AANZPA Conference 2019 – Conference Sessions and Descriptions (Outline)

In this experiential workshop, we will explore places and spaces that assist us to warm up to ease, connection and settle into the conference.

Selina Reid is a psychodramatist and registered psychotherapist. She works in private practice with individuals and couples and facilitates Self Development and Professional Development workshops in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is inspired by the enabling and creative potential of the psychodramatic method to foster fresh and vital responses to life.

Marcel Proust suggests that ‘the real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes’.

In my organisational work I often work with intact groups – people who interact and are interdependent on one another in their work environment. They know one another based on their relational experiences as they go about their typical system roles and interactions. My work is to warm them up to each other in new ways; to rouse their curiosity; to build the sociometric wealth of the group through accessing new eyes. In psychodramatic terms we might say this work is warming them up to spontaneity, to finding new responses to their old relational situations and experiences.

Whilst our AANZPA tribe is not quite the same as an intact organisational group, in some ways our conserves have “intactness” to them. Many of us might only see each other once a year, at conference, for 4 days, give or take. Within this context, we see each other through a set of eyes shaped in part by our individual and collective conserves. I may “know” you as a session leader, as a chalkboard concert performer, as an office bearer, but perhaps not as a parent, or a thrill seeker, or a dreamer, or a nature lover, or perhaps not even as a professional practitioner. In this experiential session, we will play with different ways in which we might open new eyes toward each other, to discover each other in new ways. I will draw on my experience of working with groups in organisations to get us started, and together we can bring our creativity to generate and explore different ways to enliven our eyes.

Jenny Postlethwaite is an accredited Sociodramatist (AANZPA) and a Professional Certified Coach (International Coach Federation). Since first encountering psychodrama in 2010, she has enthusiastically integrated and applied Morenian philosophies and methods into her own practice and actively pro

This presentation is about the power of healing in an evolving universe. Psychodrama is pivotal in my work. I will work with your warmup to explore how you are experiencing the big questions of climate emergency etc., Role reversing with earth, with difference and with the myriad of ways that people are working to raise consciousness about the interconnectedness of all that is will be a big part of this workshop. Compassionate listening can bridge chasms and reduce ‘cosmos pain’. These letters also create the word ‘compassion’

Margie Abbott is a Sociometrist and TEPit who lives in Geelong. Margie is on the staff of the Adelaide Campus of Psychodrama Australia and her private practise is called “Igniting Sparks”. 4. Being and meeting: Sociometry. 

As we begin, we tell each other our stories, stories of getting here, stories our life before and our life afterwards, how we want to change and how we resist changing. By doing this we build our sociometric connections with people we know and others we don’t know well. In this session we will use psychodrama, improv, playback and dance to hear, see and be a part of each other’s stories, to be with each other and to be here, at the Conference.

Simon Gurnsey is a Sociometrist and a playback practitioner. His love of stories and storytelling is being fed by hanging about in central Christchurch and listening to the people he meets  His dog, Mr. Brock, goes to work with him every day, mainly to fetch sticks.

This experiential session will aim to nourish your warm up to being here now in this conference. Attention will be paid to physical experiences, tendencies of body and breath as you experience being in relationship in the conference. There will be time for noticing and reflecting on what emerges as well as time for sharing.

Liz Marks is a psychodramatist, counselling psychologist, family therapist and supervisor in Melbourne.

In planning a new two-year course in psychodramatic couple therapy I have warmed up anew to many psychodramatic concepts and techniques and their application to couple therapy. A couple therapy session is a psychodrama session. The director produces encounter. The couple take turns at being protagonist and auxiliary egos. We concretise surplus reality. In this session, we will work sociodramatically to produce a couple therapy drama. This will include group reflections on encounter, on the use of psychodrama theory and practice when working with couples.

Walter Logeman has been working with couples for many years and will be conducting Psychodramatic Couple Therapy training in 2019. He has learned much from other modalities of couple therapy. Right now he is delighted how conscious use of psychodramatic theory and practice is transforming the way he works with couples.

