Conference Programme 2025

Mā te huruhuru ka rere te manu
When the feathers are in place, balanced and measured,
the bird is ready to take off and soar.

Conference Programme 2025

Mā te huruhuru ka rere te manu
When the feathers are in place, balanced and measured,
the bird is ready to take off and soar.

Wednesday 15 January

5:00 pm  –  9:00 pm

Pōwhiri, formal welcome and opening (more information…)

6:00 pm  Kai Whakanoa, Dinner

7:00 pm – 9:00 pm   Whakawhanaungatanga & Sociometry

Wednesday 15 January

5:00 pm  –  9:00 pm

Pōwhiri, formal welcome and opening (more information…)

6:00 pm  Kai Whakanoa, Dinner

7:00 pm – 9:00 pm   Whakawhanaungatanga & Sociometry

Thursday 16 January

8:45 am – 9:30 am

TIMATA – Start of the day karakia, waiata, pānui, sociometric choosing of session

9:30 am – 5:30 pm

Thursday full day sessions

9:30 am – 12:30 pm

Thursday morning sessions

12:30 pm – 2:00 pm      LUNCH  

2:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Sociometric selection of session

2:30 pm – 5:30 pm  

Thursday afternoon sessions

6:00 pm – 7:00 pm       DINNER

7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Keynote

Just Breathe: What Truly Matters (more information…)

Dr Olivia Harrison and Ms Faye Gorman 

9:00 pm

WHAKAKAPI – (Closing) Karakia, Waiata, Pānui

Friday 17 January

8:45 am – 9:30 am

TIMATA – Start of the day karakia, waiata, pānui, sociometric choosing of session

9:30 am – 12:30 pm

Friday morning sessions

12:30 pm – 2:00 pm      LUNCH

2:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Sociometric selection of session

2:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Friday afternoon sessions

6:00  pm – 7:00 pm      DINNER

7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Let YOU entertain US: Superb entertainment by us for us

9:00 pm

WHAKAKAPI – (Closing) Karakia, Waiata, Pānui

Saturday 18 January

8.45 am– 9:00 am

TIMATA – Start of the day karakia, waiata, pānui, sociometric choosing of session

AGM

12:30 pm – 2:00 pm      LUNCH

AGM continues

6:00 pm – 11:30 pm

Dinner / Dance

Sunday 19 January

8:45 am – 9:30 am

TIMATA – Start of the day karakia, waiata, pānui, sociometric choosing of session

9:30 am – 12:30 pm

Sunday morning sessions

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm      LUNCH

1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

Whakawātea, Closing Ceremony

We will gather for the Whakawātea, the closing ceremony. This will be a moment to pause and reflect on our shared journey, as we hand the mauri – the essence or life force of the conference – back to the AANZPA Executive. The event will close with a meaningful and heartfelt conclusion for another year.

Wednesday

Pōwhiri, Whakawhanaungatanga & Sociometry

Our conference will begin with a Pōwhiri the formal welcome to this place and the AANZPA 2025 Conference, led by Mana Whenua, people of this land, the Ōtepoti Conference Committee, and the AANZPA Executive. This process welcomes you to the whenua, land, the space and the kaupapa, purpose of the conference, setting the tone for our gathering and uniting us in shared intention.

The pōwhiri is a formal process. For the conference, we are thoughtfully blending tikanga Māori, customary practices with the principles and practice of psychodrama to create a meaningful and beautiful experience that honours whakapapa, our shared lineage and history,  whanaungatanga, relationships and connections and kotahitanga, unity and collective participation.

Following kai whakanoa, food to release the formal ceremony, we will transition into an evening session of Whakawhanaungatanga and Sociometry. We will meet one another, reconnect, and engage in kanohi-ki-te-kanohi, face-to-face encounters. This session will warm up our kōrero (conversations) with one another and deepen the connection and ‘tele’ between us. The beginning of developing a shared vision for the conference and year ahead.

To help you prepare, we will offer an online session to answer your questions, walk through the pōwhiri process and assist your warm up to this wonderful experience.

Detailed Workshop Descriptions

Thursday

Partnerships in play – Zsófi Kígyóssy & Giovanni Fusetti

(Full day)

Welcome to a highly experiential and playful workshop in which Psychodrama and Physical Theatre will dance together to provide a unique experience of emotional awareness and embodied spontaneity. The focus of the group will be on relationships and partnerships.

When two people engage with each other, they are well more than two! Psychodrama sees relationships as a fascinating field of human interactions in which a variety of roles are engaged, each of them manifesting different desires and needs, complicity and conflicts, potentials, dilemmas, values and dreams. The language of theatre allows these roles to be explored in a playful and embodied way, facilitating insights and awareness, personal process and further understanding of the nature of the relationship. The play of these roles reveals their fundamental vital drives as well as their unique wisdom, providing precious insights into the process of exploration, amplification and integration of the amazing theatre of our Psyche.

Amplifying the theatrical play of the roles often brings humour into the personal process. Playing a problematic role of our personality deepens the somatic experience, sometimes bringing the role to its grotesque nature, when we can fully realise the depth and intensity of their urgencies as well as their intrinsic paradoxes.

With the support of the group, the protagonist of the Psychodrama can play the various roles of their personality in the interpersonal field, which can be seen and transposed through the lenses of theatre genres: Tragedy, Melodrama, Satire, Absurd and, often, Comedy!  Welcome to the Theatre of Relationships!

