Conference Workshop and Paper Abstracts

It's all in the warm-up...

Arohanui-Grace

Ken Wilber (1996) suggests that 'higher stages of consciousness include the basic components of the earlier world views, then add their own new and more differentiated perception .... because they are more inclusive, they are more adequate.'

If we were to view a bicultural system as an expression of higher consciousness, then the above statement suggests that the system would both include and transcend the worldviews it weaves together. This experiential workshop will use sociodrama to explore the roles and relationships each of us might develop and warm ourselves up to as we co-create in ANZPA Inc. a truly inclusive and transcending bi-cultural system.

Arohanui-Grace works with individuals and groups of people in organisations to assist them to create meaningful and satisfying work for themselves.

Tele and the development of intuition

Paul Baakman

Moreno called tele 'two-way empathy'. The sociometry of a relational system is greatly enhanced by accurate tele, and is distorted by transference and the emergence of frozen roles. Moreno said that tele could be trained. The development of intuition enhances tele. The eastern mystic Osho gives a number of suggestions as to how intuition may be developed. This session will highlight some of Moreno's ideas around tele and Osho's perspective on intuition. The purpose is to encourage the development of intuition in support of tele. There will be a lecture with an experiential component, followed by a discussion.

Paul Baakman has a background in mental health nursing and residential social work. He is a psychotherapist and psychodramatist who works in private practice. He is a TEP and is the director of the Christchurch Institute of Training in Psychodrama. In his spare time he rides a horse and is restoring native bush.

Playing in the cracks

Rob Brodie

In this experiential workshop, participants will be able to work together to investigate the dilemmas we experience in daily life as various organisations, friends and family impact on us. As spontaneity heightens new solutions, light, playful or painful, should enable us to create more delight in ourselves and our world.

Rob Brodie is a TEP actively involved in the life of ANZPA Training Institutes and in training in Australia and New Zealand. He is the director of Psychodrama Training Institute of South Australia and the secretary of the ANZPA Board of Examiners.

Supervision and sharing for trainers in the ANZPA system

Rob Brodie

This session for TEPs and TEPITs and all training staff of Training Institutes will enable trainers in ANZPA to bring forward concerns arising in their work with trainees and Institutes. Our relationships and teaching abilities are built up as we apply the method to our own development. New Zealanders and Australians can get more sense of their commonalities and differences. We will be involved in playful psychodramatic production.

Playing with an EVER BIGGER systemic perspective

Brendan Cartmel

The 'ever bigger systemic perspective' guided meditation is an experiential demonstration followed by a brief time of sharing and dialogue. The assembled group takes up seated positions on chairs or the floor. Facing the group, the seated 'ever bigger systemic perspective' session director interviews for roles, and via guided fantasy the attendees bring attention to various egoic states (roles) that hopefully progress towards an ever-expanding experience, or at least imagination of an 'ever bigger systemic perspective' and consciousness that is subsequently grounded in the attendees body and person. Dennis Merzel (Genpo Roshi) developed the 'big mind' process, drawing from thirty years of zen teaching experience and western therapeutic practices. It offers perspective on how we ordinarily systemically function and restrict ourselves. You will discover how to effortlessly tap into innate compassion. This technique is based on role/voice dialogues.

Brendan Cartmel is an advanced trainee in psychodrama, and has conducted a successful counselling service using psychodrama methods over 5 years in outer suburban Melbourne and has conducted personal growth groups for men. He is managing director of a technical writing and engineering services and community consultations company. He is currently working on developing a spiral based community development instrument using sociodrama. Brendan regularly attends the 'Wilber open discussion philosophy group' and SLAM cafes in Melbourne.

The business of warming up a group

Max Clayton

The business of warming up a group involves tuning in with individuals and the direction of their lives. It involves creating ideas about what to say and do in response to a group and the confidence to present aspects of life and images that will warm up each person in the room. The work of this session is to generate ideas and to develop roles that will result in easy spontaneous expression in the beginning stages of a group. Please expect some teaching, some demonstration and active participation in practising.

