{"id":5601,"date":"2026-02-14T18:57:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T18:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/?page_id=5601"},"modified":"2026-03-11T09:10:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T09:10:05","slug":"workshops-and-lectures-2026","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/intern-summer-conference\/workshops-and-lectures-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Masterclasses, Workshops and Lectures 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer Academy 2026<\/p>\n

Masterclasses, Workshops & Lectures<\/h1>\n

The Masterclasses (1 day each, Thu or Fri)<\/h2>\n

Masterclass 1 (D)
\n\u201cNavigating while Drifting\u201d* in System-oriented Dramatherapy: <\/strong>Exploring the Connections between the Collective and Personal Unconscious\u00a0<\/strong>(and what this has to do with climate change and perhaps even the gods…)
\n<\/strong>Ingrid Lutz<\/p>\n

If we imagine the collective unconscious as an ocean and the personal unconscious as a wave arising within it, it becomes clear how limited therapeutic action focused on the individual is. The aim of this workshop is to stimulate a fundamental change in our perspective on therapy and to provide concrete tools for navigating this ‘sea’.
\nWe see climate change not only as an ecological crisis, but also as a symptom of a profound alienation: from ourselves, our bodies and our embeddedness in larger contexts. The same alienation could perhaps also be the root of many psychological symptoms. The key here is to establish a new connection between the collective and personal unconscious.
\nIt is important to understand the family unconscious as a crucial link through which collective narratives shape or ‘construct’ our personal identity, as well as embedding it in transpersonal contexts (transpersonal = beyond the personal). Only by reactivating these transpersonal connections, the ‘gods’, and reconnecting our individual histories to the universal human experience collected in myths can we give our personal lives and our therapeutic work a deeper meaning.
\nIn practical terms, we will use our collective dramatherapy repertoire in the workshop: with the help of systemic staging, we will explore these connections and work with indigenous myths. These myths tell us in many different ways about the necessity of crossing boundaries, breaking family and collective rules, and creating something new out of chaos!
\n(*German book title by Fritz B. Simon and Gunthard Weber, 2017)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Masterclass 2 (E)
\nDramatic Resonances
\n<\/strong>Bringing the Forces of Life into Synchronous Play in Group Work
\n<\/strong>Dr. Susana Pendzik<\/p>\n

The word “resonance” (deriving from the Latin resonantia) denotes an “echo” \u2013 a sound that is perceived once more (re-sonates). Resonance has been generally associated with synchronous phenomena; and in the field of psychotherapy, it aligns with concepts such as “embodied empathy,” “affect attunement,” and “emotional synchrony.”
\nDramatic reality can be conceptualised as a potential resonator: When the contents that people bring into a therapeutic session reach this realm in an organic way, a subtle process of oscillation, destabilization, reorganization, and transformation of old patterns is set into motion: This is what it feels like when concrete manifestations of human imagination in the present moment resonate within the psyche.
\nDramatic Resonances is a dramatherapy approach grounded in the transformative power of dramatic reality and its ability to produce resonances in the human psyche. The approach is founded on the creative-intuitive responses of group members or\/and the therapist to an “input” presented to them. The input may be a personal experience, issue, memory or dream, brought up by a participant or client, or a non-personal source (such as a myth, story, or literary text) introduced as a therapeutic intervention. The approach combines elements from various fields, including the shamanic paradigm, playback theatre, mindfulness, deconstruction theory and intersubjectivity.
\nThis workshop demonstrates the use of Dramatic Resonances in group work. Participants will experience the approach, explore personal and non-personal narratives, and learn about the possible applications of the technique as an intervention in therapy, supervision, and training.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Masterclass 3 (E)
\nEmbodied Aesthetics in Dramatherapy
\n<\/strong>Salvo Pitruzzella<\/p>\n

