WORKSHOPS at Lifestage

Article about Interactive Theater

Learning is discovery by experience. Interactive Theatre has been used to train professionals in medicine, mental health, police work, education, and business because it combines the most powerful learning process with opportunities to try out applications of the new information in a structured, supportive setting. In the Interactive Theatre workshop, group members engage with actors prepared to deal with the specific issues and problems important to the group. Together, the participants, actors, and trainer develop a scene by making choices and examining their outcomes.

This process is multi-purpose:

• To provide opportunities for role training, in which participants try out and explore roles in action.
• To engage the creativity of all group members and the collective creativity of the group.
• To expand awareness of existing problems and the possibilities for resolving them.
• To maximize each participant's strengths as it contributes to the group
• These workshops have been utilized to:
• Train physician's assistants to discuss difficult and threatening health concerns with a diverse population of patients,
• teachers to enhance their ability to engage students' imagination as well as their intellect,

Interactive Theatre can be adapted to the concerns of any workplace environment or group situation to advance the goals of:

• preparing workers for new roles,
• maximizing development of skills to perform new roles,
• educating staff about issues or concepts,
• helping groups work together better and support its highest potential.

TRAINERS; Jude Treder-Wolff, LCSW, RMT, CGP, Debbie Zelizer, LCSW & Nicolas Wolff, LCSW, BCD, TEP

Stress-Resilience Training

The new paradigm of stress demonstrates that there is a definite link between psychological events and physical illness, between mind and body, which also firmly ties everyday stress to such common health complaints like stomach problems, headaches, and fatigue. In the long term, the inability to regulate our emotional and psychological approach to the stressful conditions of life exhausts the physical body, and research shows a direct link between stress and heart disease, stroke, cancer and other life-changing illnesses. Psychologist Robert Epstein, Ph.D. director emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and a researcher at San Diego State University, is quoted in a Psychology Today article saying "If you wait until you're feeling stressed before you employ some technique for managing stress, it's already too late. You need to have a bag of tricks that you can deploy proactively. Turning to them throughout the day changes your threshold of stress tolerance." Epstein insists that "it's more important than ever to learn as many antistress techniques as possible, as young as possible." The biochemical response to stress is cued up as much by random, upsetting events in the environment as by negative thinking - our own or people we spend a great deal of time with - as well as trying to keep up with the fast pace and increasing demands of modern life, or mental habits like perfectionism or procrastination. There are skills and habits of mind which are beneficial to our health and reduce the negative effects of stress that cause physical illness. The development of these skills is the core of stress-resilience training.

Workshops cover the following material:

Bio-chemistry of stress: information about the hormones and chemicals released by the body in response to stress and their long-term effects; the role of nutrition, sleep, and leisure activities to stress and health; ways of thinking that heighten the stress reaction; ways of thinking that reduce the negative effects of stress.

Coping Skills for Stress-Resilience: Explore the importance of social support, friendship, skills in asking for help, setting boundaries, detachment from negative, draining situations; The relationship of meaning and purpose to physical health; Information about effects of social isolation, loss, loneliness, and relationship strain on health.

Creative Problem-Solving: Information about and experience of meditation and relaxation response training for mental clarity, increased energy and ability to remain centered in stressful circumstances. Explore diverse perspectives and approaches to problems and situations participants are facing in every day life.

Healthy pleasures:Scientific evidence demonstrating the positive health effects of pleasure, e.g. humor/comedy, pets, connection with nature, music, good scents, good flavors, optimism, naps, having fun. Facilitate discussion of creative ways participants can increase their experience of these and other health-enhancing activities, linking them to concepts discussed in previous sessions.

The process of developing a successful multi-cultural organization is a complex, but critically important combination of information-sharing, experiential learning and skill-building. Our trainers have worked with a broad range of organizations to:

• advance participants' ability to talk openly about issues of race and racism,
• acquire a deeper understanding of the nature and roots of these problems,
• be alert and respond effectively to the subtle ways racism is expressed.

Racism colors most of the dynamic activities in society. Unspoken feelings, attitudes, and beliefs about issues of race influence the way people live and work together. Racism and Diversity Workshops utilize a combination of story-telling and psychodrama:

• To explore the effects of racism on the immediate environment in which the group exists.
• To open up a dialogue which reveals attitudes and values and explores their origin.
• To provide accurate historical information that clearly describes the oppressive design of racism and its impact on people of color.
• To provide a safe place to talk about problems with regard to issues of race and racism.
• To create an experience that demonstrates the depth and richness of human experience that is possible through embracing diversity.
• To expand participants' knowledge and provide tools they need to be agents of change in their daily lives and in the workplace.

These workshops are offered in series of 3, 3-hour sessions.

TRAINER: Nicholas Wolff, LCSW, BCD, TEP