 (Maximum: 12 participants)

What does the psychodrama method offer in the processes of healing trauma? This training workshop highlights psychodrama concepts, techniques and approaches relevant to working with harmful and traumatic experiences. Attention will be paid to the therapeutic aspects of psychodrama and sensitivity to the needs of people who have experienced trauma. There will be a focus on critical interventions and the prevention of re-traumatisation. Ethical application in individual and group work settings will be demonstrated and discussed. There will be pre-reading, demonstrations, practice sessions and discussions. The group leaders will share reflections on how they use the psychodramatic method in their professional practice. This workshop is for psychodrama trainees, psychodrama practitioners and other professionals, such as psychologists and group workers, who want to develop greater confidence in working with people in the area of healing and trauma. As participants, you will be invited to relate to your life experiences as well as professional practice and those attending do so on the understanding that this may at times be emotionally demanding.

Richard Hall is a Counselling Psychologist and Psychodramatist. He is a trained Special Education consultant and a trained teacher of the deaf. He is a director of Psychodrama Australia and conducts training and supervision in Melbourne and Canberra. Richard places a high value on people becoming themselves, on inclusivity and the development of the creativity of the individual. Richard leads celebrations of life and death. He has a passion for music, has conducted an orchestra and choir for many years and is a competent trumpeter and singer. Richard has run personal development groups for the general public for over 27 years and has an ease and flow with the psychodrama method. He is warm and companionable and has a commitment to a humane world.

Annette Fisher Psychodramatist, Trainer, Educator and Practitioner. A trainer and director with Psychodrama Australia, an Occupational Therapist. She is a consultant and psychotherapist in private practice and is a practising visual artist with a BA (visual) with Honours. She has experience in the areas of mental health, community, and health and community development. She has presented sessions at conferences on the application of the psychodramatic method in Australia and internationally.

This is a presentation of case studies of people who identify as non-binary, and who have grown up in the new millennium.  There will be a sociodramatic exploration of the range of gender identities along various lines.  

Kate Cooke is a cis gendered woman who has played with other gendered roles.  In her words: “Recently the idea of non-binary, and alternative genders, as an option has intrigued me, and finding it quite well formed in my clients, I started to question how it may have identified if I had grown up in the new millennium. Instead, as a middle child of a large religious family,  I grew up with standard models of gender, hugely binary.  Did not take to heterosexuality so well, and finally turned to homosexuality, on the whole, maintaining my inherited binary position.” As a nurse therapist working in an LGBTIQ counselling service, Kate sees a lot of trans men and trans women, and those who identify as non-binary.  They are often young.  And diverse.  Like all good jobs, they have taught her about this generation’s thinking and this has influenced her own thinking.  

J. L. Moreno was a pioneer in the field of family therapy through his understanding of interpersonal relations, which he placed at the centre of his conceptualisation and practice of psychodrama. Family therapy has gone on to diversify in ways that psychodrama has not, and in so doing, it offers theoretical insights and practical innovations that invite psychodramatists, sociodramatists, sociometrists, and role trainers, to widen their perspectives on both human and nonhuman systems, narratives and/or discourses, when working with an individual, family, organisation, or community. Many of these perspectives challenge old ideas about professionals determining what “changes are called for in the system”, in favour of creative collaboration and generative exploration that seeks to empower the system to make its own preferred changes. The aim of this conference session is to increase your understanding of human and nonhuman systems and to explore ideas from contemporary family therapy that may enhance your application of psychodramatic interventions, such as, group warm-up, scene setting, interviewing for role, role reversal, and sharing. The session will include action methods, brief didactic presentations, and a psychodrama or two. Everyone welcome. No prior experience of family therapy required.

Craig Whisker has utilised family therapy in clinical, community, and educational settings, for 25 years. He is a clinical family therapist and accredited family therapy supervisor with the Australian Association of Family Therapy, and a certificated psychodramatist and educator through AANZPA. The doctoral research he is currently undertaking on family therapy in Aotearoa New Zealand is increasing his appreciation of what family therapy and psychodrama have to offer one another.

To bring vitality and fresh connections to a group, what might we investigate? Criteria are the sociometrist’s method, yet how do we decide what criterion will create purposeful emotional connections? Diana will describe how she does this in her work with leadership teams, share an example, then we will explore criteria to enhance connections within the group present and the relevance and application to us as a peer learning group.

Diana Jones is a TEP, Sociometrist, author and leadership coach and advisor. She lives in Wellington and helps leaders tap into their vitality in tricky situations.

This is an experiential workshop with the purpose of exploring through the group warm up, and psychodramatic and sociodramatic means, how we in AANZPA, individually and as an organization, can strengthen our contribution to bringing about cultural change in regard to the climate emergency. We will explore on the stage the roles and conflicts that assist and block effectiveness and the ways we might sustain and enliven ourselves in this area of our lives.

