The workshops are about artistic investigation and not about solving personal problems or relieving tension. Still the methods used will touch on personal and professional development. As I do not work with premeditated goals, the participant is at any time entitled and in power to stop or change the course of the investigation. What the work invites you to is openess to that what comes your way, and allowing yourself to embrace different possibilities, opportunities, and views. It is my task as facilitator to create the best possible conditions in which your curiosity, learning ability and creativity thrives most.
CHARACTER STYLES – A Diagnostic Model
Wilhelm Reich is considered the Western originator of the science of Body Mind Psychotherapy. Reich explored how the early patterns of relating and attaching to others, if problematic, interrupted, or subject to trauma, can get “wired” into the brain and the body, and then repeated as recreations in adulthood.
The literal posture, body shape, muscular and fatty deposits as held in the body, as well as sense awareness organ functioning (e.g. eyesight), are affected in this process, and there develops an outcome of a correlating body structure / shape to a personality with its emotional and mental defences or adaptations towards life. This is what Reich called Characterology.
There are five primary Character Styles, while no person is one Character Style only. We are a blend of all of them at some level, but typically one or two pre-dominate and reveal our primary bodily, emotional and mental personality defence or posture towards life.
In the Project Reimagined workshops you learn about these five Character Styles. Awareness and interventions will help you loosen up from unhelpful patterns and coping mechanisms, and create more freedom of action, thinking and feeling for yourself.
INSIGHTFUL COMMUNICATION
Many of the beliefs we carry have been taken from the family and culture we grew up in. Unconsciously we make these beliefs personal and let them define us.
The beliefs are guarded by internal voices that criticize us, warn us, compare us to others and tell us what’s acceptable and right for us. Whenever we do something that the voice considers ‘wrong’ it becomes a critic that uses shame, blame, humiliation, threats and fear to get us back in line.
While this internal critic was helpful when we were young and kept us out of trouble, as adults its control has become largely unnecessary and stifles us in our everyday life. It keeps us small, tells us we’re screw-ups, scares us away from anything new, threatens us with ridicule by others and warns us not to make waves. The disconcerting thing is that we think this is us, giving ourselves good, truthful advice, while it is really a repetitive and constricting ghost from the past. What is more, the inner critic uses our vitality to power its constant judging and commentary, sapping us of the strength we need to live our lives.
In the workshops you are invited to give words to thoughts and feelings in a safe and open space. You practice listening with empathy and without judgment. We examine how you tend to interpret the world around you and check its worth and value for your life and work today. Eventually you can feel how your strength – usurped by the inner critic – once again becomes available so you can stand up to the criticism and act more freely in your live, guided by your own capacities.
BODYDRAMA – A Synthesis of Gestalt and Psychodrama
Gestalt Therapy is a phenomenological-existential therapy founded by Frederick (Fritz) and Laura Perls in the 1940s. It teaches the phenomenological method of awareness, in which perceiving, feeling, and acting are distinguished from interpreting and reshuffling preexisting attitudes. The emphasis is on what is being done, thought and felt at the moment rather than on what was, might be, could be, or should be.
Psychodrama is a system of role play techniques from the theater world, used as a psychotherapeutic method. Using this method, the relationships and interactions between people and the different roles they play are depicted, under the motto ‘the thinking is in the action’. The resulting thoughts and feelings can then be discussed and processed, preferably in a group.
BODY READING, BODY AWARENESS, BIO ENERGETICA, REICHIAN BREATHING
Much of what you feel, think and do is reflected in your posture and movements. This is illustrated by metaphors such as to carry a load on your shoulders, walk on tiptoes and sink your teeth into something. Exercises help you to release body tensions and allow you to breath more freely and deeply, bringing more vitality. You will also connect more easily to deeper feelings, emotions and physical sensations within yourself, and gradually become more spontaneous in your expression of sounds and movements.
DREAM and memory
Dreams are the most pure form of imagination, the least influenced by environmental factors. The method used is Embodied Imagination. It helps you to experience dream images as a living, animated environment, and gives new impetus to creativity. The method is applicable for memories as well and is widely used within healthcare, science and the arts (writing, theatre, dance), when a process stagnates or a different perspective is called for.
SYSTEMIC COACHING
Systemic Coaching sheds light on the undercurrents of your system(s). This system can be your organisation, your family, the different parties involved in your project, or even the characters of the film, play or book you work on. This work is possible for individuals and for a group.
GROUP DYNAMICS
Many projects are jointly created. What is the influence we exert on each other? What is the group role you are taking on, and what does this mean for your creative abilities and project?
Group dynamics is a more complex process than just summing up the individual characteristics of each group member. Instead, group dynamics considers the characteristics of each group member, how each group member’s actions affect the group, and how these group interactions affect each group member. This creates a cyclical and reciprocal feedback loop which simultaneously impacts all group members and all group members’ relationships.