Zsófi Kigyóssy is an AANZPA Board Certified Psychodramatist, Sociometrist and Group Therapist trained in Hungary and in the USA, a registered Psychodramatist with AANZPA and Psychotherapist with PBANZ in New Zealand. She runs personal development groups and works with individuals and couples in Wellington. By living on three different continents she has gained multicultural experience to see how psychodrama works in different cultures. She has been amazed at how much interaction and connection can facilitate healing and bring quality change to one’s life. When not working Zsófi loves exploring the wilderness of Aotearoa. https://www.zso.fi/

 Giovanni Fusetti is an Italian multi-disciplinary fool. Natural Scientist, Theatre Artist and Pedagogue, trained in Gestalt Therapy, he works internationally as a teacher, director and process facilitator, exploring theatre as a tool for artistic training, education, healing, personal awareness and political awakening. He has been a student, assistant and teacher at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris and over the last 30 years, he has collaborated as a guest teacher with the leading schools in the field of Physical Theatre. He is the founding pedagogical director of HELIKOS International School of Theatre Creation, based in Padova, Italy. https://giovannifusetti.com

What enables role development as we continue to live out our life purpose – Richard Hall

(Full day)

The purpose of this group event will be to explore what assists in role development and the culture that contributes so that these experiences take us forward in our life work.We will do this through group interaction, psychodramatic enactment and mini lecture.We will consider plans and role theory for future work to continue as a focus in 2025.

Richard Hall is a Psychodramatist and a director of Psychodrama Australia with the Canberra Campus in Australia. He has run personal development and training groups for many years. He is a teacher of the deaf, Special Education Consultant and Counselling Psychologist.

Psychodrama: An antidote to shame – Marian Hammond

(Full day)

Shame is a powerful and often misunderstood emotion. Occurring in relationship it has many hiding places. Striking at the core of the self, shame has physiological, behavioural, emotional and cognitive impacts that involve one’s entire being. Shame lies at the root of perfectionism, depression, eating disorders and addiction and is a close cousin of trauma.

The special nature of shame means that it cannot be worked with as the other primary emotions. To work effectively with shame requires an understanding of its purpose and complexity. In this workshop participants will learn to: Recognise shame and all its disguises, distinguish healthy shame from toxic shame, understand how shame can bind with other emotions and identify triggers and shame related reactions.

Together we will create a counter-shaming group environment in which shame can be worked with gradually, without getting stuck in a shame freeze. The psychodrama method gives us the opportunity to work in the interpersonal, cognitive, somatic, emotional and imaginal realms, all of which make it potent in the transformation of shame. The building of shame resilience will be underscored as crucial in tolerating vulnerability and encouraging progressive functioning required for the development of self.

This is an experiential workshop that will involve some teaching, as well as an exploration of participant’s responses and reactions to shame. One important principle in any work is for practitioners to be willing to face experiences of shame in themselves and their clients, and to see these as valuable opportunities for growth.

Marian Hammond is a psychotherapist and psychodramatist in private practice in Ponsonby, Auckland where she works with individuals, couples, supervisees and groups. She draws upon many years of personal, educational and clinical work with shame. Over the past two and a half decades, together with a team, Marian has led psychodrama groups for women impacted by sexual abuse and has found these immensely powerful in healing shame. In 2010 she completed her thesis towards certification as a psychodramatist: Psychodrama: An antidote to shame. Six years later she concluded her master’s thesis: Therapists’ experiences of shame: An heuristic study at the Auckland University of Technology. Early this year Marian will complete her certification as a practitioner with the Center for Healing Shame based in Berkeley, California. From personal and clinical experience Marian has learned that building shame resilience is critical to one’s well-being. She believes our experiences with shame and its transformation create new depth and enrichment in our relationships with self and others.

Thursday morning sessions

The playful art of talking about sex for practitioners – Peter Howie

Professionals, such as therapists, group workers, and even other medical practitioners like nurses or doctors, often find themselves caught if a client raises the topic of sex. They can become aware of their own lack of training or experience or worse: ignorance. They may discover their own personal discomfort arising. And perhaps even become somewhat frighteningly aware of their own issues around sex and sexuality. This is not a good look for a counsellor, psychologist, or anyone in a professional setting: the professional may avoid the subject, or worse still, the client may not raise this vitally important area in order to keep their therapist at ease and avoid their own discomfort. As a result, a feedback loop keeps the subject of sex out of the therapy sessions may develop. Given that an estimated 50% of therapy clients have sexual issues as primary reasons for going to therapy, this is not good.

This workshop is for all professionals who work with clients, either one-on-one or in group settings: therapists, counsellors, psychologists, doctors, medical specialists, nurses and nurse-educators, and educators in general. We will explore in depth the roadblocks to talking about sex and playfully learn new ways of getting it happening.

For over 25 years, Peter Howie has been developing deep learning experiences for adults. He is a group therapist, psychodramatist and TEP. He has a PhD in how people warm – up to new experiences and situations, and how this effects how we learn. Peter has many years of training experience, and a practice of working therapeutically with groups and individuals using creative methods such as psychodrama, drama, and interpersonal engagement. More recently he has trained as a sexological bodyworker and added the title of adult sex educator to his work.

Coming to grips with auxiliary work and sociometry in production – Christo Patty and Andrea Hannah

There is a group. There is a director. There is a protagonist. The director expresses to the protagonist “Choose someone to be your mother”. What happens next? Andrea and Christo are two trainees in the Psychodrama Australia Brisbane Campus working at completing our certification in our respective twin sirens of psychodrama and sociometry. Over the past two years, our experiences in Brisbane and on the Puketeraki Marae have highlighted the vital role of auxiliary work. This workshop aims to explore the qualities, attributes, and characteristics that make for an attuned auxiliary ego, one who is sensitive to sociometric dynamics in both production and group life. We’ll have enactments and conversations and a short “thought piece” will also be provided.

