Participants will learn how to select and use metaphors and/or anecdotes to capture attention and stimulate an inner search for personal therapeutic meaning. Each participant will construct and experience the effects of metaphorical interventions.
Most therapists know the tremendous value of stories as therapy with patients. However, many therapists have difficulty creating and utilizing stories of their own and incorporating them into therapy. In this workshop, participants will learn four basic elements of the story; plot, theme, character, metaphor. Then they will be able to create their own stories or borrow stories from other sources.
From a masterful storyteller, learn how to assess a client for metaphor therapy, how to tell stories that engage the client, how to make the stories metaphoric, and where to find sources for such tales. You will be guided through the step-by-step processes with illustrative case examples and simple, pragmatic exercises.
Based on two models developed and implemented by Dr. Mills, this experiential workshop provides restorative approaches for expanding individual therapy to community healing after disaster. Cultural diversity, natural healing, spirituality, storytelling and “story crafts” will be utilized to demonstrate how to reawaken innate resiliency. Inherent in the models being addressed are the philosophies of Milton Erickson, Native Americans, Hawaiians and other transcultural teachings, along with the principles of play therapy.
The use of stories, anecdotes and metaphors greatly facilitates "brief solutions" as the therapeutic message is encapsulated in a highly condensed form in the teaching tales and humorous anecdotes typical of Sufi Approaches. In these tales, utilizing trance phenomena, the message is available for recall far beyond the time of the actual therapeutic encounter. This approach quickly, thoroughly and lastingly effects therapeutic change. In this workshop we will focus on Teaching Tales in combination with music. The approach is experiential: participants will actually experience a traditional Sufi Session of Story Telling, based on which the theory and technical aspects will be taught.
This faculty will discuss and demonstrate two confusional inductions along with a range of story applications for common clinical problems including anxiety and mood disorders, anger management, insomnia, ego-strengthening and unconscious problem-solving. Unconsciously-directed techniques will also be addressed. There will be discussion of the applications of story techniques in both hypnosis and standard psychotherapy.