As one of the founders of the project, I will briefly say a few words about how we got started. The story of the origins begins around 20 years ago, when I first came to China at the time I was a university student with my three friends from Finland.
I fell in love with the country's culture and the emotional expressions of the people when you get a real, more deeper contact with them.
Those memories had been in my heart ever since, and then around 7 years ago me and some colleagues had lunch with Nancy McWilliams and she told us stories of many places in the world that she had been teaching.
And when she told about China, I had a spontaneous gesture to say: "Wow, that would be so interesting to do something like that." And she replied to my spontaneous comment with a similar spontaneous and generous act of benevolent will saying: "Well, hey, if you and your colleagues would be interested in it, contact my interpreter in China and let's see what she can do about it."
And so Wu Chunyan (Amy) who is the interpreter of Nancy and also interpreter in our training program created a collaboration with Tang Jian, whose lifelong passion for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy had made him an icon in the Chinese psychoanalytic circles. He also listened to his spontaneous gesture to say yes to the collaboration with strangers from the other side of the world.
A part of the origins are there so that we always travel with four Finns, just like it happened when I first fell in love with the emotional expression of Chinese people. Our group of seven teachers have created this program in close collaboration with Tang Jian's team, and something new and unexpected has emerged. We are grateful for this safe surprise that has been born out of a humane chain of spontaneous gestures. And that chain continues as we teach, learn and create the program together.