This paper presents a brief training model for volunteers, tested during the ten-year collab-oration between Ferrara’s University and the CSV – Agire Sociale di Ferrara, now also as University of Volunteers, which is based on the assumption of close interdependence between internal setting and external setting (Bastianoni, Taurino, 2009). The focus of training is self-knowledge, with specific reference to emotion and internalized representations starting from the early relational experiences. The training aims to increase in the voluntarees the reflection about her/his personal relational history to improve their relational competence and their abili-ties in the comprehension of the others.
Keywords: Short training model, volunteering, help relationship, relationship skills, self-knowledge, internal setting.