Max Clayton has spent a large part of his life creating dramas. He sees the ever-present possibility of enlarging our capacity to be expressive and to include in our orbit aspects of life that have been previously hidden. He enjoyed training at the Moreno Institute and developing work as a psychodramatist. He has established training programmes in Australia and New Zealand, in Japan, and in Europe and is the founder of the psychodrama association in Australia and New Zealand.

Bullying: an exploration of the roles and systems

Jo-Anne Colwell

Bullying is a familiar phenomenon. In spite of national and international focus it is still occurring throughout our schools and workplaces. How do we know when bullying is occurring? What is it that keeps these systems in place? What are the system links that support the bully? How have you dealt with the bullies in your life? How can you change what is occurring?

The workshop will include; a theoretical exploration of the roles and systems involved in bullying incidents and a sociodramatic exploration of a personal bullying scenario. Participants will be able to explore the roles in the bullying system and have a chance to practice alternative responses.

Jo-Anne Colwell works as a psychologist in her own private practice in Melbourne. Jo-Anne is enrolled in a professional doctorate at La Trobe University where her research is focused on using sociodrama to help lower the incident rate of bullying in high schools. Jo-Anne is an advanced psychodrama trainee with the Melbourne Centre of Psychodrama.

Concretisation as a primary intervention

Mike Consedine

Concretisation is the most fundamental intervention in the production of a drama - it lays out the elements of a system in preparation for the production of interaction. Concretisation is also powerful in its own right and can be used to explore and develop many aspects of our lives.

In this workshop we will investigate the concept of concretisation, apply this to set out the systems that participants want to explore, and consider further possibilities for the use of this intervention.

Mike Consedine is a role trainer and psychodramatist who has been actively involved in working with people to explore and understand aspects of their personal and professional lives for over twenty years. He is a member of the teaching staff of the Christchurch Institute of Training in Psychodrama.

Using improvisational drama exercises to explore family and work systems

Phillip Corbett

This workshop offers the opportunity for participants to develop, in a playful spirit, more spontaneous and creative expression by joining in a variety of improvisational drama exercises. Participants will then be encouraged to apply these expressive skills to a creative exploration of their family or work systems from a new perspective. The workshop will combine improvisational drama exercises with psychodramatic techniques.

Phillip Corbett is an advance trainee at the Australian College of Psychodrama with an extensive background in theatre as a director, actor and playwright. He has conducted improvisational workshops in Melbourne in a variety of contexts including theatre skill development, self-development and drama as therapy as well as presenting at ANZPA conferences over several years.

Befriending your amygdala: playing with the brain as a neurological system

Mario Cossa

In recent decades a tremendous amount has been learned about brain functioning. Reading about it is complicated. What are the various parts and functions of the triune brain; or is it the bilateral brain? The more one talks the more confusing it becomes.

Let's play with it. Join in and become the amygdala, or the hipocampus (or any number of other parts) and experience the system from within with its myriad interconnections and interactions. See how normal memory is laid down and what happens to this process during a traumatic event. Experience post traumatic stress disorder from the inside out.

You'll be surprised how much you learn: about parts of the brain, how they work and how they are effected by trauma; about action interventions to support healing without retraumatising; about implications for treatment particularly via psychodrama; and how this information may impact the way you work with specific clients or client groups.

Mario Cossa, MA, RDT/MT, TEP, CAWT is a psychodramatist, drama therapist, and theatre educator who specialises in work with adolescent groups and trauma survivors. He travels globally offering trainings in the USA, Canada, the UK, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. His book, 'Rebels with a cause: working with adolescents using action techniques' was published in 2006.

A necklace of raindrops - jewels and tears: honouring and bringing to life the stories of our families and forbears

Sara Crane

The connections with the past and the systems in which they were experienced can enliven or burden us now. The interconnections between our personal and political histories influences our relationships and affects our ability to encounter each other and build community. In this workshop we will work with the sociometry of the group to discover and produce some of these stories using psychodrama and sociodrama.

Sara Crane is a psychodramatist and psychotherapist. She works with children and families and community groups. Sara is a trainer for the Christchurch Institute for Training in Psychodrama in both Dunedin and Christchurch and has a long involvement with playback theatre.

