Workshops I have offered I under Tracey Walshaw PCCS:
"Changing our own perspective on the creative process is one of the most helpful things we can do in preparing the environment for others to be creative People have a right as well as a need to fulfil their creative capacities. An inherent impulse or drive within each of us longs for creative expression."
How does your own creative authenticity manifest in therapeutic relationship as a creative, dynamic and empowering force within a person centred framework. How are the core conditions necessary and sufficient? How can Expressive therapy be a means of personal development?
This workshop will be an opportunity to experience expressive therapy as well as explore practical, philosophical and theoretical questions that arise out of this work. We will be working and experimenting with a wide range of arts materials as well as sand, movement and any other creative media that comes into the space.
This workshop is for current and potential practitioners who work with children and young people in a therapeutic context.
Axline suggests that non-directive play therapy is an opportunity to offer a child an experience to grow under the most favourable conditions. How can we ensure that we offer this opportunity grounded in person centred philosophy and the theoretical understanding which underpins our practise.
Can you be a classical person centred play therapist? What does this mean and how might this be manifested in the play room? What is therapeutic play? Can play enhance the therapeutic relationship? Is it another medium for communication? This weekend will be working with a diversity of therapeutic media to engage in therapeutic play in a non directive, non interpretative way.
This weekend is for current and potential practitioners who work with children and young people in a therapeutic context.
When I enter the social context in working with my young clients then I become aware that they are not restricted to ‘talking’ but are spontaneous and creative within the ‘action’ they bring to the counselling arena. I have been interested for many years in how I facilitate some of my young client’s processes in telling stories they wish to explore, expanding and developing my creative repertoire in this process.
Puppets really challenged my creativity and I have found them to be both invaluable and ‘safe’ for my clients to start to unfurl their difficult and sometimes painful stories. Alongside this the play that emerges from working with the dolls house has proven invaluable for clients in telling their stories about their families, exploring their place within their families and understanding worries they have in relation to this.
In my personal and professional experience I have found that using a wider range of creative expression can enhance the work groups engage in. This weekend will look at and explore the place of expressive media in person centred groups.
Being expressive in groups can be quite a scary thing for individuals if they are weighted down with introjects like ‘I can’t draw, my work looks silly, people will judge my work as not creative’ and a personal favourite of mines "that's not person centred!" This weekend will explore many of the practical, philosophical, and theoretical issues around facilitation and expressive media. It will be a safe place to experiment and explore a range of mediums as well as discuss the dilemmas and tensions that arise out of this work. So if you work with groups and already work in an expressive way or want to develop your creative facilitation then this weekend will be useful on many levels.
"Sand is the earth-it is at the borderline between the unseen unconscious depths of the sea and the consciously protruding landscape. It marks the footprints of time. It marks the cosmic tides, that motion between dynamic being and empty stillness. Sand castles have captured the imagination of children and of adults as long as human beings have sought the shore."
When I first came across this quote I felt inspired with the potential of sand tray and miniatures in working alongside my clients and supervisees. For me expressive media within the person centred relationship enhances the understanding between the client and their process. Just as the sand tray offers the boundary the sand itself offers the potential to explore personal, professional and spiritual issues. This medium has potency within a classical person centred relationship. Come play, engage and experience.
What is the reality of working with more than one client at a time? Does the provision of the core conditions change in this context? Is this a challenge to our shape as person centred practitioners? Are the core conditions enough when managing systemic conflict? Mediation or counselling? Power dynamics within these interpersonal experiences. If you are currently working or thinking of expanding your practice with these client groups then this weekend is a chance to explore these and many other issues you may wish to bring.
This year I will be fifty and I felt this would be a good time to explore with other women some fundamental questions that have been whirling around my head about being a woman in today’s society. What does it mean to be a powerful woman? How do women express and hold power?
As women, what do we use our power to create? How does our sense of our relationship with the earth and our understanding of a wider spiritual context shape who we are in the world? What responsibility do we take for our potency in the world? What relationship do we see between power and this potency? This is a person centred community experience for women to explore these and no doubt many more questions together with other interesting women. We will use creative approaches including art, storytelling, drumming, movement, Sociodrama, dialogue, conversation expressive therapy and whatever else comes into the space.