Heldagskursus i en performativ tilgang til læring og udvikling

På dette heldagskursus vil LOIS HOLZMAN og DAN FRIEDMAN introducere dig for den socialterapeutiske metode - en unik tilgang til menneskelig udvikling og læring med fokus på gruppen samt på udvikling gennem performance. Gennem de sidste 30 år har Holzman og Friedman været med til at skabe og lede forskellige former for pædagogik, folkeskole, læreruddannelse, ungdomsskole, psykoterapi, forskning, organisationskonsultation, valgpolitik og teater, som fortsat praktiseres i dag – primært i USA, men også i adskillige lande i Sydamerika, Afrika, Asien og Europa.

DEN SOCIALTERAPEUTISKE METODE ER
• en anerkendt tilgang inden for både de postmoderne og de Vygotsky-inspirerede bevægelser inden for psykologi, psykoterapi, uddannelse og organisationsudvikling.
• en praktisk, filosofisk og aktivistisk tilgang, der relaterer til mennesker som skabere af deres kultur og improviserende performere af deres liv.
• det metodiske grundlag for en række specifikke tiltag, der anvender den socialterapeutiske forståelse af læring og udvikling i klinikker, klasseværelser, hospitaler, fritidsaktiviteter, arbejdspladser og samfund verden over.

KURSETS PROGRAM vil veksle mellem øvelser, fælles refleksioner og korte teoretiske oplæg og ende med udlevering af en ’værktøjskasse’ i form af et minikompendium med øvelser og teoretiske pointer. Øvelserne er inspireret af improvisationsteater og designet til at skabe fællesskab og tillid i gruppen. De fælles refleksioner vil fokusere på, hvordan deltagerne kan anvende læringen og øvelserne i deres eget arbejde. Undervejs vil vi udforske følgende emner: performance og leg; menneskelig udvikling og gruppekreativitet; styrkelse af socialitet og håndtering af fremmedgørelse; udviklende filosofi og læring; sprogets betydning for udvikling; samt Marx’, Vygotskys og Wittgensteins bidrag til den socialterapeutiske tilgang.

PÅ KURSET VIL DU BL.A. LÆRE, HVORDAN MAN
• Ser og forholder sig til gruppen frem for individet som genstand for indsats og udvikling.
• Bruger teatralsk improvisation som en metode til facilitering og udvikling af gruppen.
• Udnytter en gruppes diversitet til at maksimere dens emotionelle, sociale og kognitive kreativitet.
• Værdsætter og anvender konflikt til at udvikle gruppen.
• Støtter alle medlemmer til at tage ansvar for gruppens udvikling og effektivitet.

MÅLGRUPPEN: Kurset er især relevant for praktikere inden for psykologi, undervisning, teater, psykiatri, socialt arbejde, antropologi, pædagogik, ungdomsskole, sociologi, fritidsaktiviteter, boligsocialt arbejde, og frivilligt arbejde, men tilmelding er åben for alle interesserede. Du behøver ikke have viden eller erfaringer med gruppearbejde eller med metoden for at deltage, men forventes at deltage aktivt i øvelser og refleksioner. Kurset foregår på engelsk.

PRAKTISKE OPLYSNINGER
TID: Onsdag d. 31/1 kl. 9.00-16.00.

STED: Lokaler centralt i København- oplyses snarest.
PRIS: 1200kr /studerende 600kr. (For at få studierabat skal du fremvise dit studiekort samt gyldig indskrivningsbekræftelse ved kursets begyndelse).
ANTAL DELTAGERE: Max. 30.
KONTAKTPERSON: Esben Wilstrup, tlf. 29928370, esbenwi@gmail.com.
TILMELDING: Send en mail til esben.wilstrup@buf.kk.dk med dit navn, telefonnummer og profession. Når du er tilmeldt kurset vil du modtage en mail fra arrangørerne med praktisk information vedrørende kurset.

OM UNDERVISERNE:
LOIS HOLZMAN, PhD, is the director and co-founder of the East Side Institute. As a leading proponent of a cultural approach to human learning and development, she has brought the writings of Lev Vygotsky to bear on the practices and methods of psychotherapy, as well as contributing to advancing their relevance to education, youth development and organizational studies. She is well known for her pioneering work in exploring the human capacities to play and perform and their fundamentality in learning how to learn. Holzman has helped shape and expand the international performance movement as a force for radical social change, through the bi-annual Performing the World conference, the Institute's International Class, and other collaborative community-building projects among psychologists, social workers, educators and cultural workers from around the world. Holzman is particularly respected as an activist scholar who builds bridges between university-based and community-based practices, bringing the traditions and innovations of each to the other. She has written/edited extensively on human development, learning and play; the institutions of psychology and education; and social therapy and its applications. Her most recent book is Vygotsky at Work and Play. Holzman earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Columbia University and was a postgraduate research fellow at the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition.

DAN FRIEDMAN, PhD, has been active in political and experimental theatre as actor, director, playwright and scholar for four decades. He is a founder of the Castillo Theatre and serves as the theatre's artistic director. Most recently he has added working with youth to his cultural projects, as founder and artistic director of Youth Onstage! and the director of Becoming Producers. Friedman has worked closely with Fred Newman for over twenty years, and is editor of Still On The Corner and Other Postmodern Political Plays by Fred Newman. He received his doctorate in theatre history from the University of Wisconsin.