Christo Patty has been working as a counselling psychologist and organisation development consultant since the early 90’s. He is also an advanced trainee in the Qld Training Institute of Psychodrama Australia and is an associate member of the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Psychodrama Association. He regularly works with individuals, couples and families, providing counselling in his rooms in Coorparoo. Christo provides supervision and consultancy services to individuals, groups and organisations

Andrea Hannah is an advanced trainee with the Brisbane campus, slowly working her way through to a sociometry specialty. A Human Resources practitioner working in organisational development in the public sector, especially anything to do with learning, coaching and mentoring. Andrea’s greatest delight is being a grandma to her two grand-dogs, Darryl and Earl.

Not for the faint-hearted – Katerina Seligman

This three-hour psychodrama session is an opportunity to share and explore our experiences of ageing; the fears, the frustrations, the freedoms, the joys, and the challenges. We will take a deep dive into growing old, which it is said, ‘is not for the faint-hearted’. You can expect to develop and strengthen your abilities to be on the ageing journey with courage and grace. Expect also to have some fun.

Katerina Seligman is a psychodramatist, counsellor, and retired TEP. Having experienced a number of serious health challenges, and now in her seventy-ninth year of life, Kat is acutely aware of the impacts of ageing on her life.

Psychodrama group work using symbols in an acute psychiatric inpatient unit – Willi Boetcher

This session involves a presentation using transformative methods in an acute psychiatric inpatient unit. A quote from Jung in a newsletter says: ‘An openness to symbols can free us by giving form to inner experience’. The session will also describe the role development of the producer in her work.

Willi Boetcher is an Advanced Trainee who is in the process of completing her thesis. She discovered Psychodrama in 1991. Psychodrama has changed her life and she likes to tell people about it. All areas of nursing have been her calling and she finished up in Mental Health where she led the Psychodrama group using symbols for almost four years.

Thursday afternoon sessions

The focal conflict of marketing in AANZPA – Peter Howie & Hamish Brown

The Marketing Sub-Committee of Cissy Rock, Peter Howie and Hamish Brown have been meeting through 2024. We have arrived at a focus for this conference workshop of exploring the tensions present in the marketing in our association. 

Essentially, marketing has to do with making ourselves visible to the public in a manner that is both attractive and authentic. This creates a conflict in that one cannot know if they will be attractive to others and that the act of working to make oneself attractive can lead to inauthenticity – A focal conflict that is begging for some new and creative solutions. The act of believing what I am offering is attractive as it is and the confidence to present it truthfully and also artfully is right at the heart of transforming the worlds we all inhabit. We will engage you in exploring the conflicts you experience as you contemplate running psychodrama groups.

Peter Howie and Hamish Brown are members of our association with an interest in the visibility of Psychodrama in the community.

Building tele potential – Simon Gurnsey

Wherever you apply yourself in your practice of the Morenian method, focusing on building the tele potential of a group is important because it supports the development of spontaneous and reciprocal connections between individuals. Dramas can be produced that build this tele potential, making the most of the relationships present, and assisting group members to develop mutuality. This approach takes into account the current sociometric makeup of the group and uses detailed scene-setting, chorus, and maximisation techniques to highlight critical moments and expand the social dimensions of the drama. Together, these components make possible dramas that tell stories ranging from significant moments to entire life journeys, creating deep connections between group members and creating lasting benefits. The session will take the form of a group warm up, one or more dramas, and group discussion and processing.

Simon Gurnsey is an AANZPA Sociometrist and Trainer Educator Practitioner in training (TEPit). Psychodrama has been his passion and delight since he first experienced it in the late 1980s.  He combines his love for psychodrama with playback theatre to create a unique approach to personal and professional development, leading workshops where people to tap into their spontaneity, creativity and relational potential.

A book launch: Being and becoming a person in this third millennium – Kevin Franklin

This book launch presents this author in the flesh, in the who and what of his Person being-and-become a gay-man: dual, two noun-things, in One. And, in this session, the “status nascendi” or ‘in the beginning’ of a new to science JLM-inspired model of Humanity. This, a new paradigm, for more “evolution of the creator” (after JLM), at this beginning of a third millennium.  This session will include action sharing discussion (ie., axiodrama), more like tutorial than lecture. It likely will include Kevin’s humanistic-existential model of being and becoming (after JLM) and a new to Social Science, and to AANZPA, an objective dimension of human development. Kevin will attempt the impossible of making the complicated and complex simple and without over-simplification.

Kevin Franklin As author of my book on Human Sexuality, I express an unfinished life’s work. This, objectively, my passion for JLM’s Sociatry; subjectively my personal Encounter with Life. Overall, (a) I to better understand-learn-and-reflect on that Encounter; and (b) my abiding interest in JLM’s “nothing” axiom, that “anxiety is the absence of spontaneity”. In other words, before reaction (= anxiety) there is a moment of “nothing” (= peace). And I instead of taking existential angst (= anxiety) to the nth degree (= mental and criminal dis-Order), there a priori there ‘be’ (is) my meta or Being (JLM’s I-God). And, in Being-and-Becoming wholly a “Person,” also the possibility, nay probability, of I-and-we creating-and-co-creating human responses (= social interaction) instead of a confusing critical-mass of reaction like scattering billiard balls.

Dare to connect: Exploring relationships and choices – Bernadette Rutyna and Neil Simmons

Daring to be and to become is the cornerstone of progressive and creative living (Living Pictures of the Self, Max Clayton). How do we dare to act on what truly matters in our relationships and keep going even when we may feel small and exposed? To what extent can we have compassion for ourselves and others at these times?

In this experiential workshop, we will delve into what it means to throw ourselves into unfamiliar territory in personal and professional contexts. As we work together with shared and differing experiences, we’ll identify what has hindered our creative living, who have been our companions along the way, and how they have shaped your journey. We’ll unpack our choices and discover how these have affected our relationships. Through sociometric interventions and vignettes, we will explore the foundational elements of our relationships, build new connections and deepen existing ones.

