Trauma, van der Kolk and psychodrama

[Dr Kate Hudgins]

Yes I know why he says this.  He was the keynote speaker at ASGPP in  
1996 and had a very bad experience there seeing uncontained  
abreactive psychodramas done again and again at the conference.  I  
had lunch with him at the conference and told him about the  
Containing double and TSM.  He told me it sounded good and could set  
psychodrama" back on the right path" but that I needed to do research  
on it.  We have had several letters of correspondence over the past  
13 years but they have been few and far in between.

  I have since done several research studies that show it does  
contain the uncontrolled nature of abreactive trauma as it also  
DEFINES spontaneity..  there is now a 3 year study in Taiwan by Dr  
Lai Nien Hwa supported by government funding showing that a program  
using TSM and art therapy worked with woman and children effected by  
domestic violence who have PTSD works.  It is being published in a  
the the Journel of Counseling in Chinese and in my new book Stories  
at the Frontlines:  Clinical and Community Actions in the Global  
Community using The Therapeutic Spiral Model (In Press)

I am willing to try and talk to Bessel but I am not willing to do it  
alone.  Iwould do it as a representative of the ASGPP, as a  
representative of the psychodrama community.  He at least knows who I  
am and knows my name.  But I am very busy right now, writing a TSM  
Basic training manual with Nien Hwa Lai and two other colleagues in  
Chinese for taiwan, a chapter for using tSM cross culturally, as well  
as trying to re-establish a USA training group and working with  
Colleen Baratka to continue our quarterly eating disorders group that  
goes between Charlottesville and Philadelphia.

As many of you know I have not been part of the American psychodrama  
community for 10 years while I concentrated my work in Asia.  I have  
pulled back from working in China due to many bad experiences there  
but am expanding work in Japan and solidifying work in Taiwan as I  
also return to the UK and continue work in Canada as I rebuid my work  
in America.  So, if I am to approach Bessel, I want support to do  
it.  I do have research to show him of the Containing double in  
individual therapy, at the commmunity level, and this work of Dr  
Lai's in a year long therapy group.  As you know I won the Scholar's  
award this year.  So I think I can begin a dialogue with him.

Who will support me?

Kate
On Nov 8, 2009, at 8:01 PM, Edward Schreiber wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
> I had dinner tonight with a psychologist out here in Western Mass.   
> She is in private practice, but worked in a clinic serving  
> traumatized kids
> and families for many years.  In any case, she was concerned about  
> a conference she recently attended in the Hartford, CT area, in which
> Dr. Van der Kolk as the keynote speaker.  Interestingly enough, he  
> mentioned yoga and "theater" as helpful in the resolution of  
> trauma.  This
> colleague has known of our method for some time so she raised in  
> front of 300 people the question to him, about the work of J.L.  
> Moreno and
> psychodrama.  This conference was a few months ago.  Dr. Van der  
> Kolk resolutely announced psychodrama as counter-indicated for the
> treatment of trauma, suggesting abreactive nature of the method, as  
> he experienced it some time ago, makes the situation worse for  
> traumatized
> patients.
>
> Does anyone know how to reach him, what we might do to address this  
> with him?  Does anyone have a connection with him and why might he
> be saying this - around the country - about psychodrama?
>
> Ed
>
> Grouptalk mailing list
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Kate Hudgins, Ph.D., TEP

Clinical Psychologist
Director of Training
Therapeutic Spiral International, LLC
ww.therapeuticspiral.org
drkatetsi at mac.com



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