When systems talk with each other...

Helen Densley

This session is a demonstration pertaining to work and will include a presentation, using action, to set out the systems around a young mother who is at risk of losing her housing.

Helen Densley has a background in education and is an advanced psychodrama trainee. Helen currently works as a community educator in a supported accommodation setting with young mothers and children who are experiencing, or are at risk of homelessness.

Engaging with world religions: systems in action

Tony Densley

In the contemporary world, religions are intimately involved in life in a variety of ways. World religions have an impact on us whether we belong to, or are philosophically opposed to formal religion. This workshop is an invitation to explore together how we interact in the face of, or within the huge systems that constitute world religions. Participants will reverse roles with significant religious leaders and followers, and appreciate more deeply their own warm-up to the power of these global organisations. The session will comprise a series of vignettes that explore these systems from an individual and group perspective.

Tony Densley is a psychodramatist, a catholic priest and a lecturer at the University of South Australia in theology and leadership, and is responsible for the Catholic Parish of Thebarton in South Australia.

Exploring ethical dilemmas - a systemic look at interesting cases

John Faisandier and Richard Moss

A new ANZPA Code of Ethics is proposed for ANZPA Inc. It signals a development in thinking about ethical behaviour, which has been occurring over the last 5 to 10 years in all sorts of professions. It provides a framework for considering ethical dilemmas and offers guidance for ethical thinking and reflection through identifying principles, values and practice notes.

Ethics is also taught/learnt in the process of learning psychodrama. The values and principles of ethical practice are instilled and developed throughout the training journey.

How the new Code of Ethics can inform our practice and how we can apply it to clients and situations is the focus of this session. The workshop will provide an opportunity for those who attend to identify ethical matters that cause concern or interest and to engage in a process of thinking about ethical responses and ethical practice from a systemic perspective.

John Faisandier is the convenor of the ANZPA Ethics Committee and member of the NZAC National Ethics Committee. He is a TEP based in Wellington.

Richard Moss is the secretary of the ANZPA Ethics Committee and involved in legal education and has done extensive training in psychodrama.

Systems with artistry

Annette Fisher

Producing a system in a psychodrama is like an artist making a painting. As the enactment progresses and the spontaneity increases there is a magic in the beauty that emerges from the protagonist, the auxiliaries and the group members.

The director as an artist is able to assist the protagonist to create a world where imagination and creativity is prolific. By using theatre and artistry, healing takes place.

This workshop will be an opportunity for participants to explore their life and relationships systemically, to play auxiliary roles and to participate as a group member. Finally there will be a discussion regarding the artist and the director.

Annette Fisher is a psychodramatist, TEP and the founder of the Psychodrama Training Institute of the ACT. At present she is the director of training in ACT and staff member of the Psychodrama Training Institute of South Australia. She is also the president of the Australian Federation of Training Institutes. She is a practising artist who regularly exhibits and is the artist in residence for the Majura Women's Group ACT for 2006.

The healing sorcerer: are we 'yes-but' apprentices or genuine healers?

Kevin Franklin

Dr Eric Berne identified the 'why don't you – yes but' party-game first; amongst life, marital, sexual, underworld, good, and consulting room games described in 'Games people play' (1968). Typically A presents a problem and Bs present solutions: A objects using 'yes-but' until Bs are dumbfounded. The game's purpose is to reject solutions. Sean Manning's 'The FU decision' in our ANZPA Journal (No 4, Dec 1995) adds gut-wrenching nuance to this party game.

When Dr J L Moreno named megalomania normalis, he had already discovered this systemic social problem. Let's not be held hostage to this living icon of psychodrama practice and theory. We will investigate M. normalis in this session. The purpose of this session is to become more wisely-and-friendly alert to M. normalis expressions in our midst.

This session has two sections: an educational-training section including warm-up, lecture-paper presentation and discussion, followed by an experiential session and closure.