Neil Simmons is a medical practitioner, Playbacker and Psychodramatist. He continues to explore ways of integrating these different aspects of work into his life and being.

Bernadette Rutyna is an advanced trainee who applies her psychodramatic practice within organisational consulting and learning and development work. In her consulting business, coaching and developing leaders, building effective teams, and leading change, Bernadette designs and facilitates experiential programmes and workshops in a broad range of organisational settings and supports leaders to strengthen their relationships and build thriving teams.

Thursday evening

Keynote Adress

Just Breathe: What Truly Matters – Dr Olivia Harrison and Ms Faye Gorman

In psychodrama, ‘the Breather’ is the first somatic role to develop within Moreno’s Matrix of Identity, grounding us in our most primal connection to life and self. Tīhei Mauri Ora!

Breathing is the foundation of how we experience and express ourselves, influencing every role we embody. Disruptions in how we perceive body signals, especially our breath, are central to mental health, both how these are experienced and how we relate to the world around us.

We’re excited to welcome Otago University’s internationally renowned researchers, Dr. Olivia Harrison and Faye Gorman from IMAGE Otago Research Team, to share their leading-edge research on breathing perception and its relationship to anxiety. Their work explores how anxiety influences perception and shapes the way we experience bodily sensations, highlighting the potential of non-pharmaceutical treatments. Through targeted breathing tasks and brain imaging, the IMAGE Otago team reveals how the brain perceives and adapts to bodily changes – especially under heightened anxiety – and how this reshapes our experience of self. This aligns with psychodrama’s understanding of role development and spontaneity.

For psychodramatists, sociometrists, role trainers and sociodramatists, this work enriches our understanding of how disruptions in somatic roles influence mental health and role development. By understanding how anxiety impacts breathing, we can better support people to develop body awareness, exploring their roles and expanding their spontaneity.

This keynote will include a presentation of current research findings, practical applications and experiential breathing exercises. Through small group kōrero (conversations) and Q&A, we’ll explore how this knowledge complements and connects to the somatic foundations of spontaneity that underpin our mahi (work). For some, it will deepen and extend familiar ideas; for others, it will provide fresh evidence that locates the breath within the framework of psychodrama’s core philosophy. Together, we’ll reflect on the implications of this research, grounding it in our shared practices and perspectives.

Jacob Moreno envisioned a world where the principles of spontaneity, creativity and encounter shaped all aspects of life. This vision is beautifully embodied in the universal act of breathing – a profound sense of connection, vitality and shared human experience. Join us in exploring the science of breath – the first and most enduring role.

Dr Olivia Harrison is a Rutherford Discovery Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the University of Otago, and a former L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellow for New Zealand (2019). Dr Harrison completed a double degree in Neuroscience and Exercise Physiology at Otago, and a DPhil in Clinical Neuroscience from Oxford University. She completed a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship in Switzerland, prior to joining the Department of Psychology at Otago in 2021.  Olivia is particularly interested in mental health, with a specific focus on anxiety, depression and breathing. Her current research projects are seeking to understand how current treatments for anxiety may help to improve communication between the brain and body as a potential mechanism for improving symptoms.

Ms Faye Gorman, (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu), RPN, MNZAP and Registered Psychotherapist is the mental health clinician with the IMAGE Otago research team. She brings nearly five decades of working in mental health, anxiety and depression. She particularly enjoys working cross-culturally and on marae in the Cook Islands and in Aotearoa. Faye brings international experience in working for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and with The Royal Flying Doctors Service in the remote deserts of central Australia!

Friday morning sessions

Chorus of connection: Collective healing in Psychodrama – Paul Baakman

Psychodrama is story-telling in action. Here, the group (chorus) becomes active participants in a supportive and engaging experience, not just passive observers. By integrating the chorus at all stages of the enactment, we deepen the exploration of the narrative. This active involvement fosters an intriguing environment that leads to an immersive and meaningful experience, enhancing the group’s vitality and becoming an instrument of healing.
In this session, we will explore the possibilities of the chorus, Moreno’s fifth instrument. Expect to be surprised, delighted, disturbed, enlightened, or inspired—perhaps all of the above! Join this session for an experience that promises both personal insight and collective connection.

Paul Baakman is a TEP (AANZPA) who conducts a private practice as a PBANZ registered psychotherapist in Christchurch. 

 The empty space – Martin Putt

Acclaimed theatre director Peter Brook suggests that a person steps into an empty space whilst someone else is watching – and that is all that is needed for an act of theatre. In psychodrama, a protagonist steps upon the stage; alongside them is their director, with willing auxiliaries ready to step out of the audience and act. A story begins. Through acts of spontaneity, intuition, purpose, and daring, a dramatic reality emerges bringing life to the stage and to our hearts, raising the mana of us all.

Come to this workshop with a spirit of experimentation and imagination. Let’s explore ways to breathe life into the aesthetic elements that enhance the dramatic and artistic potential of psychodramatic enactments. We will improvise, imagine, play reclaiming the potential of this ‘theatre of truth’. We will use sound, movement, imagery and silence to enliven presence. A guiding principle is that spontaneity and creativity in group endeavours heal and uplift everyone present. An empty space awaits.

Martin Putt is a Psychodramatist & Trainer Educator Practitioner-in-training (TEPit) on the staff of Psychodrama Aotearoa New Zealand Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland campus. He is a registered psychotherapist working in private practice with a wide range of clients, mostly boys and men. Before becoming a psychotherapist, Martin’s background included theatre, improvisation, especially Playback Theatre, and working with young people in a community youth centre, as a children’s hospital play-specialist, and in clinical settings. He is a graduate of the John Bolton Theatre School in Melbourne. One thing that matters most to him is the enrichment his association with AANZPA generates, particularly the playful and soulful creativity (and challenge) of psychodrama in groups, in individual sessions, and in training. 

