Lisa Kays and Sharilyn Wiskup
Pryzbyla 351
Friday May 5
9a.m. to 4p.m. 6 CE credits
Registration
Regular Registration Rate: $120
Current NCSSS Field Instructor Rate: $100
Current NCSSS Student Rate: $40
Playing with Group Process: Using Improvisation to Unearth the Unconscious
Workshop participants will fluidly move between playful, fun, improvisational games and activities, and interpersonal group processing, using observations and experiences from the games to increase group intimacy and provide feedback to one another. This process will deepen relationships and group cohesion, increase self-awareness, improve understanding of one’s own unconscious behaviors and patterns, and help illuminate roles and identities that we take on in relationship to individuals and in groups.
The workshop will provide experiences for clinicians to increase their self-awareness of how their behaviors impact the group dynamic as a whole and the individual members within the group, as well as to illuminate unconscious motivations or biases they may hold in relationship to others that will bolster the intimacy and clarity of clinical work.
Additionally, clinicians will learn methods for integrating action methods into group work and how to process and discuss those activities in a way that furthers the self-exploration and personal growth of clients.
Participants will be able to:
- Learn improvisational acting techniques that will rapidly contribute to group cohesion and intimacy.
- Gain increased self-knowledge that will positively influence client work and empathy.
- Explore and understand barriers we (and our clients) experience to intimacy, authenticity and spontaneity.
- Explore new ways of being that remove those barriers and allow for new and depended experiences of connection with others.
Lisa Kays holds an MSW from Catholic University and has been practicing psychotherapy with individuals, couples and groups since 2013. She has studied and performed as an improviser since 2007 and been on the Washington Improv Theater faculty from 2008-2016, creating Washington D.C.’s first Improv for therapists class.
Sharilyn Wiskup received her master’s degree in counseling from the University of Florida. She’s worked in the field since 2006, and received advanced training from the Washington School of Psychiatry from 2012-2014 in two programs - the National Group Psychotherapy Institute and the Clinical Program on Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Practice. In the spring of 2015, she was invited to be an adjunct faculty member at George Washington University. A year later, she joined Lisa Kays’ Improv for Therapists class and was immediately hooked and is currently taking her last class in completion of Washington Improv Theater’s training program.