History
Its a challenging job to try to put together the history of Relating Arts so what you see on this page is likely not the full story. It is however our best attempt at giving an overview of the various lineages that have intermingled and created the ecology of practice that we see today.
2008-2024
Circling Europe was founded in 2012 by John Thompson and Sean Wilkinson.
2009-
Guy Sengenstock founds “The Circling Institute”
2013-
Authentic Revolution started popularizing the field of Authentic Relating though events and by creating the Authentic Relating Games Manual (now with over 250 games and variations by 64 contributors from around the world).
2015-
Honesty Europe was founded by trainers, workshop leaders, therapists, and married couple Tuulia Syvänen and Pete Jordan.
2017-
ART, the Authentic Relating Training, was founded by Jason Diggs and Ryel Kestano in 2017.
2019-
The Relateful Company and the practice relatefulness came into the world as Jordan Myska Allen together with a group of other (mostly American) leaders, split off from Circling Europe with the online platform previously known as “Circle Anywhere” and reinvented “Circling & Surrendered Leadership” as “Relatefulness” and “Flow”.
2024-
As Circling Europe left the trademarking process initiated by the Circling institute and thus could’t use the term “Circling” anymore, the organization rebranded as “Transformational Connection”.
Sources
Compiling this timeline has already been a bit of an effort. Many dates (and stories) are contested and a lot of the material is based on stories from practitioners or reading up on various websites. We have listed some of the main sources here:
https://circlingguide.com/history-of-circling/
https://intromeditation.com/Wordpress/a-history-of-circling/
https://circlingguide.com/history-of-circling/
https://www.authrev.com/2015/07/17/my-authenticity-isnt-real/