Upcoming Events
Psychodrama Training Weekend Workshop
in Adelaide - 25,26 and 27 October 2024
with Patricia O'Rourke and Elizabeth Synnot
Psychodrama is an expressive, playful and experiential group method. In this workshop we will work with what is emerging in the present moment in ourselves and in our relationships with others.
We will use psychodrama method to explore our current concerns, create multiple perspectives and generate new responses. In the group and on the psychodrama stage, we will attend to what emerges in our experience and how it relates to our everyday lives
In the psychodrama context, first comes the experience, then comes the learning. Zerka Moreno
This training workshop is for trainees and those interested in experiencing and learning more about psychodrama and how it can enhance our lives and work. It is highly recommended for those wishing to enter the ongoing psychodrama training group in Adelaide in 2025.
When Where
6pm-9pm Friday 25 October Fullarton Park Community Centre
9am-5pm Saturday 26 October 411 Fullarton Rd
9am- 2pm Sunday 27 October Fullarton SA 5063
16 participants only Total cost $440.00
Patricia O’Rourke PhD
Patricia is a psychodramatist, child psychotherapist and trainer at PABC . She has worked as a psychotherapist for over thirty years with infants, children and their families, individual adults and groups. Creating relationship and applying psychodrama method is the heart of her work. She is a Trainer, Educator and Practitioner in training (TEPit), a Senior Lecturer in the Paediatric Mental Health Training Unit, University of Adelaide and a supervisor /trainer in private practice.
Elizabeth Synnot TEP
Elizabeth (Diz) is a Trainer, Educator and Practitioner (TEP) and Director of the Brisbane Campus of Psychodrama Australia (PABC). She is a sociodrama practitioner applying Moreno's approach as the basis of her work with individuals, families, and organisations. She has been co-leading the Core, Intermediate and Advanced training programs in Brisbane for nearly 20 years. Elizabeth has been expanding her practice in family, leadership and team development. She gives and receives supervision and training in this method.
This training will assist participants in developing leadership abilities in all situations and to integrate learning done in the group to their daily life – work, play and relationships – with a view to increasing their capacity to rise creatively to life’s challenges.
Being a participant you can expect to be actively involved, have fun, and work hard as you enact scenes from life and imagination with the guidance of the director. People meet in depth by assisting in one-another’s dramas and the group life. Action is involving and teaches new lifeskills.
This program is designed for professional people who are involved in health, theatre, management, leadership, consultancies, coaching, mentoring, supervision, art, writing, teaching, human potential and creative therapies. The process will assist in the deepening of abilities to step into the shoes of others and this will contribute to the effectiveness of those who are therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, health workers, managers, trainers and educators, actors, artists, writers and poet.
Current and Past Events
Often when we see a person bullying or otherwise abusing another, our first reaction is incredulity, shock and immobility.
In this workshop we will use the psychodramatic method to investigate the nature of bullying and our reactions to it , with a view to becoming effective at constructively intervening where possible. Later in the workshop we will investigate in action possibilities for cultural change in our institutions and general community.
Helen Kearins is a sociodramatist from Canberra ACT and her thesis addresses the questions: How can sociodrama be used to enable people to recognise and own their own racism and move beyond it and so advance the process of reconciliation between white Australians and the First People’s? And: What can we learn about the sociodramatic method by its application in this area?
Psychodrama is a relational method. Dr JL Moreno the founder of psychodrama provides us with concepts and methods that enable us to recognise and articulate and apply elements and processes which constitute a relationship and enable us to participate to our mutual benefit. This workshop will focus on building a culture in which relationships flourish, where we are able to live and build, where healing and purpose can be fulfilled. The training assists in developing confidence in group presentations and in the development of interpersonal and group skills. Expect some writing and reflection time in each training weekend.
This training workshop will invite the trainee to consider the work of Virginia Satir, family therapist to explore the meaning of and the application and integration of systems theory in sociometry, organizations, role theory, family therapy and group work. “The systems focus assists enormously the warm-up of the person you are with. It means that when there’s a system focus that individual starts to develop a fluid warm-up…they can relate to the different elements of the system and they are affected immediately by the different elements of the system.” The Living Spirit of the Psychodramatic Method (2004 Clayton and Carter p.147)
Trainee’s ability to make assessments will be enhanced during this workshop. There will be opportunities to investigate how the psychodramatic method can assist people who are anxious and depressed to warmup creatively and spontaneously to life. Trainees will familiarise themselves with what leads to anxiety and depression? Waking up to spontaneity and creativity can help to unblock repressed emotions and create healing.
The “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” DSM-V, will be introduced as one resource among many during the weekend and a YouTube “The Five Main Anxiety Disorders” will be used as a warm up to introducing the topic.
Psychodrama is a relational method. Dr JL Moreno the founder of psychodrama provides us with concepts and methods that enable us to recognise and articulate and apply elements and processes which constitute a relationship and enable us to participate to our mutual benefit. In this workshop participants will be able to investigate in detail what is involved in a healthy constructive relationship. Capacity to apply and practise these insights will be an integral part of the workshop.
In this first workshop we will explore and explain the Morenian stages of individual development: matrix of identity, the double, the mirror and role reversal. The associated specific psychodramatic techniques, doubling, mirroring and role reversal, will be applied.
In “The Living Spirit of the Psychodramatic Method” (2004) Max Clayton, who up until his death in March 2013, was a psychodramatist and trainer in Australia, and many other countries, reflects on how he develops a strong warm up to the stages of development from a psychodramatic point of view. Re the Matrix of Identity, Max notes that at a very young age a person starts to become aware of themselves in a variety of situations. “We can think of a person who has developed a strong trust in life, they start to generate an awareness of things happening around them and they become aware of their own actions and sometimes become more aware of their own experience.” (Clayton & Carter 2004 p.46)
Review and define the 5 basic elements of psychodrama (director, auxiliaries, audience, stage; protagonist). This training session involves supervised practice, working in the here-and-now of the group and developing the capacity to enter into the worlds of others experientially.
Attitudes, Values and Concerns - Sociodrama - Navigating Multiple Relationships.
Boundaries, professional ethics, sex, money, conflicts of interest, dual relationships. In traditional societies these complicated matters are closely codified and norms taught and enforced. We live in a society where the traditional protocols between individuals no longer apply and are not passed on, even where there is token acceptance. This often bewildering and painful maze demands sophisticated abilities to negotiate.
Participating in this workshop will alert participants to potential conflicts of interest in their own world and in that of those around them. Action investigation and role-reversal, and perhaps some healing, will feature as we seek to develop more adequacy in navigating these cross currents.
This workshop will primarily be a group experience for participants and trainees to continue to develop confidence in leading a group and taking leadership in a variety of ways. The fire image above inspires us to create and ignite sparks of creativity in leading a group and taking leadership.