Welcome to this special issue celebrating the work of Marian Billy Lindkvist, the founder of Sesame drama and movement in therapy. Alyson Coleman, Richard Hougham, Phil Jones, and Mary Smail, have combined our love for Billy to co-edit an issue in her honour, and to share articles by practitioners who have been inspired by Billy’s Sesame dream, which she followed from 1964.
Comment from co-editor Mary Smail
For me, Billy became ‘The Boss’ when she asked me to take over her work at the Sesame Institute educational charity. More than that though, Billy and I shared a strong, mutual imperative to serve and attend to an entity named Sesame, which lived differently in each of us. Sesame, with its metaphoric, story name. Sesame, with its determination to wait obliquely on what emerges from the archetypal symbols of the unconscious. Sesame, with its insistence on coming from a grounded place where the ego feels safe, as a way into spontaneous play. Sesame with its knack of drawing out health and creativity. Sesame, with its healing approach and language of body, touch, movement, imagination and story – these being a valid means of therapy – these being enough.
If these qualities are found in Sesame, they lived also in Billy. She was a story-maker who used her body to enable people into what imagination could perceive. ‘Here is a tree’, she would say, throwing down a Birkenstock sandal to mark a space in the room. ‘And this! This is the sea’, placing her cardigan. As if by magic, beach and ocean appeared, and held by her indomitable invitation, a new and transforming story was co-created. For those who met Billy individually, she had an ability to quickly ‘get’ you, without much actually being said. She was high on intuition and empathy, and not afraid of suffering. She knew the way with it. Once, when asked what qualities a dramatherapist needed, her three-fold answer was ‘To have suffered, to have suffered, to have suffered’.
At the Sesame Institute’s ‘Billy Bash’ event, given in her honour in 2017, people sent tributes:
I remember Billy and her wonderful trail-blazing contribution to the establishment and development of dramatherapy. (Marina Jenkyns)
It was you Billy, who took the courageous and vital step of listening to your dream and following its guidance. Your love, compassion and fierce tenacity ensured its birth into the world and you have left a rich and soul-full legacy. (Becky Mackeonis)
I only met Billy once but she was impressive and made a huge contribution to dramatherapy. (Sue Jennings)
I am deeply and forever grateful to Billy for reaching in and teaching me to treasure my suffering. I take up the Sesame mantle and promise to share it. (Mandy Squires)
Fifty years ago my path crossed with Billy’s. I was instantly captivated by how this remarkable woman evolved her dream into the reality of something called the Sesame approach. I moved from offering office assistance, to becoming a Sesame Kat and finally was appointed as an Institute Trustee and Vice President. This Sesame gift came from Billy and she will never be forgotten. (Ann Ritchie)
I am told that Billy spoke of the heart of Sesame as ‘a Beyonding thing’. This really struck a chord for me. I feel it re-sounding in a most warming way. And as Billy is now a ‘Beyonder’ herself, well, now she can enjoy her chords in fuller measure and feel their resonance. (Kharis Dekker)
Shortly before she died, with her permission, I recorded some of our final conversation and include some snippets from these now. Billy and Sesame in her own words:
I am very proud of everybody who has made Sesame what it is. … The fact that I started it is one thing, but if I was the only person, Sesame would have died 100 years ago. I don’t feel I need any particular praise. I had a dream, and that isn’t particularly praise worthy. The only thing I did was follow the dream.
Sesame is a beyonding thing. It expands you. It is not quite human. It is spiritual. And it’s a friendly thing … It’s a ‘you- can-do- it’ sort of feeling for other people. … It’s a magic thing really. Anyone can do it, if they accept the magic. Once they start trying to work it out in left brain terms, it isn’t so good because it stops being spontaneous. It’s easier when it is magical. The answer comes first and then you rationalise. Why have I done this in this way? Why should it be done that way? Oh! I know why! It is because of A, B and C. That’s all back to front. Why it works is magic. QED! Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
Special issue content
The different articles within this edition contain some of the ways in which Billy’s dream has connected with others: the perspectives of clients, therapists and colleagues. The versatility of the forms and ways of presenting are different from the traditional content of the journal: we have our more usual discussion of clinical practice and theory, but also memories, personal associations and archive exploration – fitting within the act of tribute which our content aims to offer.