Kevin Franklin fell into psychodrama circa 1976 when he was a teacher of biology and science (1968-1982) and later psychology lecturer at ECUni (1992-1995). Now Dr Kevin Franklin is a psychodramatist and TEP with the Western Institute for Psychodrama Perth; a clinical psychologist in private practice, and a counsellor educator-trainer with a Registered Training Organisation. His abiding interest is bringing perspective to real madness (psychosis): and, seeing people through 'yes-but' everyday realities of coping's madness (neurotic disorders) to a new order inducing systemic healing and health.

Generating perspectives

Tim Gartside

The intent of this experimental session is to gather an impromptu 'research team' and investigate the intersection of Moreno's action methods and Wilber's integral model. The integral model contrasts the dimensions of individual/collective and interior/exterior to yield four perspectives: intentional (individual/internal), behavioural (individual/external), cultural (collective/internal) and social (collective/external).

Can Wilber's integral model be a portal from the rational realm to the experiential realm and back again? We will play with the integral model to find out how well it can help us to generate and/or locate different perspectives on our experience.

Tim Gartside has been an active observer of and experimenter in the character of corporate business units since 1987. He is involved in an ongoing collaboration with a large Australian corporation dating back to 1994, and has been utilising sociometric principles and methods in that organisation since the late nineties. Tim refers to his particular application of Morenean methods in the corporate world as 'system sailing'. One of his significant life aspirations is to work long term with a large corporation, and assist that system to consciously develop an enduring, lively, and productive interaction between its formal and informal leadership structures. This is a long term ambition!

Let's play with our dreams

Haydn Gibson

The purpose of the workshop is to explore the dreams of some participants and to invite others to share their inner world. The dream sphere is a magical realm where time and space are transcended. Dreams are rich in diverse imagery and symbolism. We will include a Jungian approach based on the premise that while dreams have a unique language to the dreamer, they have universal meaning to all of us.

There will be a chance in the workshop for participants to bring recent or memorable dreams that we can explore using the psychodramatic method.

Haydn Gibson is a trainee in psychodrama in Australia and USA since 2002 and loves psychodrama, theatre, music and art. He works as consulting manager to organisations. He has trained as a counsellor, writer, and actor. He is currently writing a paper on dream work in one-on-one therapy and is studying a graduate diploma in applied psychology at Monash University, Melbourne. He has lived and worked in Australia, Asia, UK and USA.

Assisting couples to get beside each other through doubling

Cary Hayward

When couples come to us for counselling, their capacity to get beside one another is often greatly diminished. The psychodramatic understanding of doubling can be a real resource in assisting couples to find new ways to be beside one another and begin to move forward. This workshop will explore the application of doubling, and the conscious use of the spatial arrangements in the counselling room to explore connection and involvement when working with couples systems.

Cary Hayward is an advanced psychodrama trainee who has been exploring applications of the method in private practice and organisational leadership roles. He currently works as the national practice manager at Relationship Services, Whakawhanaungatanga.

Mapping changes in our lives: a presentation and demonstration of the social and cultural atom as a working concept

Kate Hill

The purpose of this session is to introduce the concept of the social and cultural atom as a working concept to map changes in a system. This experiential workshop will include an explanation of this concept, leading to enactments of systems brought forward by the participants. The processing of the dramas and an exploration of new applications of the concept in both professional and personal lives of the participants will conclude the session.

Kate Hill, MA (psych), Dip Ed., is a psychologist, TEP, director of Psychodrama, NSW. Kate has a passion for teaching and applying Moreno's concept of the social and cultural atom and wrote her psychodrama thesis on this topic.

Where four worlds meet: the client, the therapist, their relationship and the context

Brigid Hirschfeld

There are times in our work as therapists where we are confronted by situations that are right on the edge of our knowing. The clients may not have the words to describe their experience, or have had a lifetime of emotions that they have learnt to suppress or are overwhelmed by. They may be dissatisfied with their life and are hungry for love, forgiveness or a sense of self. The therapist has knowledge and experience, is limited in some areas, is deeply affected by others, and personal issues may be triggered. The relationship between the therapist and client is critical involving a multitude of qualities including trust, intimacy, compassion and constancy. The context includes the circumstances that surround a particular therapy session.