THE EAST SIDE INSTITUTE is an international training, educational and research center for new approaches to human development, learning, therapy and community building. The Institute's work is devoted to changing psychology from a diagnostic, evaluative (and often stigmatizing) practice into a positive and creative force for the emotional, social and cultural development of all people and their communities. During the last 30 years the Institute has developed a unique group-oriented performatory approach called social therapy that relates to people of all ages as social performers and creators of their lives - of what they, their communities and the world are becoming. Drawing from the discoveries of its co-founders-philosopher-psychotherapist Fred Newman and developmental psychologist and learning strategist Lois Holzman- as well as the writings of psychologist Lev Vygotsky and philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Institute specializes in creating learning environments that are improvisational, challenging, playful and practical.

My Experience and Discovery of Social Therapy

I'm writing to introduce you to a new concept and practice of human development, to a growing international performance movement, and to tell you the story of how I wound up in New York City with a group of playful activists.

My name is Esben Wilstrup and I normally label myself as a Danish roleplayer, a postgraduate psychology student, and a playful activist. During the last 5 years or so, I've devoted my life to exploring the potential of play and performance for human learning and development - a quest which have led me from my base in Aarhus in Denmark, to Moscow in Russia, to Sydney in Australia, and finally to New York in the United States, where I just completed a one year training program called The International Class at the East Side Institute.

I first heard about the East Side Institute when I organized a summer camp to engage my fellow psychology students in practical workshops. The most charismatic and crazy of the workshop leaders, a psychologist named Volker Bunzendahl, playfully engaged us in his workshop in postmodern school development. Volker showed us how he successfully organized a 3-day chaotic carnival at a school through which teachers and students were challenged to play with their usual social roles and relationships and given the opportunity to change these performances of their everyday life. I was amazed to find someone practicing what I hoped to become. Volker shared with me that the foundation for his approach came from social therapy, an approach that was developed by philosopher and therapist Dr. Fred Newman and developmental psychologist Dr. Lois Holzman at the East Side Institute in New York City.

The East Side Institute is a non-profit international research and training center which through the last 40 years has developed a unique group-oriented performative approach to human development called social therapy that relates to people of all ages as social performers and creators of their lives — of what they, their communities and the world are becoming. Social therapy encourages us to become the directors in our own lives, and to begin improvising new ‘roles’, and ‘scenes’ with each other so that we may collectively become more playful in the areas of our lives which are a bit too ‘scripted’ and don’t allow for our creative unfolding of the everyday performance of our lives. This methodology is a postmodern practical advancement of the discoveries/understanding of the philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Marx and psychologist Lev Vygotsky that our lives, learning, development, and language are first and foremost collective creative activities. As such it shares some family resemblances with narrative and systemic therapy and improvisational theatre.

During my the last year, I’ve been studying and practicing social therapy in The International Class with activists from India, Uganda, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, USA, and the Philippines who, in very different ways, work towards creating a better world for their peers. It’s been a crazy and developmental ride as we’ve engaged philosophical, political and psychological questions together through conversation, performance, and silence both online and face to face at our visits in New York. It’s been a privilege and a pleasure to engage such difficult questions with people who are committed to making a difference in the world and I’m proud to call them my friends and colleagues today. To get a glimpse of some of the people and the focus of The International Class check out this 5 minutes long video.

I’ve learned to practice social therapy through engaging in improvisational theatre, philosophical film nights, political play-readings, academic conferences, political discussions, street interviews, observation of group therapy and by being in group therapy myself. I've been in weekly group therapy at the Social Therapy Group during the last 5 five months, and I've found it really helpful and growthful. It is really like no other therapy I've seen before, and I've studied psychology for five years now. It's much more social and creative than the alternatives I know of, and it's focused on emotional development, not on just adjusting you to a situation.

I’ve learned something about how we can create community with other people, how we can create developmental learning environments, and how we can make a difference in the world. And then I’ve learned a lot about how other people perceive me, what I can give others, and how I can further develop. I’ve had to deal with how I impacted and sometimes intimidated my classmates; how I realized my disconnect and ignorance of my particular position as a privileged white male from a rich country; how I had to stop trying to be such a 'nice' guy because it was getting in the way of me becoming more than that for other people; how I was pushed to give up my 'this', my specialness, my weirdness, my loneliness as something private, and instead give it to people; how I was/is holding on to my privileged position as a knower and using it to position myself in relation to others; and how I again and again had to let go of individual knowing and engage in the collective performance of life. It is without question the greatest experience I’ve had in my life and I’ve developed my approach to the world, to politics, to psychology, to pedagogy, to people very different from me, and to myself. I have become a firm supporter of this performative practice and would really love to share this experience and discovery with you.

In the US, this performative approach is now practiced in as varied settings as supplemental education programs, teacher training, psychotherapy, corporate consulting, electoral politics, and experimental theatre. These different projects are all part of a larger international grassroots movement involving thousands of people worldwide from all walks of life works towards developing alternatives to mainstream and traditional models of helping, healing, teaching and building community (which I experienced when I participated in the Institute’s latest international conference called Performing the World 2008 where 500 people from 27 countries with very diverse backgrounds and ideologies came together to present and develop their practice of development through performance).

I would love to tell you more about my experience, about The International Class, and about the projects I’m creating in Denmark now, and I know that you’re always welcome to write an email to Institute Director, Lois Holzman at lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org to learn more. If you want to read a bit more about the approach, I suggest you check out the institute's website and especially the article ”Creating Stages for Development: A Learning Community with Many Tasks and No Goal” which in less than 20 pages introduces the practice, history, and theoretical foundations for social therapy, and describes such a kind of community that I would like to build with you.

Please write me back and let me know what your response is to this post and to the practice of human development it describes. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Yours sincerely,

Esben