The Inner Theatre of Hope:

 Working Therapeutically with Play, Drama, Sand and Stories.

Have you ever asked yourself what it is that is helping a child in Play Therapy, are children nowadays lacking toys?  Don't they have at home computer and video games? So what is the transformational effect of the therapeutic environment?

There are many ways to look at this question and to respond to it. The common one is the unconditional attention that the therapist gives the child, the attention respect maybe unconditional love? We accept these understandings. However we suggest looking at an additional angle, the inner theatre of hope, or the ability to be playful.

So many children in trouble do not allow themselves to experiment to believe in their own senses (as Violet Oaklander puts it) to transcend into Fantastic Reality as I (Prof. Lahad) call it. It is the respect of the child's ability to play without interpretation, it is the full participation with the child offering her or him the experience of mutual play, respect and nourishing through the nourishing effect of the arts.

Many children and adults who have been traumatized stopped playing as due to their horrible experiences their mission in life has been transformed into "staying on-guard not to remember" Not to remember the atrocities, the horrifying images, the terrible sufferings. For them to transcend into the playing/playful mode means to abandon the on-guard position, which means fearful invasion of horror, and for many of them that is impossible.

The inner theatre of hope re-introduce , in a very slow, and safe way, the ability to play, use sensations, and learn to trust one own resources. Based on over 30 years of work with children, families and the adult's child-within we developed both theory, models techniques and methods to help our clients to enter the playful "as if space" where all the IFs are possible and to slowly heal.

In this workshop we will share with you these models and methods so that you can use it with a variety of clients.