This will be an opportunity to explore these situations with peers using psychodramatic methods and taking into account all of the systems involved. We will draw on the expertise, creativity, shared wisdom and spontaneity of the group.

Brigid Hirschfeld is an experienced therapist and supervisor in private practice. She is a TEP and is a staff member of the Queensland Training Institute of Psychodrama. There are times in her work as a therapist when she has experienced entering the land of unknowing and felt like she was attempting to 'ride a wild tiger' or was frozen in space. At such times, access to a wise group and a sense of humour are great.

Getting another take on the matter: the balcony as a resource

Chris Hosking

As a kid we loved to climb a tree, sit on a wall, climb a ladder, go up the hill, sit on a horse and look out and down on what was around us. The different view was delightful, refreshing, exciting and sometimes pure comfort and relief. As adults, we have other means by which we get 'another take' on things such as meditation, dialogue with others, reading and travel.

The psychodrama theatre is multi-levelled and designed to facilitate the exploration of physical space for the purpose of promoting new perspectives. The balcony gives a view from 'on high' or 'afar'. In this session, we will reacquaint our use of the balcony and revisit its relevance in production.

Chris Hosking is a psychodramatist, TEP, individual supervisor and group-work supervisor. For a number of years, Chris has been involved in teaching psychodrama, sociometry, role training and groups as systems. She is currently residing in Melbourne and working in private practice and as a staff member of the Australian College of Psychodrama.

Working with the intersecting systems of different 'levels of learning'

Peter Howie

When working with a group or planning to work with a group it is of great value to have a conceptual framework with regards to 'levels of learning'. This conceptual framework has been developed over a number of years by Elizabeth Synnot and Peter Howie. The framework helps to make sense of the otherwise complex arrays of learning that take place in any human setting and group. In any psychodrama group, people are learning at a knowledge level and as the warm up deepens some will be learning at a deeper action level. As the warm up continues to deepen some people will learn at the deepest level of being or self. This model can easily be taught to others and has good face validity. It can be tied into a range of other adult learning models including psychodrama.

Participants will be taken through a series of experiential exercises to really understand and work with 'levels of learning' as a living concept. A short paper will be provided.

Peter Howie is the director of the Queensland Training Institute of Psychodrama and is completing a masters of education in order to undertake a PhD in adult learning. Peter trains others in psychodrama.

Putting the 'play' back into role play

Jenny Hutt

Role-plays are a great way to enliven learning. Their success requires keen attention to the warm up process and a commitment to 'play' as a vehicle for serious learning. This workshop will help participants to:

create the conditions for effective role-plays
select role-play forms suitable for different stages in a learning group, settings and different learning outcomes
prevent or respond to common role-play pitfalls and glitches

The session will involve group activities, role-plays, demonstrations, mini-lectures, reflections and discussions.

Jenny Hutt is an organisational development consultant and a certified sociodramatist based in Melbourne. She has conducted role-plays in a wide range of organisational settings over many years and has recently researched writing about role plays in the psychodrama literature.

The sociometry and social networks of leaders

Diana Jones

It is my observation that developments in organisations are directly related to shifts in interactions amongst leaders, their peers and staff. New conversations, new approaches to interactions, new behaviours, new patterns of relationships, and new attitudes all contribute to producing and implementing change. This means organisation change is greatly influenced by the social and cultural atom of leaders and their capacity for spontaneity.

In this workshop we will work to identify, explore and develop the social networks of you as leaders and influencers of others, and apply these to key moments of organisation life.

Diana Jones is a TEP, sociometrist and treasurer of ANZPA Inc. She is a company director, organisation development practitioner and executive coach and has been applying psychodramatic methods in organisations and in professional development coaching and supervision for over twenty years.

More than the sum of its parts: improvised harmony singing and spoken word

Hilde Knottenbelt

The voice is central to our self-expression. Many people associate 'having a voice' with potency and presence in relationship to self and others. The potency of voicing, expression and exhalation exist in a dynamic relationship with listening, stillness, receptivity and inhalation.