Couple therapy: Couple therapy supervision – Hamish Brown

This workshop will introduce an approach to couple therapy that applies to working with one person about their relationship, working with a couple, and supervising a couple therapist. The Psychodramatic method lends itself beautifully to working effectively with couples. If you have experience working one-on-one or using the psychodramatic method with groups, this workshop will assist you in beginning work as a couple therapist. If you are an experienced couple therapist, this workshop will give you an excellent method for supervising couple therapists.

Hamish Brown is a TEP and Psychodramatist. He is also a registered psychotherapist with many years of experience working with couples longer term in private practice.

Ko wai koe? Nō hea koe? Bringing Manaakitanga and What Truly Matters to life – Reitu Cassidy, Megan Ellis and Cinnamon Boreham

Ka tangi te tītī, ka tangi te kākā, ka tangi hoki ahau.

Guided by a deep sense of whakapapa and a shared commitment to bring Te Ao Māori into encounter with Psychodrama. Reitu, Megan and Cinnamon have woven together their unique journeys and strengths to produce this workshop.

E kore au i ngaro, he kākano i ruia mai i Rangiātea – Connected in purpose and whakapapa.

For Māori, pepeha is how we express our connections through whakapapa to our whenua and to our whānau. Our pepeha brings forward the presence of our tūpuna, mauka and awa, and acknowledges those who have paved the way for us. This is an expression of manaakitanga. For Tauiwi, (visitors to Aotearoa, Pākeha and non-Māori) mihi is a way to connect, to acknowledge genealogy and to feel your sense of belonging.

This workshop invites you to share your pepeha or mihi, to explore your connection and to allow movement, breath and expansion. Using surplus reality, role reversal, maximisation and concretisation, we will experience the essence of what truly matters here.

To complete the pepeha and mihi process, we’ll learn a waiata. To draw together our kōrero and connection in a way that resonates beyond words. Consolidating the presentation of who we are and where we come from and celebrating our shared experience.

Te kaha me te wairua.
Energy flows where focus goes.

Reitu Cassidy (Ngāi Takoto, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi)
He uri tēnei nō Te Tai Tokerau, born and raised in Ōtepoti. Reitu is a mother of two and is ‘Nanny’ to her 16-year-old mokopuna. Her experience of whakawhanaungatanga and mana motuhake are shaped by her Māori dad and Pākehā mum. She is unapologetically Māori and engages in kaupapa that uplift whānau and community. She strongly advocates for tikanga Māori interventions through her work in mental health, supervision and group work. Reitu is a Kairaranga and spends many hours weaving and creating with harakeke.

Megan Ellis (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha)
A proud mokopuna of Awarua and Rakiura, with a deep wairua connection to her whenua, Horomamae and Hinemoana. Her Kāi Tahu mum, the kaitiaki of their whakapapa and her Pākehā dad’s manaakitanga and resilience, are core values Megan lives by. Megan leads a cross-sector practice focused on lifting equity by doing what it takes with communities and organisations across Aotearoa. Her attuned, validating responses bring people together and sparks ideas, with her frequent “yes, let’s…” leaving others feeling valued and inspired about what’s possible. Megan finds balance through sunrises, beach walks and in the ngahere with her partner and their two dogs.

Cinnamon Boreham (Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, Kāi Tahu)
A mother of three, she grew up in a family rooted in community, guided by the values of manaakitanga instilled by her grandmother, Mary. As a Psychodramatist, she blends Te Ao Māori and mainstream approaches to create a holistic practice. Cinnamon co-leads psychodrama groups across Aotearoa, guiding transformative experiences through storytelling and self-discovery. By embracing breathwork, she adds depth and healing energy to her evolving therapeutic approach. Cinnamon has an extraordinary gift for seeing potential where others see nothing, driven by a determination to bring her visions to life.

Mauri Ora!

Sociodramatic exploration of the system that normalises and perpetuates violence – Kate Cooke, Jo Dewar, Nikki McCoy and Hala Abdenour

This session explores the systems in society that normalise and perpetuate gendered violence. Working with the group, we will set out the sub-systems in the system, placing women as the group most severely affected by violence. We will explore the values and beliefs in the subsystems that normalise the perpetuation of violence. We recognise the meta-culture located in the media and political systems and the complexity of intersectionality in finding a way to intervene. There will be opportunities for new understandings and perspectives to emerge from the group members through emerging spontaneity.

Kate Cooke. Psychodramatist, Clown, Psychotherapist, Aerialist. Long Term Lover of and Current Initiate Investigator of Sociodrama. The more I investigate/explore, the curiouser I get and curiously, the more vertically challenged I get.

Jo Dewar. I am a counsellor and psychodramatist and have been working for over forty years in the Domestic Violence Sector. Currently, I work on a government phone line assisting women to find safety and support who are either still in a situation of abuse or have left the abuse.
I work with many organisations within the Sector. This has given me a broad understanding of the system.

Nikki McCoy works with men who have suffered trauma and enacted harm themselves, in prison and post-release. Nikki runs a psychodrama group called “Boss of Your Feelings” in Alice Springs Correctional Centre and is an addiction and trauma specialist counsellor.

Hala Abdenour. Founder and CEO of the Institute of non-violence, Hala Abdelnour is a consultant and professional trainer, with specialist skills in family violence, intersectionality, and diversity and inclusion. Trained in Psychology and Social Work, Hala has worked in community development, settlement services, and the AOD sector, in a maximum-security male prison. She is a Men’s Behaviour Change facilitator, clinical supervisor and a psychodrama core trainee.