Katerina Seligman was born in Prague and emigrated to Melbourne with her family when the Stalin regime took hold in 1948. She gained a Master of Science degree at Melbourne University and moved to Aotearoa, New Zealand in 1975. She later changed careers and later qualified as a psychodramatist and psychodrama trainer. Her love of psychodrama has continued over the years and she continues to use the psychodrama method in her work as a counsellor and clinical supervisor. Katerina has a deep love of nature and regularly takes her grandchildren for adventures in the New Zealand bush. For many years she has worked with other committed people in her local community in Motueka to do what they can to assist in the mitigation of climate change.

Various authors have written about the subject of assertiveness and have failed to make note of all the role elements that are required to be an effective assertive communicator whether when working with conflict or even in a general setting. In this workshop, Philippa will set out the matrix of elements that are necessary for assertive communication. There will be opportunities for vignettes to explore the matrix model she works with when teaching the process.

Philippa van Kuilenburg is a Role Trainer and has worked in the area of Family Violence for several years. She facilitates classes teaching assertiveness and managing conflict and anger management.

Secret Men’s Business is the second experimental workshop into the socio-culture of men and endorsing J L Moreno’s practical philosophy, that is, from the point of view of the subject. Freud in 1915, in calculated understatement, wrote: It is important to understand clearly that the concepts of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’, whose meanings seem so unambiguous to ordinary people are amongst the most confused that occur in science. The focus of this session is masculinity and femininity, a first step towards exploring the idea of, the ideology of, and the confusion of men in the Mas-Fem equation. Participants – men and women – are invited to explore a question: Can Moreno’s unified role theory shine some light on this complex mess?

Kevin Franklin was educated as a clinical psychologist (BA, DipEd, BPsych, PhD) and trained in Sociatry as a Psychodramatist / TEP with AANZPA Inc. He began his professional life as a school teacher of social and then biological sciences. He came out as homosexual in 1968. In his words: “Now I am an older, hopefully, wiser, gay-man having travelled the roletaker – roleplayer pathway to a more unified identity. I still have “issues” with the -man in the gay-man equation; hence my personal motivation for this conference presentation. As a clinical psychologist and couples counsellor, I see a need for our Association to engage with the “covert rift” (Dr Max Clayton, 1973) in human sexuality”.

This workshop is based on Dante’s Inferno, written 700 years ago. The starting point is the beginning stanza. “Midway through this life I woke to find myself in a dark wood where the true path was lost and gone. How savage and wild the forest, how rough, the memory so stirs the fear in my blood that every hair on my skin stands up.” When offered a chance to rediscover his true path, Dante is led to the Gates of Hell and faces a choice. In this workshop, participants will explore what such a choice might mean.

When Rollo Brown first saw illustrations from Dante’s Inferno, not long released from the closed section of the Vatican Library, they created a lasting impression. He remains struck by their potent depiction of human psychology and has long wanted to explore these in action. Rollo is Director of Training at Sydney Campus, Psychodrama Australia.

Ali Begg and Gillian Rose are both certificated psychodramatists working and living in Christchurch.

Ali is a GP who works in medical education and with groups of doctors and therapists.

Gillian is a teacher who works with groups of women deciding what to do with their future, at Ara, a tertiary education provider.

I will direct a group centred sociodrama to explore some of these issues.

Jane Goessi is an advanced trainee in Auckland and works as an independent consultant with individuals and groups in organisational systems which she finds both fascinating and challenging.

Neil Simmons is a psychodramatist and General Practitioner who recently completed his thesis entitled ‘Moreno (back) in the Doctor’s Surgery’. The integration of psychodrama into his medical practice has changed the nature of the doctor-patient relationship. He has written about this in his thesis and is interested in further exploration with practitioners from various disciplines.

Chris Patty is an advanced trainee in the AANZPA Queensland Region. His work is as an organisational development consultant with an eclectic practice of individual and group activities within organisations, and with people at all organisational levels. Alternately you’ll find him upside down in his kayak off the coast of Coochiemudlo Island – don’t disturb him, he’s practising his Greenland roll.