During this workshop you will tune into the world of breath, sound, silence, singing, and playing. You'll make up songlines and work with basic musical structures to co-create improvised pieces that are born out of the emerging life of the group.

Hilde Knottenbelt is a practitioner and applies psychodrama to her work in originally devised 'creative voice' groups and individual sessions. Her approach to singing and voice work emphasises improvisation, listening, play, self expression and co-creativity. She is on the teaching staff of the Australian College of Psychodrama, in Melbourne and has a private practice in counselling and supervision.

Playing with gratitude, a healer on our journey

Liz Marks

This workshop will explore our abilities to feel and express gratitude, and the development of these abilities over time. Sometimes called the most healing of emotions, there will be a focus on different influences and perspectives on gratitude. The workshop will be experiential and there will be an opportunity for reflection.

Liz Marks is a psychodramatist, psychologist and family therapist. Liz is a counsellor and supervisor at Centacare, Catholic Family Services and also works in private practice. She is on the staff of the Australian College of Psychodrama in Melbourne. Over the last few years she has become increasingly appreciative and aware of varied perspectives on gratitude.

The older person is part of the equation

Meredith McLeod

Participants in this workshop are invited to explore some of the events that lead an older person into the world of care provision, highlighting how these systems impact on them and what this might mean in their life.

Fresh insights and ideas are likely to arise as people experience the perspective of the older person. These may be applicable to work and your everyday life. This will be done through the production of a series of short enactments setting out the experiences of group members.

Meredith McLeod has worked for many years in the aged care field. Her work includes community health nurse, service coordinator, staff trainer and advocate. Meredith has a strong commitment to older people and ensuring that they receive appropriate care tailored to their individual needs in systems that frequently leave older people out of the decision-making. She is an advanced trainee in the psychodrama method.

The spontaneous auxiliary: bringing the protagonist's system to life

Charmaine McVea

When auxiliaries fully enter in their roles in a drama, the system can come alive in sometimes very surprising ways to the benefit of everyone involved. Auxiliaries become a bridge between the protagonist and the director, bringing insight and creativity from within the system. The protagonist has a fuller experience of being met by others, and group members expand and strengthen their role repertoires.

This will be an experiential session where participants will experiment with their auxiliary work in a number of small vignettes and a psychodrama.

Charmaine McVea is a psychodramatist and psychologist in private practice, and on the staff of the Queensland Training Institute of Psychodrama. She often works psychodramatically with clients in one-to-one settings, so relishes working in groups and experiencing the spontaneity of group members in the production of a drama.

Shift and change: moving bodies in systems-aware psychodramatic direction

Jo Milne-Holmes and Kate Hill

Moreno's insight that 'the body remembers what the mind forgets' links the systems perspectives of the body-kinaesthetic and emotional intelligence with the social and cultural systems of human relationships. This workshop will draw on emotional and body-kinaesthetic processing using improvised movements and curated emotional material. What we feel is linked to where we feel it, and how we get in touch or read this information in the service of the systems alive in psychodrama - as audience, auxiliaries, protagonist and directors. Participants will engage in improvisation directed at finding new or existing ways to express, experience and recognise felt attitudes through the body.

Jo Milne-Homes, MAPS, is a registered psychologist NSW, chair of APS College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists. She is currently teaching fellow in the College of Arts, UWS and researching improvisation (intention and serendipity) with an ARC Linkage Grant team at MARCS and the National Choreographic Centre. Jo is regional president ANZPA Inc NSW.

Attachment capacity and social atom repair: a systemic perspective

Patricia O'Rourke

Spontaneity is a critical element in creating moments of change. Psychodrama encourages spontaneity in therapists and clients alike. In this workshop we will explore:

the system of roles and role relationships in the room when working with social atom repair
the use of psychodrama method in reworking early experience that may be preverbal and non conscious
the integration of theory and practice of infant mental health and psychodrama
concepts of inter-subjectivity and moments of change in relation to the psychodrama method

The workshop will be experiential. We will use examples from my work and from participants' practice and experience to investigate and illustrate these ideas.