The museum of broken relationships to new beginnings from the ruins – Diana Jones

Whether it is the magnificence of Petra, Macchu Picchu, the colosseums in Italy, or the midden sites in Tolaga Bay in Aotearoa, remains of earlier civilisations have a fascination for many and stimulate our memories of how others lived, and we can let our imaginations, and our curiosity, uncover what this might mean for us.  What about ruins in our own lives? What was once uplifting and fulfilling then changed when a relationship either personal, group, or organisational, ended? You will likely have experienced the sociometric jolt from what became a non-mutual relationship, where the tele strength was mismatched, the criteria altered, or life events intervened. As psychodramatists, we accept rejection and distance as a ‘normal’ part of our social and cultural atoms, and we place high value on fresh approaches with our own old and unworkable responses. Reflections on non-mutual relationships can be a rich source of learning and wisdom.

We will create artistic productions of our ruins. Then explore to discover the gems which help us to restore our sense of self and tap into the joy of living life fully again. We will use our imaginations, hear the stories, find companions, explore to reveal the gems from our experiences, and generate fresh insights from these ruins. This workshop includes sociometric explorations, artistic productions, writing, and vignettes.

Entry fee: bring an artefact or image or memory from one of your broken relationships.

Diana Jones is a sociometrist, AANZPA TEP, and author. She has written two books based on sociometry in her work coaching executives and working with their leadership teams. She is a portrait artist, gardener, grandmother to four and the current editor of the AANZPA Journal. She discovered Orphan Pamuck’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul and has yet to visit the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia which has inspired her to create the psychodramatic version of the Museum at this conference.

Reflecting what truly matters with Playback Theatre – Bev Hosking

Playback Theatre involves sensitive listening, imagination, play, spontaneity, relationship, story, use of the stage, warming up to role, and paying attention to emerging themes that can inform us as to what really matters in a group at a particular time. These areas are key to playback theatre but they are also relevant and excellent training for our work with the psychodrama method. This workshop will serve as an introduction to playback theatre as well as offering an experience of what this approach can offer us as individuals and as a community.

Bev Hosking worked as a director, performer and conductor with Wellington and Sydney Playback Theatre companies for 15 years performing in a wide range of community, educational and corporate settings. She has also run playback theatre training workshops extensively in New Zealand and internationally from 1994-2024. She was a founding Board member and served for 4 years as the President of the IPTN. Bev has a keen interest in exploring the application of playback theatre in community and social development settings and is committed to us all developing our capacities to respond freshly and creatively to our current personal, social, cultural and political realities. Bev works in private practice as a counsellor, group worker and trainer. She is a TEP, a role trainer and is the Director of the PANZ Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington Campus. Over the years she has served on the AANZPA Executive and the Board of Examiners.

Friday afternoon sessions

Role reversal in intercultural relations – Jenny Hutt and Bev Hosking

How are you doing in relating to colleagues and clients from cultures other than your own? Are you on firm ground? Perhaps you notice your views shifting or getting clearer. This session is a chance to get up to date with yourself, learn about the experiences of others and touch on perspectives from contemporary literature and intercultural practice. There will be sociometric explorations, brief presentations, enactments and discussion.

Jenny Hutt is a group facilitator, supervisor and trainer. She is a Sociodramatist, TEP and Director of Training at Psychodrama Australia’s Melbourne Campus and works as an Associate with Burbangana, an Aboriginal owned and led consulting company.

Bev Hosking is a counsellor, supervisor and trainer. She is a Role Trainer, TEP and Director of Training at Psychodrama Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington Campus. For many years Bev has explored creative approaches that promote social dialogue and the formation of cohesive communities.

Jenny and Bev have conducted a range of workshops about belonging, social cohesion, responses to racism and intercultural work. They share a keen interest in creating a ‘third space’ (outside the home and the public arena) where participants can consider their experiences, have room to find out what they feel and think and develop resourcefulness for their ongoing work.

Freedom to fly: A Psychodrama group for women impacted by sexual abuse – Marian Hammond and Cinnamon Boreham

This workshop aims to give those who attend an experience of the magic of the Freedom to Fly group. Run over the past 25 years this weekend psychodrama group is unique in a number of ways: First, in its leadership which involves a team of two leaders and 3 trained auxiliaries; second, in the engagement of individual therapists, prior to and after the group; and third, in the tailoring of the psychodrama method to meet the specific needs of women impacted by sexual abuse.

Embracing manaakitangi in their attentiveness to the needs of the participants, the team is the heart of the group. Team members are involved in unique applications of the method which will be shared in this workshop. A feature of the Freedom to Fly group is the strong sense of camaraderie the women develop which assists healing and mitigates the deep sense of aloneness typically experienced by the women.

Key benefits of the group lie in: The reduction of isolation through the power of “Me too”, the alleviation of guilt and shame, increasing the ability to experience a range of emotions, learning to identify and express needs and set limits, increasing self-compassion, building a solid sense of self and developing trusting relationships.

Over the last 3 years, together with different teams, Marian and Cinnamon have co-led Freedom to Fly in Auckland and Dunedin. The groups specifically weave Tikanga Māori into group process and practice.

Marian Hammond is a psychodramatist who has specialised in working with trauma and shame. The foundations of her practice are in the Mental Health Service where she was employed as an occupational therapist and psychotherapist in multi-disciplinary teams. Over the past 30 years in her psychotherapy practice in Ponsonby, Auckland she has worked with individuals, couples, supervisees, groups and in counsellor training. The Freedom to Fly Group was developed out of her training in working with trauma using psychodrama in the Therapeutic Spiral Model-. She is inspired by the courage of the women who attend the groups and their willingness to trust in each other, the team and the psychodrama method. Marian lives rurally west of Auckland. She has two adult children and enjoys her garden, sheep and poultry.

