Chapter 27 · Canonical English edition

27. A Trial Week at the "Assemblage Point"

Functional Systems Facilitation · Dmitry Shamenkov

Section 36 of 53version 1.1 · July 2026Source: Book_OD
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27. A Trial Week at the “Assemblage Point”

What the Assemblage Point is

The Assemblage Point is the name of our main, permanent space of practice. It is not a “course” in the traditional sense; it is a living community of people practicing FSF over the long term, in which:

  • Group sessions with facilitators are held regularly;

  • I conduct weekly live case discussions of participants’ requests;

  • A group chat operates for asynchronous reflection and support;

  • Educational materials, recordings of practices, and methodological resources are available;

  • A stable environment of supportive relationships takes shape.

The name “Assemblage Point” refers back to an idea from Part II: the point at which a person assembles themselves anew around a clear purpose and a renewed vision. It is at once a methodological name (the point from which a person sees their life) and a community (the place where people who have passed through that point come together).

The trial week — a format for entering

For those getting acquainted with the program for the first time, we run the format of a trial week — a week of full access to the living environment of the Assemblage Point:

  • A live group case discussion with me (Friday) — I work through participants’ specific situations in the format described in detail in chapter 15;

  • Four live online practices (Monday–Thursday) — daily hour-long practices with a facilitator and with me;

  • Structured educational materials — a knowledge base on the psychology of money, relationships, and self-worth;

  • An integration meeting (Thursday) — summing up the week, what has shifted, what the next step is;

  • A supportive participants’ chat — a community in which you can reflect and receive feedback.

What this week gives

Over seven days a person gets a first full experience of working in a shared, living space. This is fundamentally different from reading materials or watching videos. In the trial week, the following happens:

  • Neuroception of safety — the participant’s nervous system gets the experience of “in this space, it’s allowed”;

  • A first stress-sharing in the group’s shared space — the person learns, on their own nervous system, how group resonance works;

  • Direct acquaintance with my way of working — words in a book and the voice of a live facilitator convey at different levels;

  • First formulations of one’s own request — by taking part in a group case discussion, a person discovers that their situation is not an isolated case but one of a set of recurring patterns.

An illustration. Evgenia (from chapter 26) comes into the trial week with a request about closeness in her relationship. On the very first Monday — my Practice of Silence. On Tuesday, in the chat, she writes that for the first time in a long while she managed to fall asleep without anxious rumination about her partner. On Wednesday, during a live practice, she discovers that what she had called “I want closeness with him” is in fact “I want to get closeness with myself back, and he seems to me to be its source.” On Friday, during the case discussion, another participant voices a similar situation — and Evgenia writes in the chat: “that was my case discussion, even though it wasn’t me being discussed.” By the end of the week she puts it this way: “I came for the relationship, and what I got was permission to be myself — and it seems that this was what I had been looking for all along.”

This is a real, typical arc of the trial week. Not “she learned how to communicate properly,” not “she got techniques for talking with her husband.” Rather, she saw her own configuration in a new light and began to move from that vision.

After the trial week

After the trial week, a person has three natural ways to move forward:

  • Stay at the Assemblage Point on a long-term basis — enter the year-long program (chapter 29);

  • Go through an Intensive — a five-day deep immersion (chapter 28);

  • Continue on your own — with the materials and understanding already gained (chapter 31).

All three work. The choice depends on how deep you want to go right now and how much time, attention, and money you are ready to invest.