Patricia O'Rourke is a psychodramatist and child psychotherapist. She works in Adelaide as a child psychotherapist and infant mental health specialist at the Women's and Children's Hospital, has a private psychotherapy practice and provides consultancy, training and supervision to organisations and other practitioners. Patricia enjoys working with children and parents, individuals, groups and organisations to increase spontaneity and create change.

Towards reconciliation: healing the pain of separation

Simon Parkinson-Jones and Carol Parkinson-Jones

This workshop will provide an opportunity for those of us who are not First Nation peoples, to develop and strengthen our roles to assist in the process of racial reconciliation. We can do this by exploring, healing and integrating the experiences and feelings that we carry as inheritors and members of colonising cultures. This will be an experiential psychodrama workshop.

Simon and Carol have lived in Christchurch for six years, where they work as counsellors and group facilitators. Prior to this they lived and raised their family in an intentional community in Golden Bay, Nelson for twenty years. They have a special interest in the inter-connection between experience, culture, spirituality and well-being. Both have been training in psychodrama for fifteen years and Simon has just completed his practical assessment.

Spontaneity in reviewing a life in a palliative care system

Viv Pender

In this experiential workshop we will explore a palliative care system where respect, dignity, and compassion are highly valued and enacted.

Biography is an aspect of this system where two people meet, the narrator and the biographer, and a life is recorded as expressed. This is confronting of life and often an enjoyable experience of integration.

We will conduct such a life review in psychodramatic production.

Viv Pender is a psychodramatist who works as a counsellor at Mary Potter Hospice in Wellington. She also has a small private practice and is a supervisor with the Wellington Psychodrama Training Institute.

Intensity

Elaine Sachnoff

This workshop will explore psychodramatically the part messages about being 'too intense' played in shaping your life, your view of yourself and how you can change that.

Some people are born with a propensity for responding to life situations with more intensity than others. The family context within which they were raised decides if this is viewed as positive or negative. The messages from authority figures (family, teachers, clergy) will communicate which. If the family (et al) views intensity as negative, the message to the child will make it clear that this is unacceptable, and that the child is therefore unlovable. A variety of psychodramatic methods, which may include role reversal, future projections, mirror, surplus reality and catharsis of integration, will be used to examine in action:

what these messages are

where they came from

if they are still valid and,

begin to develop a plan to deal with them.

Dr Elaine Ades Sachnoff, PhD, TEP is the founder of the Psychodrama Training Institute of Chicago, 2005 winner of the Dr J L Moreno Award from the American Society of Group Psychotherapy, and Psychodrama (ASGPP) and author of 'The warm up book'.

Applying principles of the creative process to the fulfilment of your life goals

Katerina Seligman

Artists and creators apply creative principles, often unconsciously, in their artistic endeavours, but sometimes fail to apply these same principles to the creation of their own lives. Drawing on the work of Robert Fritz, author of 'The path of least resistance' we will identify principles of the creative process which can be applied to every endeavour. In this experiential workshop you will have the chance to identify what it is you want to create in the world and in your personal lives, and move towards the fulfilment of your goals using the psychodrama method.

Katerina Seligman is a psychodramatist, TEP. Katerina has been working with individuals and groups using the psychodrama method for 25 years. She has contributed to the body of knowledge in psychodrama in a number of areas, and is keen to share with others her new passion about the creative process.

Tatou tatou e: recognising diversity - coming together in unity

Carol Shand and Roberta Simpkins

Nau te rourou, Naku te rourou, ka ora te tangata

With your knowledge and experience and my knowledge and experience this ensures the well being of all

This workshop explores the coming together of people from different cultural backgrounds and experiences. We celebrate who we are; what this means to us, and the possibilities of how we can safely move forward together. Understanding language can assist us in understanding another's worldview. An example of this is where the terms sociometry and whakawhanaungatanga are similar and allow us common ground from which to negotiate a way forward.

The facilitators have worked together over the past six years and created a model to navigate across cultures with respect and integrity. This has allowed each to walk safely in the others world.

Carol Shand is an education lecturer in Nelson, Aotearoa/New Zealand. She uses action methods in her work training high school teachers. She is an advanced trainee in psychodrama and is studying towards a masters in environmental education.