Ethical practice is about conduct, what we do rather than how we feel. Frequently when our therapeutic work is located in an organisational context (for example an agency) there are many forces acting on us when we encounter an ethical dilemma with a client. Recognising the ethical issues and what is required of our conduct can be complicated as the larger system that we are embedded in is also acting on us. In this workshop we will use sociodrama – we will choose a protagonist, produce the organisational context on the stage, get to know the feelings involved and their origins and through expressing ourselves seek to understand what is required of us as practitioners in that context.

Hamish Brown is a Psychodramatist and TEPit. He is currently chair of the AANZPA Ethics Committee. He has been discovering that ethical awareness is best developed through our relationships and in role reversal.

What does it mean for an auxiliary to be a bridge between the director and the protagonist? Firstly, the well warmed up auxiliary brings experience from the role that may be out of the awareness of the protagonist, the director, or both. Secondly, the auxiliary needs to bring that in-role experience into the drama. To do effectively auxiliaries stay in role: they warm up to the worldview of that person and take that worldview on as their own (in the moment), they relate to the protagonist and the protagonist’s life, and are affected in the role by everything that emerges in the drama. A tall order at any time, so how then can we be effective auxiliaries in roles that we experience as foreign or even repulsive to us? This workshop is for anyone who is ready to experiment with entering into auxiliary roles that they find personally confronting. The work of the session will be to discover ways to remain warmed up to the role, to the protagonist and the emerging drama, and to find ways to bring forward your experience in service of the drama.

Charmaine McVea is a TEP and trainer in the Sydney-Canberra Campus of Psychodrama Australia.

I am developing my roles as a director of the psychodramatic method, running groups in a Mental Health Inpatient Unit. This session focuses on exploring roles that contribute to one’s identity, using an approach I have developed through my work. Spontaneity and creativity are promoted with the use of symbols rather than people. Using objects as symbols warms group members up to significant moments in their lives and promotes the expression of roles. This approach can be applied in the wider community as well as with Mental Health Inpatient services. When I have introduced my approach to groups such as PACFA, I have found the same effect has been achieved.

Willi Boettcher is a Registered Mental Health Nurse who runs groups for an acute psychiatric inpatient unit at Canberra Hospital. She is an advanced psychodrama trainee. Willi is a firm believer in J. L. Moreno’s assertion that the role of ‘Creative Genius’ is in all people. To bring forth this role is the purpose of the groups she runs.

Purpose: Moreno was a rare spirit for whom thoughts and ideas about Life and God came easily and sought expression in action.  As a child he attempted to ‘play God’ and fly; as a young man he worked to establish his own religion with a group of friends; in 1921 he experienced an ecstatic episode that produced his book The Words of the Father; in 1972 he published his last piece ever The Religion of God-Father in Paul Johnston’s(ed) Healer of the Mind: A Psychiatrist’s Search for Faith; and all his life he played with and loved his megalomania.  He proposed having God without religion; as pure Subjectivity.  It was an essential ingredient in his potency and the antidote to being captivated by Conserves and Robots.  I will be arguing that this understanding also has a real contribution to make to present day religion and theology. The purpose of this workshop is to explore this side of Moreno’s life and thought psycho-dramatically.
Process: A presentation illustrating his spirituality and theology will invite discussion followed by a psychodramatic exploration of the key concepts and points.  
Outcomes:  A greater appreciation of this side of Moreno’s life and its importance for his work generally, then and today.

David Oliphant is a retired priest who works with Angela Young in training chaplains and pastoral carers psychodramatically on the far south coast of NSW.  He is currently working on a PD thesis and a book entitled No Ordinary Death: Rethinking Christ for the 21st Century.

Many groups are run in cross-cultural contexts. There may be times where the Director does not speak fluently (or in some cases at all) the verbal language of the group members.  This workshop will explore the experiences of working with professional interpreters and those who take on the role of translator for a group session when professional interpreters aren’t available.  Many decisions around translating can have an effect on a groups process. Some of the questions that will be explored in this workshop include:

•  What considerations are required for a director of a multi-language group? 
• When and at what pace is information translated? What are the pros and cons of simultaneous versus consecutive interpreting? 
• Where should a professional interpreter position themselves in the room? How much are they included as a participant? 
• How do we manage role reversal when a protagonist is warmed up and translating is required? 
• How do we help an interpreter to understand the Psychodramatic process? 