Cinnamon Boreham is of Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, and Kai Tahu descent. She has lived in Dunedin most of her adult life and is the mother of three. She is a Psychodramatist and a registered Psychotherapist, having trained within both Te Ao Māori (Te Korowai Aroha o Aotearoa) and mainstream (University of Otago). She holds a BA majoring in community family studies. Cinnamon has been working in the Dunedin community within the not-for-profit sector for the past 29 years mostly with people who live on the margins of the community. For 10 years, she was the Manager of Stopping Violence Dunedin, an organisation with which she still maintains strong links. Throughout her career, Cinnamon has held various roles including, governance, management, community development, group work, and psychotherapy. She is currently practicing as an independent psychotherapist, specialising in areas of trauma and abuse, and is a member of PBANZ ethics committee.

The wheel turns – Annette Fisher

Life is constantly moving, sometimes a surprise, maybe the next stage of life, often unexpected. ‘The Wheel Turns’ will be an opportunity for group members to be involved in this director-directed session that will include group interaction and psychodramatic enactment. Finally thoughts and ideas regarding this topic will be discussed.

Annette Fisher is a Trainer Educator Practitioner of Psychodrama, a director of Psychodrama Australia and a trainer with the Canberra campus. She has been a member of AANZPA since its inaugural meeting in 1980. She has used the psychodramatic method in private practice, community development and mental health. As an artist, she is particularly interested in the use of aesthetics in psychodrama production.

The art of creating a performance space – Sara Crane

Creating the conditions which enable a wide range of participants to share their developing stories, poems and songs freely can be a challenge. In the first part of this workshop, I will introduce you to the process of engagement used for soirees at Three Sisters and how this event is evolving. In the second part of the workshop, you are invited to bring a new creative piece that is unfolding or to come and listen.

There will be time for questions and discussion.

Sara Crane is a TEP and Psychodramatist. She is the Director of Training for PANZ Ōtepoti Dunedin and Ōtautahi Christchurch and works as a visiting trainer in Brisbane. Sara’s love of psychodrama is grounded in her belief in the transformative power of spontaneity and human connection. Sara is deeply concerned about the state of our changing world and the pressure and challenges for our communities. For her solace, Sara loves to write flash fiction, finding joy in the brevity and emotional depth of the form. Her dogs, cats and llamas continue to be beloved companions in both her outdoor adventures and some of her professional work. Psychodrama has enabled her to bring the threads of her life together and pass on the complexities and wisdom of the method.

The challenge and gift of role reversal – Phillip Corbett

This experiential workshop offers the opportunity to explore more fully the opportunities and challenges we face as director, protagonist or auxiliary when working with role reversal in a psychodrama. What do we need to do as protagonists or auxiliaries to authentically and adequately role reverse? In my experience as an experienced theatre actor, role reversing is a very demanding skill and we require much practice to be successful at it. What is the director’s responsibility in assisting the protagonist and auxiliaries in performing this work and what aftercare may be required for the auxiliaries upon completion of the drama?
Come along and share your experiences of role reversal as director, protagonist or auxiliary.

Phillip Corbett is an advanced trainee nearing completion of training in Melbourne as a Psychodramatist. He has facilitated a support group for over ten years, using psychodrama, for people with anxiety and depression. He has presented workshops at AANZPA Conferences for many years and more recently begun to present workshops at men’s group retreats in Victoria. He has worked as a teacher, university lecturer and chiropractor for almost forty years and is blessed to have four children and six grandchildren.

Exploring and challenging self limiting beliefs – Philippa van Kuilenberg

What self-limiting beliefs do you have that get in the way of change and cause you to oscillate between moving into a new space and back to an old way of behaving? Our thoughts impact our sense of ‘who am I?’ Our feelings are also impacted and thus our self-worth. How do you limit yourself from achieving your potential? Do you orientate to a world of deprivation or a world of generosity and abundance? There will be dramas as well as some dyads and individual work.

Philippa van Kuilenburg is a Role Trainer and has facilitated groups for many years in self-esteem and assertiveness. Philippa currently works in private practice with clients from many different backgrounds and cultures.

The cave of shadows – Katherine Howard

Have you ever wondered
Where in your body
Or perhaps your soul
Is tucked away
Your Cave of Shadows?
And if the Keeper of your Cave (a fierce warrior by all accounts)
Would allow you in
(or perhaps let them out)
Who or what might these shadows be?

The Cave of Shadows is the residence somewhere within your psyche of all those disowned, disavowed and unknown roles in you. They reside – pushed into the dark nooks and crannies of the cave- things that are fearful or provocative or unacceptable somehow. A cordial meeting with the Keeper of the Cave is a necessary venture if you wish to become intimate with the unconscious in your life. It is the work of a lifetime to bring the shadows of the unconscious into consciousness. Only then will we have a choice. This is an experiential psychodrama workshop to explore Shadow, and the impact of Shadow on relationship.

Katherine Howard is a psychodramatist and mental health occupational therapist with a private practice in the Blue Mountains and Sydney. Combining her love of nature based spirituality, feminism and psychodrama, and her knowledge and experience of the Western medicine mental health systems, she has created and teaches a 2-year course called Shadow Cycles: Cyclical Wisdom for Mental Health. She is writing a book for the grandchildren.

Friday evening

Let YOU entertain US: Superb entertainment by us for us

As the sun sets, the fun continues! Friday evening invites us to celebrate our community’s talent and creativity. A hosted event, gives you the chance to step into the spotlight or simply enjoy the magic of the moment.

Sunday morning sessions

Musicals, the themes and lyrics that enliven us – Janet Allen

The musicals we love touch and resound deeply with our values and life goals. Bring a favourite musical and explore in action the stories that resonate from your life.