Roberta Simpkins is a child therapist/whanau (family) counsellor. Her tribal affiliations are Ngati Toa Rangatira, Ngati Koata and Ngati Rangiwewehi and she is actively involved in iwi development. Roberta has been a tertiary student counsellor and tutored on the Certificate and Diploma of Counselling and Psychotherapy. She is a mother of 4, a grandmother of 7, and has miraculously survived 30 years of marriage.

Creating life-enhancing and life-giving social systems

Diz Synnot

Most community and organisational groups embrace the systemic approach of sociodrama. Taking a 'next step' in handling a social dilemma will be undertaken in this session. Participants will be encouraged to move out of their isolation and to put into operation their belief in our creative genius as we progress a social system.

We will make the systemic dynamics of a social system tangible by using Moreno's forms of concretisation and production of surplus reality. We will consider how far these production methods take us in the integration of new cultural conserves into the individual's personality and the collective's culture.

This will be an experiential session that includes noting the sociodramatic method as it unfolds. A discussion of the process of the session near its conclusion is planned.

Diz Synnot is fascinated by the interplay of the privately experienced dilemma with the social perspective. We are forever changed when we see our place in our social landscape and reverse roles around the system. As group members identify with one or other of the parties to the dilemma we all experience being part of a larger community. It is this collective involvement that erases the mental anguish that accompanies the isolation of private experience.

Holding the strands of the trainer-trainee system

Sandra Turner

Experiential training that is developmentally focused is both rewarding and demanding. The training relationship may span ten years or more and over this time significant shifts and role development will occur for both the trainer and the trainee.

At different stages, roles that relate to the original social atom will be prominent and will impact on the trainee's learning until resolved. One of the tasks of the trainer is to deftly hold the trainee-trainer relationship, and to make interventions that assist the trainee, the training group and the training purpose.

This workshop will include a presentation, discussion and some enactments. We will explore the capacities required of the trainer and trainee to be bold, open hearted and resilient in their relating, if these impasses are to be resolved.

The session is for ANZPA trainers only.

Sandra Turner is a TEP, psychodramatist and psychotherapist and has been involved in the development of psychodrama in Dunedin since the early 1980's.

Discovering the 'I' in family

Craig Whisker

Dr J L Moreno's 'spontaneously individuated person' and Murray Bowen's 'differentiated self' appear to be closely related to one another. Both theorists emphasise the impact the emotional system of one's family-of-origin has upon personality development. Family members learn to habitually prioritise the emotional needs of other members, or of themselves, in order to relieve relational anxiety. In role theory terms, the development of roles associated with real self may be under-developed or absent.

Following a group warm up for this session, participants will be introduced to Bowen's 'family systems theory' through a combination of didactic presentation, relational sculpturing and handout notes. Participants will be invited to identify dynamics within their own families which can be described by Bowen's concepts and to explore these through a series of brief role training sessions with the aim of increasing individuation. Bowen's advice on the means for achieving the latter will guide the work.

Craig Whisker is a family therapist and family therapy trainer who works in private practice based near Wellington. In 2004 he began offering Bowen theory workshops for mental health professionals seeking to increase differentiation of self within their family systems. This conference workshop is a development of that work. Craig has been a psychodrama trainee with the Wellington Psychodrama Training Institute since 2000.

Getting a handle on time

Cher Williscroft

... not enough time in the day
... time waits for no man
... working against time
... time marches on
... time flies
... dream time

A playful romp around the social and cultural systems and forces that affect your attitude towards time. In this workshop you will come to appreciate the social systems that affect their relationship with time. Using sociodrama you will encounter contrasting value systems surrounding time and reflect on your experiences. Come ready for a lighthearted exploration of your own values on time, and the way other folks live with and encounter time. You may well develop a whole new warm up to work and play.

Cher Williscroft is a TEP and has trained in sociodrama. She has taught time management over the years and has a mixed relationship with time. She is curious about how different folk encounter time and build a good relationship with it. She is managing director of Conflict Management Ltd. and works to build strong organisations through strengthening workplace relationships.