I am delighted to lead and facilitate two international workshops in the forthcoming months.
The first one entitled ‘Who is I? Who is You? A theatrical exploration of We’ at the 5th Conference of the European Federation of Dramatherapy in Prague in May 2021.
This workshop explores how individual subjectivity and identity, and its correlates of knowledge, awareness and meaning, is intertwined with alterity and relationality. It investigates the capacity of dramatherapy and other arts therapies to create a We experience that embraces the singularity and plurality of the I in relation to the You. The workshop uses as a starting point some of the poems in Knots by R. D. Laing to experientially investigate our embodied intersubjectivity, the mutual reflection of the I in the You, and its potential for a transformation into a We.
The second one entitled ‘Hands-On: Working Creatively with Implicit Memory in Trauma-Focused Dramatherapy‘ at the 16th International Arts Therapies Conference (ECArTE) in Vilnius in September 2021.
This workshop explores the centrality of the body in the expression and working through of unresolved traumatic memories. It investigates ways of working somatically with psychological trauma by focusing on one specific part of the body: the hands. In this workshop, the focus on hands and hand movements is priviledged to explore how trauma is imprinted in body memory, and how the body can effectively assist its healing. As the psychoanalyst Darian Leader (2017) suggests, ‘hands are sites of exchange’ between different psychological states that can facilitate the integration of traumatic memory.
The workshop considers how the embodied and aesthetic foundations of the arts therapies provide a particular fertile ground to think about and work though implicit memory. It is an invitation to reflect on how embodied integration in the arts therapies can effectively assist psychic and memory integration.
J.F. Jacques, PhD 