South East Regional Victoria (SERV) Creative Mental Health Professionals’ Network
Network meeting titled ‘An Ode to Being Adventurous – Experiential Introduction Workshop to Psychodrama’.
“In our experiential workshop which was facilitated by Jaya Narayan, Expressive arts therapist (AthR), Psychodramatist (ABP), & Somatic Practitioner, the group began with an embodied learning activity about Sociometry; noticing the distance, closeness, and connections between the SERV Creative members, as well as important awareness about possible isolates within our group dynamic. We discovered that our group formed quite a closely connected Sociometric Star, which can be seen in our photos with the colourful scarves. Next, we moved into “warm-ups” of our present “roles” within our own “dramas”, asking what role am I sitting with currently, and can I resonate with the roles of others? Following our warm-ups and connection to our own roles, we then moved into creating scenes of our dramas. Members volunteered rich descriptions of a scene from their drama and of the important elements that would need to be represented – self, others, place, objects, buildings, nature, sounds etc. As an example, the group was guided by Jaya to thoughtfully and carefully recreate a ‘Garden Scene’ drama – where it was through our playing and reversing of roles that pot plants, mounds of earth, buildings, little paths and steps, trees, birds, and individuals, each had important expressions to be seen, heard, and felt. Through a felt sense of what our auxiliary roles were offering to the drama scenes, we each experienced important personal and professional learning and awareness about “tele” – what I personally would describe and experienced as a kind of two-way empathy. In our closing circle, expressions of being deeply moved, and feeling deeply connected were shared, as well as gratitude from the SERV Creative members for Jaya, for the space that she held for us, and for having the wonderful modality of Psychodrama brought to us in the country. It is on behalf of SERV Creative that I thank you Jaya, for your beautiful facilitation of our Intro to Psychodrama – An Ode to Being Adventurous.” – Erin McCrorey, Network Coordinator