This masterclass aims to experiment with embodied aesthetics, inviting participants to consider dramatherapy not only as a therapeutic modality but as a rich aesthetic experience in itself. The session will commence with a critical examination of the concept of aesthetics, moving beyond the conventional association with the appreciation or judgement of beauty, and reframing it as a vital form of embodied knowledge, integral to human nature. In the experiential part, we will explore in depth some basic improvisation formats, in which an imaginative frame allows people to experiment with their bodies in new and sometimes unusual ways, and we will develop them by playing with their \u2018forms of vitality\u2019: Grounding and Movement awareness, referring to our fundamental relationship with our bodies and the spaces we inhabit; Speed, Rhythm, and Pace, describing the temporal qualities of movement; Space exploration, Individual and Shared spaces, addressing how we interact with the environment; Lightness\/Heaviness, concerning the quality of movement as it relates to weight and effort; Opposition\/Strain, Body release, and Balance, reflecting the internal dynamics of movement; Direction, Encounter, and Exchange, focussing on orientation and interaction. Sharing the individual resonances of the experience, we will create second-level metaphors that open new dimensions of meaning, which will be in turn explored with the body. Finally, the journey will be celebrated in songs.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Masterclass 4 (D)
\nYour own stage in the system
\nDramatherapeutic attitude, identity, and effectiveness in clinical settings
\n<\/strong>Bettina Stoltenhoff-Erdmann<\/p>\n

Dramatherapists in clinical settings work in complex, multi-professional systems. Different therapeutic schools, institutional frameworks, hierarchies, and implicit role expectations shape their everyday work and repeatedly put dramatherapy approaches and methods to the test.
\nThis can create an area of tension: between adaptation and independence, the wish to fit into existing structures and the need to represent one’s own dramatherapeutic identity visibly, effectively, and confidently.
\nThis workshop addresses precisely this issue and focuses on attitude, self-consciousness, and creative drive within the system. Through scenic explorations, we make power relations, role models, and inner adjustment movements visible and negotiable. Using dramatherapeutic, like scenic and projective methods, we explore how a clear dramatherapeutic identity can be developed, embodied, and maintained in everyday clinical practice. This creates space to clarify our own boundaries and redefine scope for action. It also allows us to view possibilities and connections within the system from a different perspective. Our dramatherapeutic expertise also opens up specific opportunities to support connecting processes within the team.
\nA particular focus is placed on the resource-oriented approach in dramatherapy, which is characterized by an awareness of the healing powers of our medium. In a clinical context that is often deficit- and symptom-oriented, this approach represents a conscious professional positioning: it focuses on the abilities, creativity, self-efficacy, and scope for action of the patients \u2013 and thus also on the therapist’s own therapeutic effectiveness.
\nThe central question is how dramatherapists can make their work meaningful and effective not only despite, but also within the context of clinical structures. How can we represent our dramatherapeutic approaches and methods with inner confidence and create suitable conditions for our work? This will enable us to accompany patients in their developmental steps with energy and joy in the long term.<\/p>\n

The Workshops (2 days, Thu and Fri)<\/h2>\n

Workshop 1 (D)
\nThe Power of Storytelling
\n<\/strong>Connections between Dramaherapy Practice and Playback Theater
\n<\/strong>Henk G\u00f6bel<\/p>\n

Playback theater, which goes back to Jo Salas and Jonathan Fox, is a form of improvisational or interactive theater that draws on the tradition of storytelling: audience members recount personal experiences or tell stories from their lives, which are then acted out and replayed by the performers\/musicians.
\nIt thrives on the interplay between the personal stories of individual audience members, the embodied echoes of the performers, and the resonances in the audience. This form of improvisational theater opens up a space in which people can talk about themselves \u2013 about difficult and easy things, about moving and comforting things. The sensitive listening of the stories by the actors\/musicians creates one (or more) echoes in them. Proven forms of play form the vessel in which the echoes are staged and \u201cplayed back.\u201d
\nConsciously perceiving the echoes and embodying them enables different perspectives and\/or a deeper understanding of the stories, both for the narrators, the audience, and the performers.
\n<\/strong>In this workshop, we will explore different levels of echoes in stories in playback theater, devote ourselves to storytelling and listening with (as many) senses as possible, and try out some basic, simple forms of playback theater.
\nWe will also look at existing and possible connections between playback theater and dramatherapy practice.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Workshop 2 (E)
\nPlayfulness in Tense Spaces: Creating Life Forces in Drama Therapy
\n<\/strong>Dr. Amani Mussa<\/p>\n

