The Complete Facilitator's Handbook,

Topic clearly stated in the handbook but the best rewards from the book are likely to be those gained in practising what is discussed. Book came recommended by course teacher and it is a helpful overview. Not everyone liked it. I happened to because I am not a lover of over-theoretical works.

This is the book used within my role as a facilitator and it provides me with support and guidance when setting out to facilitate meetings, learning/teaching episodes. Very useful especially if you have never used a facilitative approach before.

I believe myself to be a reasonably competent facilitator but this book, far from inspiring, left me utterly baffled. It over-complicated the subject, burying a discipline that is all to do with clarity and good communication in an avalanche of psycho-babble. I couldn't relate to the terminology and by making the book about every learning interaction (including class teaching) it made it too generalised and non-specific to be of any use in a business setting. Only for the dedicated academic reader.

John is clearly a very bright man and a large part of the vibe of the book is to HAMMER that message home.A book that is designed to convey the message 'i am very clever' was bound to be full of over complicated language but there are other problems too.The writing is truly awful.1. Concepts arrive abruptly often with little relation to the previous section.2. Nothing flows easily - one is constantly re-reading sections to try and get the sense of an idea that could have been expressed simply.3. Almost no examples, explanations or contexts are provided.4. John constantly muddles his post-modern political speech-making as literal fact - nearly everyone seems to be a victim of horrible OPPRESSION - all this in a text book!5. the books overall organisation is very confusing (a problem that flows from it being comprised of seperate books with subjects that don't obviously relate to eachother and little thought appears to have been given to this)6. John delights in meaningless diagrams that make no sense. Why are negative influences on a group in a triangle?In amongst all the needless grandiosity, daft speeches and pointless diagrams there are some nuggets here for any facilitator - but you'll have to work hard to find them.Anyone reading this book cannot fail to see that John's worst enemy is clearly himself.

Heron's model of facilitation is over complicated and parts of this book are badly written psycho-babble. I don't recommend it and suggest people new to facilitation look elsewhere for advice.

I have attempted to read this book several times and each time have failed. It is vastly overcomplicated "psychobabble".It assumes that every student is "damaged" and needs nurturing. I can only guess that this book is aimed at psychologists, as if I attempted some of the activities such as entering a discussion with my students about what learning should take place they would probably laugh me out of the class or hang me.