Janet Allan. I’m a psychodrama trainee from Christchurch. I work as a therapist with individuals, couples and groups. I love growing plants and most other outdoor activities. Just now I’m venturing back to lake and ocean swimming.

Recognising your Glimmers and the value of them – Cher Williscroft

Glimmers are those micro moments of joy and peace that you experience moment by moment in everyday life. Your Glimmer might be the cool crunch of new sheets, your cat in your lap, your first swim of summer, hearing a child giggle or seeing a flower blooming. The term Glimmer was first coined by Deb Dana, in her book The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation. In this, she says that once you train your brain these tiny moments appear more and more. In this workshop you will find a moment to pause in your life, reflect and savour your Glimmers; those moments of joy that sustain us within the hustle and grind of everyday life. Even when you are on the high-alert conveyor belt of life you may want to practice pausing for enough time to be filled up by noticing Glimmers. They anchor you to the present moment helping you to stay calm, centred and connected to what really matters. Using psychodrama, let’s give significance to your Glimmers and recognise the value they have in your life.

Cher Williscroft is a Sociodramatist and Trainer Educator Practitioner (TEP) with PANZ and is the Director of Training for the Whakatu/Nelson campus. She currently sits on the Board of Examiners. As Managing Director of her business, Conflict Management Ltd, she developed her lifelong interest in conflict resolution working as a mediator, facilitating breakthrough communication in the workplace and now running Courageous Conversations Master classes. Living near Nelson, with her partner John, she sometimes kayaks, hangs out in nature, sews, and cooks from the garden. Her latest spontaneity test is performing in a singing duo. Her daughter Maddy, her partner and their two mokopuna are the joy of her life.

Sound connections – Hilde Knottenbelt

Breath, sound, vocalisation, text, rhythm and harmony; all this and more will be at play in this 2-hour session where the human voice, your voice, will serve as the expressive medium of play, connection and collective music making. Be prepared to engage with others in a responsive process which will have you vocalising, riffing and co-creating.

Hilde Knottenbelt is a Psychodramatist, TEP and Voice Teacher. She is the Executive Director of Psychodrama Australia and the training group coordinator at Psychodrama Australia’s Melbourne Campus, where she has been a trainer since 2000. She has over 40 years of experience as a teacher, trainer and educator in experiential learning, including in the creative arts. She works in private practice as a counsellor, supervisor and voice coach, and facilitates vocal improvisation and storytelling in groups in the community.

F@@k I’m a dick, moments of cringe – Cissy Rock

To Cringe: an inward feeling of acute embarrassment or awkwardness. Your cringe may be a misplaced word or thought that popped out of your mouth, the moment you turned up wearing the wrong thing to the school disco or forgot to thank your partner at your 50th birthday (oh that was me). It doesn’t really matter what it was that caused you to feel this way ……small or big cringes … often those cringey moments replay themselves, interrupting thoughts, sleep and acting as a deterrent to self expression.Together we will examine cringey moments to gain understanding of the forces at work and identify ways to soothe the cringe.

Cissy Rock is a sociodramatist, who likes to travel, eat great (vegetarian) food, read detective novels and meet people. Cissy is interested in working in public spaces using psychodrama. She has lived experience of being cringey.

For the life of you – Marcel van der Weerden

This workshop will be an experiential session in which we work with what emerges assisting group members to encounter each other. I’ve been running psychodrama groups with men for the last year and a half directing in a way where we warm up to ‘immediacy’ and ‘openness’; this enhances ‘aliveness’, and assists my orientation to safety to drop away and live in the uncertainty of the unfolding moment.

Marcel van der Weerden is a psychodrama practitioner and works as a psychotherapist and counsellor in private practice in Christchurch. He works with individuals and couples and has run psychodrama groups for men for over the last ten years.

Swansong: Saying a full goodbye to a stage of life – John Barton

As we move through life we enter different stages and leave old ones behind: a first career, being a trainee, a city. Some of us see retirement beckoning and are about to leave our professional lives. Each person will have the opportunity to be directed in using toy figures to explore a stage of life they have left behind; to experience the emotions and bring out the meaning of that time. Initially, there will be a demonstration with one protagonist. Following this everyone will work in pairs with one director and one protagonist We will then change roles and repeat the process with each initial director becoming a client. There will be an opportunity for sharing and discussion about this way of using small figures. It is based on the large group psychodrama technique known as “A Walk Down Memory Lane”. This is commonly used in America though not so well known in the Antipodes.

The demonstration will show all you need to know. No previous experience of working with figures or even of psychodrama is required. Some experience of working one one-on-one with people would be good and again not required.

John Barton met psychodrama fifty years ago and it has been a large part of his life ever since. He is a psychodramatist who has also been a scientist, a GP, a psychotherapist and a Balint group leader. He has run over 140 two-day workshops training counsellors and others to use toy figures in the counselling room. He is retiring and this workshop will be his swansong.

Celebrating moments of joy: What Truly Matters – Ali Watersong and Simon Parkinson-Jones

Sometimes in our busy lives, we can forget to celebrate the moments of joy and delight. It is easy to overlook those times that nurture our spirit when we get caught up with the everyday challenges or difficulties we face. In this workshop, you have an opportunity to remember and enact special moments when you have felt wonder, joy and fulfilment and reconnect with what truly matters.

Ali Watersong is an experienced psychodramatist now living in Whakatu/Nelson. She has led numerous personal growth groups over the past 30+ years and delights in using the psychodrama method to assist people in creating the lives they want. She loves being in nature and her dog, Sophie, brings her a lot of joy.

Simon Jones is an experienced psychodramatist who has been leading groups for many years. He knows psychodrama to be an effective, enlivening, experiential method, using it with individuals and groups. He lives in the lovely natural environment of Golden Bay, with his partner Carol, where he has a counselling practice.