ACTION INTEGRATION – Working with Trauma and Displacement Issues:
This workshop provides an introduction to using action modalities when working with survivors of trauma and refugees. It explores classical psychodrama, role theory, the Therapeutic Spiral Model, and other action strategies for working with issues of trauma recovery and cultural integration. Additional training in the Therapeutic Spiral Model is provided in Overview of the Therapeutic Spiral Model (please click for Psychodrama & Drama Therapy Trainings).

Format: The workshop consists of didactic presentations, experiential activities, and discussions/ processing. An action demonstration of the neurobiology of trauma can also be included. Participants will have opportunities to practice directing during two-day or longer workshops.

Participants: This workshop is appropriate for professionals working with the effects of trauma (counselors, social workers, case managers), psychodramatists and drama therapists interested in learning more about this methodology, professionals who have been personally effected by trauma, and those in various roles who work with refugee individuals and families.

Outcomes – Participants will be able to:

• describe role analysis categories and their applications for treatment planning with trauma survivors;
• demonstrate how to build personal, interpersonal, transpersonal, and cultural strengths using action methods;
• facilitate action interventions to contain intense affect and dissociation; and,
• describe basic concepts about the neurophysiology of trauma and implications for trauma treatment.

Logistics: This workshop is ideally presented over at least two days with 6-7 hours the first day and 5-6 the second, or a full weekend, including a Friday night introduction. Start and end times are negotiable. Space needs include a room that is large enough to accommodate the people involved that has movable chairs with tables off to the side. We also need a blackboard or whiteboard and appropriate chalk/ markers. Art activities can be incorporated and would, then, require art supplies.