About


If you read My Vision and What matters you will already know a lot about me. Besides that you can look up the facts of my life below.
And there is still more to tell about my life and my passion.

 

Vitis is the Latin name of the plant that grows grapes: the vine. A funny, green name for a business, but not without meaning. Ria is a life-time gardener that’s why she knew and choose this name: the grapes, white or blue, hold the potential for good wine: harvested and collected at the right moment, they become wine, almost by themselves.

A noble, rich liquid if professionals facilitate the transformation process.

Heady or sour if it is done too quickly or in ignorance.

The wine is a potential that is present in the grapes. It doesn’t come out at once, it takes its time to manifest. The love of the professional winemaker and the years of experience can create little miracles in what becomes real and possible!

Vitis-tct: Training - Coaching - Transformation is a one-woman business located in Belgium, founded by Ria Baeck in 2002.

Some personal history

I grew up as the eldest daughter in a family with 5 children in a little village. The village was my world and I lived according to that. Besides that one teacher inspired me to go to university, I stayed in this world and married and got 3 sons: everything fine, everything OK. My husband and I were engaged in fair trade shops and in the peace movement.
But a little voice in my head told me: "Now it is my turn!" and I started on what would become a life long learning journey. Feminism, inner growth, shamanism, emotional bodywork, druïdism, contextual therapy, spirituality, 5 Rhythms dance, Systemic Constellations ... and the journey goes on: Spiral Dynamics, Presencing, Collective Wisdom, Brian Swimme, Evolutionary Leadership.
My sons became adults, searching and finding their own lifepath and their partners. After a divorce and another 10-year relationship I lived happily for 9 years on my own. It gave me the time to ground in myself and find happiness within.

The golden thread unfolding through all these years could be called 'taking initiative to form new ways of cooperation'. Although not in the business world, but in the area of personal development and social profit, it shows my life-long search for integrating leadership and community. A special note of gratitude goes to my sisters in De Vijfster (later Vierster). Through an intensive and wonderful process of being together for 6 years, we developed a deep friendship and a new kind of knowledge. The knowledge of creating the group's spirit and acting out of that collective field. This intensive and wonderful process moved then to Women Moving the Edge, a truelly transforming journey, an action research project, which resulted in some video's, a few articles and a book about Collective Presencing (to come).

 

Studies

  • '73-'79: KULeuven, Lic.(Master) in Clinical Psychology
    * '89-'93: Trainer/therapist in Emotional Bodywork; School for Body and Soul, Holland
    * '02-'04: Organisational and Structural Constellations, Belgium
    * '05-'06: Deep Change, Belgium
    * '06-'07: Organisational Constellations: Community of Learning, Practice and Innovation, Nowhere Foundation, England

 

Since '83 countless trainings, workshops, seminars on:

(I gave up adding to this list around 2005)

* self-reflection
* System therapy
* Group Dynamics
* Women's topics
* Sexuality
* Supervision
* Contextual Therapy
* Druïdism
* Shamanism
* Native American Teachings
* Core Qualities
* Meditation
* Dance

 

Professional Experience

* '78-'85: short term contracts in Social and Training work

* '86-'91: full-time coordinator YWCA-Antwerp

* '91-'93: half-time coordinator ANJA: Network of Child and Youth Migrant Work in Antwerp

* '91 : half-time self-employed psychotherapist

* '92 : initiator and director of vzw Lijf en Leven: a collaboration of different body-oriented psychotherapists

* '96-current: full-time self-employed psychotherapist with specialisation in body-oriented approach

* '02-current: working as coach, supervisor and trainer

* '03-current: facilitator of Systemic Constellations

* '06-current: facilitator/host of change processes, including collective intelligence and collective wisdom of the whole system

 

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