Indico Institute

Some musings on trainings for you this week...What is the difference between a 1 year foundation training in Open Dialogue and a longer (3 year) training? In our institute we have chosen to offer both. There is a history to this – in Western Lapland, the one year was understood to be the introduction, the year that allowed everyone joining the organisation to “get on board”. The core training was the three year training, that qualified you as an Open Dialogue dialogic therapist. If you chose to be a trainer, it was an additional two year training on top of that.
International implementations often use the one year foundation as the minimum standard for Open Dialogue implementations and research. For this reason, in the foundation trainings we tend to focus on skills and experiential practice – helping people explore the practicalities of open dialogue in their context, and what we “do in the room”. For me, I think of this as a map (or nowadays an app) that helps us structure where we need to go and how to be. As anyone who travels knows, this can be phenomenally helpful (I’m a google map devotee) and also, sometimes, impacts on our opportunity to explore and learn our own way around.
In the longer trainings, we have the opportunity to delve deeper, into the work and into our own relational networks and practice. This is something we as a training team deeply value, and we are one of the few institutes still offering this three year training. Within this we hold it as a priority to keep a tight trainer – student ratio (1 trainer to 9 trainees) so that we can offer a truly supportive and need adapted pathway for our students to explore the dialogical way of ‘being with’. This is a longer, slower, winding path, and I like to think we are moving from using a map to developing our own dialogical compass – so that we can start to get a feeling and experience as to how we can draw on these values and practices no matter the context.
We’d love to hear from you all – what have you gained from the shorter or longer trainings you have done? What are the challenges of the different approaches? What metaphors best capture the different offerings?

In our ongoing Higher Diploma course we have participants from nine countries around the world. This supports the creation of international networks of people engaged in dialogic work, an important goal we have in Indico.

The application time for our next cohort of Higher Diploma course is now open:

Diploma Course - Open Dialogue and Dialogic Practice Training The Indico Institute’s 3 year Higher Diploma is aligned with the current international standard of Open Dialogue and Dialogic Practice trainings.

The first three days of our Open Dialogue Foundation Training are now complete, and we are left with gratitude. It’s a privilege to be in work that continues to change us. People joined from across the world to explore how our mental health systems might become more responsive and dialogical.

Due to high level of interest we are delighted to Open the door for our second Higher Diploma in Dialogic and Co-creative Practices!

The course is now open for applications. We allocate the places as we accept the applicants so we encourage you to apply sooner rather than later.

We look forward to meeting the ones who already have applied in our opening seminar in November 2026.

Plenty of more information on our website:

Diploma Course - Open Dialogue and Dialogic Practice Training The Indico Institute’s 3 year Higher Diploma is aligned with the current international standard of Open Dialogue and Dialogic Practice trainings.

We were honoured to have Harlene Anderson join us for our Higher Diploma Theory Day. We discussed the nature of relationships in relational work, and how to build collaborative and dialogic processes with individuals and families. It was a pleasure to have her inspiration and dedication to the work with us on the course!

People have been asking what dialogic and reflective supervision is—and how it differs from traditional supervision.

At its heart, this approach is not about controlling people’s practice or knowing for them. It is about creating a shared, reflective space where people can slow down and think together. Through dialogue, perspectives widen, assumptions can be gently explored, and understanding is formed collaboratively rather than imposed.

In supervision, our role is to support professional growth, well-being, and diversity, while caring for confidentiality, ethical responsibility, and psychological safety. The goals of supervision are always agreed upon together with the organisation and the supervisees.

Through our decades of experience in both receiving and offering supervision in the therapeutic and mental health fields, we know this work calls for professional humility and responsibility. We actively maintain and renew our skills through ongoing training and our own supervision, and we continuously evaluate our work through feedback and reflection.

Dialogic supervision invites us to see the organisation as a living environment, where everyone is a co-creator of ethically sustainable practice and a healthy working culture.

