Long term viability of the ASGPP and the psychodrama community

[Adam Blatner]

Great response from Sandy Blackman. Following up with my comments: SB Here are my thoughts as a newcomer: The reason I heard of this conference was through my psychodrama trainer and other members in our training group, who convinced me that this community was worth joining (they were right)!  
        ab: Appeal more consciously to the drama therapists in your community. Find out their list of professionals and call them, ask if you can exchange mailing lists. Promote their work and perhaps they'll promote yours. Add others' websites to your website. Build bridges.
    Do likewise with other action therapists--- Bioenergetic Analysts, Psychosynthesis, Gestalt Therapists. 
         Present yourself as offering not only psychodrama per se, but all kinds of approaches that can be integrated with other approaches. Makes your field far more accessible.

     Sandy: The reason I started the training group in the first place, was because my trainer advertised affordable one-time/weekly summer sessions on the NADT (Drama Therapy) listserve.  After the one session, I decided to become a regular member of her group because I discovered the joys of psychodrama (and this group specifically).  Before that, I had known about the drama therapy community for five years, and knew what psychodrama was, but had never experienced it first hand.  
        ab: good idea, good format.

Sandy: So here is my suggestion: (in addition to lowering conference prices of course) **Advertise inexpensive, low-commitment workshops or training sessions to the communities filled with all the young people.**
      The drama therapy community has tons of young people who discovered for themselves that theatre is therapeutic, but are looking for ways to make it apply towards actual therapy.  The drama therapy training requirements include a lot of psychodrama training.  
        Adam: appeal also to play therapists, personal growth and encounter group professionals, coaches, chaplains, and many other target groups.

   SB:  Colleges and Universities- I've run across lots of undergraduate and graduate students that have gotten a taste of psychodrama and loved it, but have yet to connect with the field.
       adam: Find out about presenting classes through their extension courses. Emphasize sociodrama, rather than going for deep psychodrama. Emphasize the development of role taking skills for understanding and mental flexibility. Less liability that way.

   SB  I'm wondering if also other psychology/therapy communities could benefit.  I recently attended the national Psychotherapy Networker conference in DC with nearly 4000 people.  While a good portion of the therapists there mainly do "talk therapy," so many of the people I talked to got so excited and sounded so interested about psychodrama (and other action-based or expressive therapies) and had never gotten around to or found it convenient to get training.  Not to mention the playback workshop I went to where 30 therapists with zero psychodrama/playback/etc. experience left extremely motivated to do more.    ab: sure!

   SB All it took for me was one random affordable workshop in psychodrama to lead me to an interest in the field itself.  Couldn't it do the same for others?  Sandy Blackman   P.S.  Thanks all for making my first conference so great!  I will definitely be coming back for more :)    ab: right on. 
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