How Play Becomes Real: The Art of Gestalt Play Therapy

From the start, playfulness was at the heart of psychotherapy. Sigmund Freud’s game-like use of associations was intended to get his patients thinking laterally and not literally. Fritz Perl’s use of the “empty chair” was intended to help his clients engage in “as if” scenarios, akin to the make-believe play of children. Yet, playfulness has lost ground over the years to the forces of logic, language, and outcome-based measures that permeate our therapeutic field.

In this series of workshops, we will use the work of Gestalt Play Therapist Dr. Violet Oaklander to provide a much-needed model of how play and art help therapy become real for both adults and children.

The workshops in this series will consist of lectures focusing on relevant theory and research, as well as in-depth demonstrations of practice. The overarching goal of this series is to show how playful approaches to therapy can help enliven, sharpen, and make the therapeutic encounter between the therapist and the client more authentic, as well as discover the surprising aspects of the self through play. Paradoxically, play can make therapy more real.

Participants will leave these workshops with both a theoretical and experience-based understanding of the relevant role of play and art in their professional setting, whether that work involves children, adolescents, or adults.

Workshop Series:

April 1, 2016
Sand Tray: Making Contact through Scenes in the Sand in Counseling and Therapy

June 17, 2016
Drawings and Pastels: Making Contact through Visual Images in Counseling and Therapy

October 14, 2016
Shaping Clay: Making Contact through Sensory Work in Counseling and Therapy

April 14, 2017
Image Before Word: Making Contact through “Talking Cards” in Counseling and Therapy

June 16, 2017
Puppets and Storytelling: Making Contact through Indirect Work in Counseling and Therapy

Course Details & Registration

Dates: Fridays, April 1, June 17, October 14, 2016, April 14, June 16, 2017

Time: 1-4 p.m.

Instructor: Peter Mortola, PhD

Noncredit: $30 per workshop, includes 3 CEUs or PDUs. $140 for entire series, includes 15 CEUs or PDUs. Lewis & Clark Alumni save 20% on full workshop series rate.

Lewis & Clark School-Based Mentors and Supervisors: Free. Please contact cce@lclark.edu to register.

Register now

To register for individual workshops, please visit the workshop-specific pages above.

Dr. Oaklander’s text, Windows to our Children (Real People Press, 1978), is presently translated and available in 14 language editions, from Korea to Romania to Brazil, underscoring the relevance of her work across many diverse settings and cultures and making her book one of the most popular Gestalt-based texts in the world.

About the Instructor

Peter Mortola, PhD is Professor of Counseling Psychology at Lewis and Clark’s Graduate School of Education and Counseling and the Co-Director of the Educational Specialist degree program in School Psychology. He is the author of Windowframes: Learning the art of Gestalt play therapy the Oaklander way (Routledge/Gestaltpress, 2006), the culmination of 10 years of inquiry and research on Violet Oaklander’s methods of both child therapy and adult training. Windowframes has been translated into German, Spanish and Korean. He is also the co-author of BAM! Boys Advocacy and Mentoring: A leader’s guide to facilitating strength-based groups for boys (Routledge, 2008).

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