This workshop is relevant for anyone working in international or cross-cultural contexts.  It will be an experiential session, focused on the sharing of experiences and our practice wisdom. The aim is to deepen our understanding and provide a reflective space for consideration of this practice question.  

Danielle is a Social Worker and Psychodramatist. She has been working with people from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds in Australia for the last 18 years and is passionate about group work to support healing and recovery and to build connection.  She is a senior practitioner for children, young people and families at Foundation House in Victoria and is a child and family counsellor in private practice.

In day to day life, we make many reasonable, appropriate and practical distinctions between one another and it’s not at all unusual that we can come to identify with these distinctions. I am this or I am not that, and this identification can run very deeply. Viewed in another way we may see ourselves as many-faceted jewels. We are inter-related, each of us reflecting and refracting the other: the sun, the wind, the ocean, the mountains and all beings. But here there appears to be no identity, just emptiness. This emptiness is also potentiality. This potentiality is expressed as spontaneity and creativity. As we have learned through our involvement with the psychodrama method and our teachers and peers, each of us has the capacity to show a new facet and shine out afresh for the benefit of all. In this workshop, we will warm up to our many-faceted natures and cultivate spontaneity in the area of identity.

Jeremy Martin is an advanced trainee in Melbourne and has been attending psychodrama workshops since 1997. He is consolidating two years of experience gained working in action with an Archetype and Spirituality subgroup of the Melbourne Jung Society. With a background in performance and artist mentoring he now works as an architectural sculptor, is an active student of Tibetan Buddhism and has studied transpersonal counselling.

Neil Simmons is a psychodramatist and General Practitioner who recently completed his thesis entitled ‘Moreno (back) in the Doctor’s Surgery’.  The integration of psychodrama into his medical practice has changed the nature of the doctor-patient relationship. He has written about this in his thesis and is interested in further exploration with practitioners from various disciplines.

The Bystander Behaviour Program is the first evidence-based psychodramatic intervention to be used in reducing traditional school bullying and cyberbullying.  This targeted intervention has been designed to sit within schools existing whole school approaches. This is an opportunity to explore the world of Psychodrama from the perspective of a bystander.  The emphasis will be on Role Theory.  Participants will receive written material and have an opportunity to experience aspects of The Bystander Behaviour Program. A synopsis of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the research associated with the Bystander Behavior Program will be delivered.  A concise overview of psychodrama will be followed by a more detailed description of role theory.  Participants will then explore a bullying scenario from the various bystander roles.  There will be time allocated for the sharing of participant experiences and questions. Participants will gain an understanding of Psychodrama and particularly role development.  This learning may be applied to the students they work with and their own life.  Participants will also gain a brief understanding of how the Bystander Behavior Program works.  They will leave with both written and experiential learning.

Jo-Anne Colwell works as a psychologist and psychodramatist in her own practice in Melbourne.  Jo-Anne is in the final stages of her doctorate program at LaTrobe University.  This workshop is directly related to her passion for reducing bullying, whether it be at school, the workplace or at home.  Jo-Anne is now living on French Island and is working toward renovating her ‘Mermaids Retreat’ to enable group work to happen where the bush meets the water.

The work of Dr John Gottman identified 4 styles of parenting and highlighted the developmental advantages of favouring the Emotion Coaching style. This research informs the broadly disseminated parenting programs Tuning into Kids/Teens. After trying this approach a parent joyfully reported back that her irascible teen had gone from being an aggravated lion to being a peaceful lamb in front of her astonished eyes. This is a commonly reported experience and consistent with research findings about the effectiveness of Tuning into Kids/Teens.

Tuning into Kids/Teens promotes an approach that is congruent with the sequencing of role development that Moreno conceptualised from his observations of child development. The child’s emergence out of the inchoate Matrix of all Identity is enabled by starting with doubling their experience. Doubling comes before other interventions.

This approach has broader applicability than the parent child relationship. Parents and Tuning into Kids/Teens facilitators invariably say that they successfully use this approach in a wider range of role relationships.

In this session we will be co-creating the warm up to, then exercises and vignette enactments that further develop the attuned double/the emotion coach. There will be an emphasis on playfulness, collaboration and attunement to what the emotions of each other are. When clarified, acknowledged, accepted and understood, only then the question of what to do next is considered.

Jane Maher is a Psychodramatist and a Family Therapist. She has a busy private practice working with families, running groups for teens and children and running Tuning into Kids/Teens parenting groups.

