Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Psychodrama mixes well with systemic constellation work, and this new book shows how

Systemic Constellation Work is a rapidly growing experiential healing process that is being embraced by a variety of helping professionals, both traditional and alternative, worldwide. I'm pleased to present the near-debut of our new book Integrating Psychodrama and Systemic Constellation Work: New Directions for Action Methods, Mind-body Therapies and Energy Healing.

This book, by myself and Ron Anderson, explores the history, principles and methodology of this approach, and offers a detailed comparison with psychodrama -- the original mind-body therapy -- explaining how each method can enhance the other. Constellation work is based on the notion that people are connected by unseen energetic forces and suggests that the psychological, traumatic and survival experiences of our ancestors are genetically passed forward to the next generation and may live within us.

Using insightful case studies from a variety of client groups, this book shows how Systemic Constellation Work can expand the possibilities of psychodrama techniques, and can be successfully integrated with psychodramatic enactment, guided imagery, ritual, concretization and other methods of healing and personal growth. This book will be essential reading for students and practitioners of psychodrama and constellation work, as well as counselors, mental health professionals, experiential therapists, creative and expressive arts therapists and alternative practitioners looking to widen their knowledge of mind-body therapies.

The book is scheduled for publication in Ncvember 2011; add your name to preorder the book here.

Join, keep updated and comment on the book's Facebook fan page.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Happy 90th birthday, psychodrama!

In the annals of psychodrama history, Dr. J.L. Moreno considered his first "formal" psychodrama session on April 1, 1921 at Das Stegreifheater (The Theatre of Spontaneity) in Vienna. Yes, April Fool's Day,  when he dressed as a jester and challenged his audience to take an empty "throne" to play the leader of the community.

If you saw Dateline on Sunday, you saw the report about the program known as Breakthough at Caron, where adults survivors of childhood abuse worked through their issues with what the reporter called ‘"therapy on steroids." Steve Kopp, my psychodrama colleague from Maryland and president of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, says, "For those of us who know, it was some basic work in family sculpting, working with social atoms and concretizing. And I thought, this stuff has been around 90 years -- long before we had steroids…"

Steve is celebrating Moreno's birthday today with a birthday cake in his office and a number of psychodrama quotes on his office door – a way to educate others about Moreno and psychodrama, some playful, some thoughtful. Several of them are from Moreno’s Prelude to My Autobiography.

Here's one:

More important than science is its result

One answer provokes a hundred questions.

More important than poetry is its result,
One poem invokes a hundred heroic acts.

More important than recognition is its result,
The result is pain and guilt

More important than procreation is the child,
More important than evolution of creation is the
evolution of the creator.