‘Billy and the “Ground” of Being: Feet and Rhythm in Sesame Clinical Practice’ combines Cath Butler’s first steps at a ‘Sesame Seasonal School’ with a variety of associations and accounts: tracing from a day of stamping, ‘foot-to-ground’ contact, drumming and ritual with Billy to her early childhood memories with her father, ‘a strong body memory, a personal connection’ and to her work with clients. The combination of memory, accounts of practice and current reflections helps to articulate the richness of her encounter with Billy. Butler enables us to see how Billy’s influence is not in the passive reproduction of formulae or activities, but in a diversity of creative, in-the-moment experiences of therapy with clients – in ‘getting to know our clients and responding with what we had come to know as therapeutic in ourselves’.
David Read Johnson takes us from memories of a High Barnet train journey to a series of reflections in ‘Learning From Experience: The Legacy of Billy Lindkvist’. These combine accounts of personal contact with Billy along with reflections on her work and its relationships with his own and others’ contributions to the field. His analysis takes an approach that interprets her work and influence though a critical lens formed by ‘the process by which she learned, which I will try to illustrate is the critical component of her method of drama therapy’. Johnson’s discussion explores themes such as ‘encounter’ and ‘eternal curiosity’ to illuminate his proposal that ‘the original essence’ of Billy’s can be found as ‘an open-ended, gently supported, improvisational encounter wherein each participant is given the opportunity to learn from their own experience’.
Phil Jones takes a personal journey in ‘Lindkvist in the Sesame Institute Archive: An Autoethnographic Study’, exploring through his associations and reflections how a selection of artefacts, chosen at random, reveal and communicate Billy’s work. Here found elements within the Archive include a portfolio of photographs of Billy Lindkvist and KATS, a bundle of letters in an envelope and an ‘Open Sesame!’ pamphlet. His responses to the different archived materials reveal ‘how new conceptual spaces were created by her; how these were in a mutual relationship with innovative practices and the centrality of the client as a creative individual, full of potential’.
Thaleia Portokaloglou in ‘Transplanting the Soul-Tree’ reports on her work in Greece with refugee women, survivors of gender based violence. As with other articles in this edition, the account highlights the importance of intuition, un-demanded association and the unconscious. A chance encounter with a car radio provides ‘revelation’, as the author takes us into her spontaneous route connecting the programme she hears and Jung: how this helps enable meaning making in her work with the women. The details of the group’s experiences provide an illustration of values and principles which echo Billy’s influence in creating ‘a space where everyone, including the therapist, is invited to be open to change’ through the interaction of ‘body, imagination, feelings and thoughts’.
Samuele Russo’s ‘Meeting Through Touch’ offers a detailed case study of work with Nora who is living with dementia in a palliative care setting. The description and analysis explores situations where dramatherapy creates meaning and relationship when words ‘are no longer a way of communication’ but form a barrier or obstacle. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance to work with a client such as Nora’s ‘preferred language’ is brought into dialogue with practice reflecting Billy Lindkvist’s ideas about ‘Movement with Touch and Sound’.
In considering how influence occurs and is maintained, Karsten talks about the need for new concepts to be combined with the ‘nourishing flowers of experience’ (Citation1971, 585). The accounts and analysis in this special edition reflect this combination: they reveal how Billy’s original dreams and thinking grow through interaction with many different experiences. Further developments creating new ‘nourishing flowers’ are reflected in the many practitioners who are being trained in the Sesame approach, with the course at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama continuing to teach and research her work; and in the publications which are inspired by this pioneering woman. That Billy Lindkvist’s work continues is the essence of this edition. Its articles are vibrant with energy, spirit and inspiration.