This workshop will be a sociodramatic, sociometric, and psychodramatic exploration and examination of the issues, philosophies, feelings, wounds, problems, dilemmas, diets, successes, failures, regrets, and other ephemera around ‘fat, being fat, or knowing fat’ as experienced and dealt with by the participants. This examination is designed to allow participants to develop spontaneity in an area that is often beset with dogma, commercialisation, and proscribing of behaviour and perspective. The area if generally un-discussible even though being fat is a straightforward thing to know about oneself and others. It would be a no-shaming space rather some examinations and some guesses and some hunches and some attempts to improve spontaneity around the issue with no intention for weight loss rather an intention for improved self-care (if relevant), self-love (if relevant), other things that might become clearer once the group’s and the individual’s spontaneity gets going. Humour and pathos are guaranteed.

Peter Howie BSc, MEd, TEP, PhD is a Director of Psychodrama Australia. Peter has been working in organisational settings for over 20 years developing and running deep learning experiential leadership development programs. In these programs, he uses group therapy constructs and psychodrama processes to enhance the group and individual learning. He has also been running psychodrama experiential groups for 25 years and psychodrama training groups since 1998. He recently completed a PhD researching the psychodramatic concept of warm-up. He is the Chair of the Organisational Consultancy Section in the International Association of Group Psychotherapy. Peter operates as an independent scholar clarifying, writing, and researching elements of human functioning used in group processes and psychodrama and is currently on a self-funded sabbatical.

All of us who work in organizations, large or small inevitably come up against situations where the authority figures and central decision makers make decisions and take actions that do not reflect our own best understanding of what needs to be done.  This workshop is an opportunity to reflect together on these situations and to honour our own personal and professional perspectives in our work situation.  These workplaces may be small offices, large organizations or the complex political world that is Australia today.

There are many songs that have influenced our lives or remind us of potent moments in our life. Bring a song that has meaning for you at any point in your life; a celebration, a turning point, a time for sleep, for passion, or a high or a low point in your life.  Maybe you know a song with lyrics that have significance or beauty.  After a group warm-up, I will create enactments with a few of you that involve your song and reveal the potency of the song. Psychodrama and sociodrama will be used to enact the song, visit the time and place when the song entered your life or to set out the time and place when the song evoked something in you (or in a larger system).  If you read this before you arrive, please have your song downloaded on your tablet or phone so you can play it to us on your own speakers. Alternatively, have it in your memory or on paper to sing to us.   I won’t be using wi-fi at the workshop.

Cher Williscroft is a Sociodramatist (TEP) and a staff member of the Experiential Learning and Development Centre Nelson (ExLD). Cher is Managing Director of Conflict Management Ltd.  She loves songs, curates beautiful playlists enjoys getting people on a dance floor and has a secret ambition to have her own radio show.  

We invite you to gather with us to share the stories of your mob over the last year and listen to the stories of folks from other mobs. We will explore and develop the emerging themes together in words and action.

Selina Reid is President of the Northern Region, having previously been secretary of both the Northern and Central regional committees. She loves being part of creating psychodrama events in her local community where friends and strangers bring their curiosity and trepidation, express joy and surprise, and enrich their social lives. She looks forward to gathering with you to share our visions for the AANZPA regions.

Psychodrama is a group method. That’s you. That’s me. And that’s everyone else. We’re all here. Nothing that can’t be here. All of you. Thoughts, feelings and your sensations. Your ego and your personality. They can be put over there and the question asked who am I? And there may be a different flow of identification. A distance. Or popped out into intimacy. It might be this is nurtured and it might be that is. Things can be tried out and practised. Perhaps a maintaining of a certain posture of innocence with the self while at the same time entertaining what is coming towards you. Some might say there was an awakening. Some felt a readiness. words always form a little after the action. Spontaneity appears to fall on the head that has turned to the beat of the heart. Grace descends on the humble. You might have it you are the cause and can order around your attention and make choices. Or you might find you are the smallest thing at the mercy of the softest rhythm. And then with the flight of the gaze up and out, you are taking in the whole universe. Willing to take the form that is offered. Filling that, uniting all things. The mystery that is the life living you. This is the living spirit of the psychodramatic method. Possible to locate on a stage in the action of the now between you and me.

Philip Carter is a psychodramatist who has applied the method in research, teaching, computer usability, social inquiries, families and community development, leadership training, men’s groups and domestic violence. He loves that nothing is left out, everything can be included.

