daily compass. Rather than simply coping with the expectations of the mainstream—or merely fighting against them—we learn to notice and unfold the deeper potentials that are already present in our experiences. At the same time, we come to appreciate the mainstream itself as the shared medium of every culture: the common river that we all inhabit.
We all live within the mainstream, whether we agree with its norms, try to adapt to them, or struggle against them. Every day, we encounter expectations about who we should be, how we should act, and what is considered successful or acceptable. These expectations shape our daytime identities and also appear inwardly as self-criticism, tension, body symptoms, relationship conflicts, and even in our dreams.
Over time, each of us develops ways to cope with these pressures. Often, we try to push the tension away or repress it for as long as possible. Process Work understands the disturbances, challenges, and inner and outer crises we meet on this path not only as problems to solve, but also as signals pointing toward a deeper path with its own wisdom and logic.
Process Work helps us follow these signals through dreams, body symptoms, relationship tensions, and world conflicts. It teaches us to listen to what disturbs us, switch sides, unfold what is hidden, and discover the deeper pattern trying to emerge.
When we follow these experiences with awareness, they can reveal our individual wholeness. And, seemingly paradoxically, they can also show us that we are part of something larger: our relationships, our communities, life on earth, and the universe at large.
Come join us for the adventurous journey of discovering together how the path teaches the teacher, how the community spirit leads the leaders, how the body is the bridge between us and our dreams, and how relationship conflicts create new miraculous spaces of love and intimacy.
Who we are
This Clinic is an initiative of the Deep Democracy Institute International. We are members of the Deep Democracy Alliance, an alumni network of DDI colleagues from East Africa, West Asia, Southeast Asia, Russia, Ukraine, Europe, Australia, and the USA, all of whom have completed a Process Work Diploma program.
Our annual Intensive courses are regularly attended by co-learners from our global community—an essential expression of our organization’s core purpose and the meaning behind our logo: Unity in Diversity.
We are a member of the International Association of Process-oriented Psychologists (IAPOP) and our training program follows their guidelines.
We broadly indentify also with the Pluriverse Movement, whose core idea is based on the concept that there is no single universal way to live well, organize societies, or relate to nature. Instead, it honors diverse worldviews, cosmologies, and ways of knowing and being.
Co-learning Together: The Team
The Intensive follows a Process Work Clinic format, developed and co-facilitated by Ellen and Max Schupbach. It brings together a dynamic mix of seasoned Process Work Diplomats, advanced learners, and newcomers, creating a living co-learning experience where a unique culture of collaboration emerges differently each year. This evolving process adapts to each group and environment, leading to powerful, inspirational experiences that are shaped by those who participate.
We are especially excited about this year’s focus on the Second Training. More details here in the days and weeks to come.
Our 2026 Intensive Community: Awareness, Power and Communities
Our Intensive is a training event and at the same time action research experiment for creating alternative narratives for individuals, teams and communities.
We use aspects of Process Work to demonstrate and practice how the discipline of differentiating the Process-oriented Awareness Modes including multi-dimensional Process Work rank awareness modes can change perspectives, narratives and outcomes of community work.
We practice the use of the essence level when facilitating escalation, polarizations and hotspots. Our focus is on dropping personal history, and facilitating from the ground we stand on up.
Process Work differentiates between three types of rank, each with its own power, privileges, and characteristics:
• Consensus Reality Rank refers to measurable power hierarchies, whether individual or systemic, based on factors such as social status, wealth, or institutional influence.
• Dreaming Rank arises from an understanding of subjective roles and deeper psychological or relational awareness, existing on both individual and systemic levels.
• Essence Rank stems from a connection to deeper spiritual cores or essences, holding both dualities and offering a sense of interconnectedness beyond conventional and energetic hierarchies.
We practice the alchemy of awareness of multi-dimensional rank structure, and Process Work Conflict Phases to transform conflict into authentic collaboration.
Clinic Format: An Immersive Experience
This is not just a course—it is an immersice experience designed for individuals who feel an inner calling to explore these themes, regardless of their current life situation. It is for those seeking a deeper sense of wholeness within themselves and a way to apply that wholeness to building stronger communities and facilitating conflict resolution at all levels.
A Fluid, Participatory Daily Format
Our daily schedule is flexible and co-created, emerging from the group process and the flow of our ad hoc community of participants. While the structure adapts, the basic framework includes:
• 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Large group gatherings, demonstrations of inner work, and facilitated large-group processes. Different facilitator teams and willing participants lead these sessions daily.
• 2:30 – 3:30 PM
Tutorials on the theory used that day, along with open Q&A sessions for Newcomers to Process Work.
Small Groups of 15-20 People
• 4:00 – 5:30 PM
Small group sessions for inner work practices (individually or in dyads) and participant-led small group processes.
All of us together
• 5:45 – 7:00 PM
This slot features presentations, case consultations, small group processes, individual works within a fishbowl setting – relevant to the daily theme
Online + Face to Face
Most participants send us great feeback on the inclusion processes of the face-to-face and the online participants.The facilitation of any issues and the collaboration between the two parts of the communities is an important aspect of creating alternatives.
Morning – We plan for a beginning structure to include online and f-2-f participants during the morning sessions (10a.m.-1p.m. CET)
*for online participants who cannot join during that time period, recording will be available!
Afternoon – The format will most likely be mixed, where we break up into smaller groups and/or dyads, where as the online participants create their own small groups that fits into their timezone. There will be an online facilitator for the parts that are separate.
The question of combining or separating online and f-2-f participation in the afternoons will not be planned prior to the event, but processed by everyone to facilitate consensus-based solutions.
Evening – All of Us Together again, which recordings for online participants who are not able to join
Course Fee :
F-2-F Tangier 980 Euro
Online 680 Euro
We Follow Geographical Pricing – Please Inquire about Special Fees for Your Region.
Scholarships are available! Please write to mpere@deepdemocracyinstitute.org
***course fee for Tangier includes coffee and tea (meals + lodging are not included)