This workshop explores playfulness as a vital life force in dramatherapy\u2014an attitude and a therapeutic craft that brings movement, imagination, and spontaneity into spaces that may feel tense, stuck, or muted. Through experiential work with Playback Theatre, participants will discover how improvised listening, embodied response, and story-based play create a universal and accessible framework for therapeutic exploration.
\nDrawing on Robert Landy\u2019s role theory, the workshop will highlight the expansion of role repertoire as a pathway to emotional flexibility and renewed vitality. Playfulness will be presented not only as a tool but as an inner orientation that enables shifts between roles, allows symbolic distance, and opens space for curiosity and creative possibility.
\nWhile the focus remains on play and vitality, the workshop will hold gentle awareness of cultural sensitivity and the subtle tensions that arise in encounters with difference, recognizing that playfulness naturally softens barriers and supports connection.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Workshop 3 (E)
\nCrafting Small Plays about Important Things
\n<\/strong>Dr. Anna Seymour<\/p>\n

This workshop will be devoted to the creation of short plays for performance which are aimed at expressing things that matter to us.
\nIt will provide an opportunity to use theatre to articulate what can be difficult to say in other contexts.
\nAn essential part of the workshop will be returning to the fundamentals of crafting theatre which require attention to the specifics of presence, setting, use of space and connection with an audience. This is based in the belief that by paying attention to aesthetic details we can deepen the therapeutic potential of making theatre.
\nAnna Seymour who is offering the workshop will bring extensive professional experience from a number of different contexts, from performing, devising and directing work, to training and facilitating community actors and dramatherapists.
\nIn addition, she brings the experience of being an adoptive parent to two children who had endured significant neglect and domestic violence. Nightly performances of \u2018plays in the living room\u2019 became an almost daily ritual where important stories were shared.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Workshop 4 (D)
\nThe Therapist’s Inner Stage
\nCo-regulation, Play Partnership, and the Tension between Openness and Imposition
\n<\/strong>Aylien Yanik<\/p>\n

What happens in the moment of therapeutic encounter \u2013 when eyes meet, bodies resonate, and silence takes on meaning?
\nThis workshop invites to enter the therapist’s inner stage: that pulsating space of experience where therapeutic processes arise, stall, or unfold.
\nFrom a polyvagal theory perspective, we explore how our inner state \u2013 the quality of our presence, our nervous system, and our often unconscious signals \u2013 contributes into whether the other person can open up. Whether play becomes possible. Whether risk can be taken.
\nIn scenic and body-based exercises, we consciously leave behind the position and role of controlling experts and enter the terrain of genuine play partnership and co-regulation. How does the process change when my inner insecurity suddenly becomes apparent in the room? When compassion tips over? When a well-intentioned impulse causes the other person to freeze?
\nWe explore those electrifying moments between protection and imposition \u2013 the narrow threshold where therapeutic development happens. When does openness invite liveliness? And when does it turn into a subtle form of overload?<\/p>\n

The focus is on questions such as:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • How do I embody security while challenging at the same time?<\/li>\n
  • How do I hold tension without discharging it prematurely?<\/li>\n
  • How do I remain a play partner and still take responsibility?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    This workshop is aimed at practitioners who want to explore their own presence as an essential therapeutic tool \u2013 with curiosity, a willingness to reflect, and a readiness to understand uncertainty and stumbling as part of professional skill.<\/p>\n

    —<\/p>\n

    Some workshops are held in English, some in German, they are marked accordingly (E) \/ (D).<\/em><\/p>\n

    —<\/p>\n

    Saturday<\/h1>\n
      \n
    • Impressions from the workshops and masterclasses<\/li>\n
    • Lectures by our international guests<\/li>\n
    • Panel discussion<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      LECTURES<\/h3>\n

