Dr. John Banmen

Dr. John Banmen
Training Director Emeritus

The first time Dr. John Banmen met Virginia Satir was in Manitoba, Canada in June 1970. He began helping professional therapeutic practitioners in the Satir Model with Virginia Satir at the annual month long Process Communities she held at Crested Butte, Colorado in the 1980s. This led him to become training Director of the first established Satir Institute. It was called the Northwest Satir Institute with members in Washington State and British Columbia. In 1998 he was one of the founding members of the Satir Institute of the Pacific and became its first Director of Training, developing and teaching programs and mentoring Trainers for the next fifteen years.

In the meantime, John had begun his lifelong mission of bringing Satir Training to many parts of the world including South America, Europe and many countries in Asia. This has resulted in students from around the world coming to the Satir Institute of the Pacific Intensive Residential Programs and members of the Institute in BC becoming trainers in many of those countries as well as India and Kenya. In later years, John has concentrated his efforts in China where he has built up a large network of Institutes, trainers and training programs.

Virginia Satir said that John was the person who understood and conceptualized what she did intuitively leading to their collaboration with Jane Gerber and Maria Gomori in the publication of The Satir Model, Family Therapy and Beyond in 1991. The book remains the seminal source for understanding the framework of the Satir Model. John’s encouragement, full mentorship and coaxing has enabled many colleagues in BC and around the world to publish articles in the Satir Journal (2006-13) and in several books that he has edited such as Applications of the Satir Growth Model (2006), In Her Own Words…Virginia Satir (2008), and Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy (2008). More recently he has published a third book of Guided Meditations and Inspirations by Virginia Satir (2020) and co-authored with Sharon Loeschen a book entitled, Simple but Profound: Sayings of Virginia Satir (2020).

It is now over thirty years since Virginia Satir died in 1988 and her legacy lives on today in Universities, Training Institutes, Counselling Centres and Therapists offices in many parts of the world. The Satir Model is not static, its core values are being developed and adapted to fit many different contexts. This is in no small measure due to the work and efforts of Dr. John Banmen and those he has trained to continue this important work.

The Satir Institute and its members are grateful for the many various gifts he has given each of us and wish to honour him with the title of ‘Training Director Emeritus’.