Connection and Collaboration

Deborah Hickey (Psychology Program faculty) shares that her creative research has contributed to the development of the workshop, Artful & Playful Expressions of Genograms, shared at the Expressive Therapies Summit in New York City.
This workshop introduces participants to the value of exploring intergenerational story threads; workshops are accompanied by artful and playful practices that allow children and adolescents to be included in these explorations. Specifically, the theoretical traditions that have grown the practices of including genograms in both assessment and treatment are discussed, with an emphasis on Contextual Family Therapy.
Role playing also engages participants in one of several mediums of artful/playful genograms that include: animal genograms; mythology genograms; mapping genograms; and sculpturing.
Her work is of cross-disciplinary interest to both expressive arts therapists, as well as play therapists. Deborah believes the work of story revealing and weaving can be a critical component of psychological work and research and provides a magical and motivating experience facilitated through the heart and minds of psychologists.

Note: an abridgment of this story appears in the article, “Is Activism Dead?” in the Clockworks Fall/Winter 2015 issue on page 9.