      And then the war broke out…<\/strong>
      \nA lecture-performance by Amani Musa and Susana Pendzik<\/strong>
      \nTel Hai University’s Drama Therapy Master’s programme enrols around 20\u201325 students per year, 10\u201320% of whom are from the Arab-Palestinian population. This includes members of the Bedouin, Christian, Druze and Muslim communities. Security and political events often provide the backdrop for the learning process, with the Israeli\u2013Palestinian conflict at its heart. While students do not enrol on the programme to address the conflict, the complexity of the situation creates tensions and challenge the learning process, potentially leading to mutual hostility, stigmatisation, and mistrust.
      \nOver the years, however, we have noticed a kind of ‘island of sanity’ emerging within the programme, even during the most turbulent periods. A group of dramatherapists from the programme (three Jews, one Muslim and one Druze) embarked on a research project, focusing on the experiences of Palestinian and Jewish drama therapy students and graduates. And then the war broke out…
      \nThis lecture-performance presents the preliminary findings of a qualitative, arts-based research study focusing on the experiences of Palestinian and Jewish dramatherapy students, as well as an autoethnographic account of the process that the researchers underwent, as they navigated these stormy oceans with a tiny little boat.<\/p>\n

      —<\/p>\n

      Dramatherapy as an aesthetic experience<\/strong>
      \nSalvo Pitruzzella
      \n<\/strong>This lecture will explore various aspects of the aesthetic experience in dramatherapy. We will begin by defining aesthetics, broadening its scope from merely judging beauty to a form of knowledge through the body and senses, fundamental to human nature. Building upon this foundation, the discussion will extend to the significance of aesthetic experience in human development, drawing on Ellen Dissanayake\u2019s insights into the aesthetic qualities inherent in early human interactions, contributing to emotional growth and social bonding,\u00a0 and on\u00a0 contemporary neuroscience research, which highlights the neural mechanisms underpinning both aesthetic appreciation and empathy, suggesting a profound interconnectedness between artistic engagement and relational capacities. Subsequently, we will examine the role of the body in the dramatic process from a nondualist perspective informed by Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy. This will include an investigation into what Eugenio Barba describes as \u2018extra-daily behaviour,\u2019 which influences both bodily and mental dispositions. Lastly, we will look at some basic exercises frequently used in dramatherapy, observing how dramatic reality, as embodied imagination, can facilitate a process of aesthetic exploration that provides alternatives to imbalance and disruption in individuals’ aesthetic experiences.<\/p>\n

      —<\/p>\n

      Silence=Complicity and fear keeps us apart.<\/strong>
      \nAnna Seymour<\/strong>
      \nThis paper builds on a commentary published in the latest edition of Drama Therapy Review. It argues that our fears may result in silencing, of ourselves and each other, which in the face of injustice can result in complicity by default, and presents an argument for thinking politically as an essential part of ethical Dramatherapeutic practice.
      \nYet, it often appears that if we avoid speaking about politics we stay in some sort of \u2018safe\u2019 territory where we can be nice to each other, where we \u2018keep the peace\u2019 by avoiding speaking about certain topics. We often speak \u2018in silos\u2019 because we are afraid, but as Dramatherapist Roger Grainger said \u2018fear keeps us apart\u2019.
      \nI will maintain the reverse proposition, that whilst judicious silence is sometimes needed and can be an enabling tool, it can also make us less safe and contribute to building barriers. It can lead to entrenched \u2018stuckness\u2019 and keep us apart. In this way we can end up enacting the metanarratives of protectionism and sectarianism within our interpersonal relationships by adopting defensive postures and making enemies of people who could be our allies. This is not an argument for \u2018ironing out differences\u2019, on the contrary I propose that differences need to be respectfully stated and examined in order to understand their origins.
      \nWith the rise of fascist, right wing parties across the world and the devastating effects of genocide and war, now is a time more than ever to reflect on how real-world politics impact on our praxis as therapists who use and make theatre for healing. How does the political context affect and inform our thinking about research, praxis and professional relationships?
      \nThis paper will offer reflections integrating critical ideas using anecdotal experiences and incorporating performative and participatory elements.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":55,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"side-navigation.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5601","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5601"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5867,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5601\/revisions\/5867"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theatertherapie.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}