This session is an opportunity for you to play with the form of Haiku and how this may stimulate spontaneity and creativity. I’ve started writing daily Haiku over the last month or so. This commitment developed out of a 5-day workshop lead by Diz Synnot and Sara Crane where I experienced myself resisting writing. I managed to stumble on putting some Haiku together and folks found the mirroring aspect of the form beneficial… so I’ve continued. There’ll be space in the workshop to write, reflect, and some vignettes. Let’s see how potency and haiku can live together…

Haiku drama you
Spontaneity may rise
This is my surmise

Chris Patty is an advanced trainee in the AANZPA Queensland Region. His work is as an organisational development consultant with an eclectic practice of individual and group activities within organisations, and with people at all organisational levels. Alternately you’ll find him upside down in his kayak off the coast of Coochiemudlo Island – don’t disturb him, he’s practising his Greenland roll.

The Magic Shop is one of the psychodramatic productions mentioned in Moreno’s Volume One. The warm-up of a group and a number of protagonist customers to the Surplus Reality of an imagined shop trading and bartering in personal qualities can be fun, entertaining and deeply moving. The magic of experiencing the dual awareness of surplus reality brings to the fore on of psychodrama’s main vehicles for the spontaneous creative process involved in role development and social atom repair, surplus reality. In this workshop, we will play with and explore the production of the magic shop and your role of the magic shopkeeper and the magic-shop keeper.

Dr. Neil Hucker is a Psychodramatist and consultant Psychiatrist who has worked in private practice for the last 35 years. He has practiced as a general psychiatrist with a special interest in treating people psychotherapeutically and incorporating psychodrama. More recently he has focused on the relationship between generic psychodrama and more specific psychodrama applications for Personality Disorders – in particular people who have Borderline personality problems and Dissociative Disorders.

Loneliness is an epidemic in our culture. This workshop will pay attention to the isolation that can occur following death and separation of a loved one or due to a traumatic life event. Using the psychodramatic method we will investigate the roadblocks that get in our way to entering fully into life. This workshop will use enactment and discussion to explore and create novel ways to belong and love ourselves and others.

Annette Fisher is a TEP, a director of Psychodrama Australia, a psychotherapist, a political activist and an artist.

Following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch Simon and Sara have been running community ‘Soup’ events. The events are organised by placemaking organisation Gap Filler. The Soup idea is a number of pitchers present ideas which will:

• benefit their community,
• be creative,
• relationship building and are
• fun.

Everyone who comes pays $10 for soup, bread and a vote. After the pitchers present their ideas everyone has bread and soup together and chats about which idea has most legs. Everyone votes, votes are counted and the winner gets the cash. Next time the winner comes back and lets everyone know how the project went and how the money was spent.

We thought it would be fun to see how psychodrama could be taken into our communities in novel ways with a little help from our friends. What we are proposing is that the winner would have a small grant from the AANZPA project group, maybe $500, to fund their project and they could report back at the next conference. If it goes well it could be an annual event.  We have found that generating ideas is very stimulating and often the pitchers who have not won the ‘pot’ find other funding and go ahead anyway.

Simon Gurnsey is a Sociometrist and AANZPA’s webmaster. His work for city-making organisations like Greening the Rubble and Gap Filler includes many opportunities for relationship building. His dog, Mr. Brock, goes to work with him every day, mainly to fetch sticks.

Sara Crane is the CITP’s Director of Training. She is a Psychodramatist, a Trainer Educator Practitioner (TEP, AANZPA) and is a Registered Psychotherapist with a special interest in children and families and has a long-standing involvement with Playback Theatre.

Ruptures in the therapeutic relationship – be they major difficulties or apparently minor disconnects between therapist and client – are common occurrences. Far from being a sign of inadequacy in the therapist, Jeremy Saffran and his colleagues have shown that recognizing and addressing these ruptures can produce some of the most helpful therapeutic experiences. This session will take the perspective of the supervisor to build on Saffran’s work. We will explore the use of psychodrama-based supervision to assist therapists to have a healthy appreciation of alliance ruptures from which they can recognize and address these moments with their clients.

Charmaine McVea is a TEP and a psychologist in private practice. She has had many years experience supervising therapists, group workers and other practitioners. She has also had a rich history of learning from her ‘mistakes’.