Apart from my own experience as a film maker and teacher of film makers, my work draws heavily on the traditions of action methods, in particular a technique called Play of Life.
Play of Life was developed by my first action methods trainer, Dr Carlos Raimundo, a psychiatrist who came to settle in Australia in the 1970s as a result of Argentina's Dirty War. Like all action methods, it is a problem-solving technique that cuts very quickly to the chase.
Action Methods were created by Dr. J.L. Moreno (1889-1974), a Romanian Jew who left Nazi Europe for America, where he continued his work begun as a student in the Vienna of Dr Sigmund Freud and Dr Carl Jung. Raimundo worked with both Moreno and Dr Jaime G. Rojas-Bermudez, creator of the Argentine School of Psychodrama. Both Moreno and Raimundo personally experienced the horrors of genocide and political oppression. Both became concerned with the healing of society through developing the creativity inherent in us all.
I chose this method as my main tool because it enables me to implement my core passion:
How do we find our true creative selves at any moment in any situation, and having found it, become it?
How do we take things from the imaginary to the real?
I favour this particular method out of all the methods I have looked at, because it not only illuminates the present - and how that is informed by the past - but before any decisions are made - actively creates the ideal future, so that we act in an informed and safe way. We do not go out into the world naked and vulnerable, unconscious and naive, but with a wider angle on whatever our truth is for the moment, combined with a conscious choice and appropriate decision on how we wish to act. Not only that, but in the process we have fun, excitement and moments of true wonder. Just like when we were children and our zest for life felt unstoppable.
Moreno developed his method by combining his medical training, his love of drama and his fascination with how children learn through play. Moreno's method relies mostly on group process. Play of Life uses miniature figures and props to replace a live group. Both methods rely on drama and play-acting, as if on stage - where the "protagonist" or hero/ine of the story, is the person with an issue to be explored through various situations and characters or roles - and the "director" is the person who guides the protagonist as they construct a series of scenes and tableaux until a satisfactory resolution is reached.
How it works:
Play is not only fun and magic - it is essential to life.
A lot has been written on play and how profound and lasting the results of this kind of exploration can be. Without going into too much technical detail, research indicates that through exploring an issue the way a child does - involving the whole being simultaneously - intellect, emotions and body - our three "brains" - or perhaps it is clearer to say "neurological configurations" - are simultaneously and actively linked. Normally it appears we approach situations using only one "brain" at a time and hence the "angle of truth" we perceive is correspondingly limited, as is the resulting "imprint" or pattern governing future behaviour or habit. By linking all three "brains" simultaneously, the angle of perception is far greater, as is the effect on our behaviour.
What are these three "brains"? One brain is common to all living creatures possessing a spine and is called the hypothalamus or "reptilian" brain. It governs instinctive behaviour such as breathing, heart rate etc. It is the brain that causes us to make decisions like removing our hand from a hot stove. It is the most archaic neurological structure. The next "brain" is the limbic system, situated between the hypothalamus and the neo-cortex. This is the seat, among other things, of memory and emotion. Movement, sound, smell and contact are the language of the limbic system. The third "brain" is the neo-cortex, the most distinctive part of the human brain. The neo-cortex governs language-based and "logical" thinking. It is the brain that is given greatest importance in Western culture. It is the brain that has the potential to over-ride the two other brains, enabling the human species to do things like die for ideals. However, the reality is that most of the time decisions are made by the reptilian or limbic systems - split seconds before the neo-cortex becomes conscious of what it thinks is its "decision".
To alter our behaviour long-term - and overcome the habits and imprints of a lifetime - to maintain the newly chosen way - we need to access and influence the reptilian and limbic systems as well as the "thinking" brain, the neo-cortex.
Combining this with a trained person acting as witness and guide is a powerful way to:
achieve positive transformation
bringing clarity and inspiration
out of confusion, stasis, exhaustion, despair
with the confidence to act
and the deeply-held motivation to maintain that momentum
throughout the joy and play of life
Now you've had the virtual experience, why not book a session for the real thing...
