Workshop is being offered on line on these same dates due to COVID 19 restrictions. On-line workshop is promoted on Sydney site
https://www.psychodramaaustralia.edu.au/sydney
Creativity and The Life of the Imagination
When we think of creativity and people who are ‘endowed’ with creativity, we commonly think of artists, writers, composers, painters, innovators of all kinds, people who create things in the world that have a high degree of originality. We can see evidence of what they produce through paintings, books, compositions, inventions and innovative organisations, to name a few. When we turn our attention to what catalyzes these processes, we are on the way to relating to the creative potential in each of us.
In a similar way, when we think of the life of the imagination, there’s a common understanding that we are referring to mental processes; activities in the mind which may involve picturing, calling something to mind, and or envisaging things that haven’t yet happened. Using your imagination is not something we generally associate with our sensing bodies. Yet it is through our bodies that we can gain access to what is at the edge of, or outside of our awareness, what we may not yet be able to imagine with our minds alone. Engaging with the life of the imagination in this way involves a willingness to take a leap beyond our usual ways of knowing and efforts to make sense of our worlds. We open ourselves to being surprised.
In psychodrama the process of imagining is strongly linked to embodiment. Through here-and-now enactment we are able to re-imagine our lives and relationships. Anchored in the present tense, in the context of time, space and significant others, dramatic enactment paves the way for reimagining, for vitality, for immediacy and for us to become fully participating citizens in the world. Group members are encouraged to expand their expression beyond what might have been said and done in life or imagined in the privacy of their thoughts, into a shared spaced, of similarly engaged others.
At the conclusion of such an exploration, other modes of creative expression can assist us to solidify new insights and experiences in ways that open us up to fresh ways of being in the world. They offer an in-between space, where the habitual mind can continue to take a break. The experiencing being is encouraged to stay with what is, and to give expression to this through creative writing, songwriting and arts making processes etc.
This two-day workshop is an opportunity to engage in a co-creative process using psychodrama and other modes of creative expression.
This workshop is suitable for psychodrama trainees and practitioners, therapists, people working in organizational and community development, and others who are keen to be able to bring greater creativity to their work.