We offer individual and group supervision for teams who want to explore their practice dialogically, and for organisations interested in embedding dialogic work and the Open Dialogue approach as a core of their service delivery.
You can connect with us throug email: [email protected]

INDICO Institute - Open Dialogue Training Courses Open Dialogue training courses (three year Higher Diploma)begin in 2025 with the International Institute of Dialogic and Co-Creative Practice.

Open Dialogue Foundation Training – some places still available (applications close 12 January) 🌿

Many have asked about the venue for our Foundation Training — out of the 20 training days, four will take place in person in Helsinki, with the remaining days held online. (You can also choose a fully online option if that suits you better.)

We will meet at Lapinlahden Lähde in Helsinki, a historic building originally created in the 19th century to improve the quality of mental health care in Finland. Today, it has become a lively cultural centre for civil society, dialogue, and community life.

Designed by Carl Ludvig Engel, this neoclassical building is located on a small peninsula by Lapinlahti Bay, surrounded by a peaceful park, shoreline, and a sheltered beach. The area now includes cafés, an artisanal bakery, and welcoming spaces for gathering and reflection.

A setting where history, care, and renewal come together — we look forward to being there with you!

You can find details for applying from our website:

INDICO Institute - Open Dialogue Training Courses Open Dialogue training courses (three year Higher Diploma)begin in 2025 with the International Institute of Dialogic and Co-Creative Practice.

Warm seasonal wishes from all of us at Indico Institute ❄️

As the year draws to a close, we want to pause and express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone we have had the privilege to collaborate with during this past year. The dialogue we have shared — across places, practices, and perspectives — has shaped our work in meaningful ways.

We wish you a restful season and a gentle transition into the New Year. We look forward to continuing our dialogue, collaboration, and shared learning in the year ahead.

We will now take a break for the Christmas holidays. We will be back in the office on the 29th December.

With appreciation and best wishes for the season and the coming year, Mia, Iseult and Eija-Liisa from Indico Institute

We are extending the application time for our Foundation training until 12.1.2026.

If you are interested in learning more about Open Dialogue, please visit our website and learn more about the course:

Indico Open Dialogue Foundation Training | Indico Institute Interested in the Foundation programme starting in 2026? Please come meet the trainers on Tuesday 2nd December 1800 UK we will have a chance to talk together about what the one year foundation involves, and how it might work for you. Here’s the zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/95700393887?pwd=bhgrMLnU...

BREAKING NEWS - Please share!!

We are so excited to share that we have been supported to offer a 50% price reduction on places on our upcoming Open Dialogue Foundation Training next year for applicants from a Lived Experience background and applicants from the Global South.

If you qualify, please apply as usual (see below for link) and name that you are a scholarship applicant.

We are really keen to let people know about this - so we would be grateful if people can share this post with anyone you know who might be eligible.

Link below for all the information and application forms

www.indicoinsitute.com

We are gently coming out of the first in-person block of our Higher Diploma course in Tornio, Finland—a week filled with beginnings, continuations, getting to know one another, and learning in its many layers.

Meeting in Tornio and reflecting on the origins of Open Dialogue felt especially significant , offering depth and orientation for our work. It was meaningful and warm to be together at this beginning, and a good start for the years to come.

The Open Dialogue Foundation Training 2026, offered by the Indico Institute, provides professionals in mental health, social care, therapy, and community work with a solid grounding in dialogical and relational practice.

Led by Mia Kurtti, Iseult Twamley and Eija-Liisa Rautiainen, the training draws on their extensive experience of the original Finnish model, as well as the international implementation and teaching of dialogical and therapeutic approaches.

Flick Grey and Olga Runciman, our Dialogue Partners, contribute their lived experience and peer perspectives, as they thoughtfully explore the role of peers and lived experience in mental health practice.

The timing of the online training days has been adjusted to better accommodate participants across different time zones.
#

Indico Open Dialogue Foundation Training | Indico Institute Open Dialogue is a values- and principles-led approach to mental health and social care that centres human connection, shared meaning-making, and dialogic practice. Open Dialogue aims to integrate human rights-based care into health and social care practices (World Health Organisation). This trainin...