Reading Plays to Enhance Professional Development

ABSTRACT

Writing in a narrative style, the authors describe the continuing education model of the Red Well Theater Group. The model combines a study group format with a play reading performance module to enhance the professional development of the Group’s members and their audiences of colleagues. The educational goals are to: 1) didactically study the principles and practice of group therapy; 2) theatrically illuminate concepts, relational themes, and small group dynamics relevant to group therapy; 3) experientially deepen therapist empathy for the challenge of being in a group; and 4) provide a vitalizing experience in support of therapist well-being. As an example of this model in action, the authors elaborate their experience preparing The Great God Pan, by Amy Herzog, for presentation at the 2014 American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) Annual Meeting.

Notes

¹ RWTG members include Maryetta Andrews-Sachs, Kavita Avula, Molly Donovan, John Dluhy, Mary Dluhy, Hallie Lovett, Liz Marsh, Yavar Moghimi, Robert Schulte, Rosemary Segalla, Paul Timin, Barry Wepman, and Rob Williams.

² Panelists included Kavita Avula, Eleanor Counselman, Connor Dale, John Dluhy, Barbara Keezell, Liz Marsh, Rosemary Segalla, Yavar Moghimi, Tom Teasley, and Rob Williams. The Open Session chair was Robert Schulte.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Schulte

Robert Schulte is Founding Director of the Red Well Theater Group and a faculty member of the National Group Psychotherapy Institute at the Washington School of Psychiatry.

Yavar Moghimi

Yavar Moghimi is a psychiatrist at Whitman-Walker Health and maintains a private practice in Washington, DC.

Eleanor Counselman

Eleanor Counselman is President of the American Group Psychotherapy Association. She maintains a private practice in Belmont, MA.