PSYCHODRAMA INTENSIVE (Winter 2023)
A Weekend Psychodrama Intensive in Portland, OR
Friday Feb 10th: 7-9pm | Saturday Feb 11th: 10am-1pm, 3-6pm | Sunday Feb 12th, 10am-1pm, 3-6pm
Burning Spirits Yoga: 2025 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
Burning Spirits Yoga: 2025 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
Psychodrama is an action method (developed in the 1920s by Jacob Moreno in Vienna) in which participants use spontaneous dramatization, role playing, and dramatic self-presentation to engage a situation or encounter. It is an incredible performative practice for diving deeply and playful into intra/inter-subjective facets of self and other. Psychodrama is practiced in a group, whereby one participant volunteers to be the protagonist who then acts on their "drama" with the aid of other group members as auxiliaries. It is a highly structured technique with forms that establish safety, minimize projection, and create the capacity for extremely deep and transformative expression.
The weekend intensive will begin on Friday evening with safety agreements, a brief explanation of the practice, and then exercises to help the group warmup to each other and begin to deepen self expression. The rest of the weekend will contain four 3-hour blocks during which the group will enhance somatic and dramatic expression, enact short vignettes and solo-plays, access allies and self-energy, and perform full psychodramas as well. Participants will learn tools for self-facilitating psychodramatic play, so that these resources can be practiced on one one's own outside of a group. This intensive hopes to give participants greater insight into their inner systems of parts or roles, and provide renewed creative vitality and agency to play with these inner worlds together towards the collective goal of healing and self expression.
The weekend is a closed container, and all participants will be required to attend Friday evening to set a safe container for the group. We will have 2-hour breaks on Saturday and Sunday from 1-3pm for participants to eat lunch they bring, or find lunch to purchase in the area. Maximum number of participants is 13. Price is via sliding scale: Tier 1 $350, Tier 2, $250, Tier 3 $150 | BIPOC Tier 3 Please see chart.
About the facilitator: Aaron Finbloom is a philosopher, artist, pedagogue and counselor. He is also the founder and director of the Deep Play Institute. Finbloom's work (and play) involves expanding and deepening transformative inquiry through games, performance, and structured play. After an initial 40-hour psychodrama training in 2018 Finbloom co-led a psychodrama group in Montreal, and has directed dozens of psychodrama sessions in the forthcoming years. His facilitation style is informed by training in Circling, Authentic Relating, Vipassana Meditation and profoundly inspired by Internal Family Systems Therapy both in theory and practice. Finbloom has been seeing individual clients for over two years using transformative deep play techniques derived from these aforementioned practices. He holds a PhD in relational practice from Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Humanities & Fine Arts program, and teaches philosophy at the City College of New York and The University of Portland.
Covid Policy: We will follow CDC protocol regarding covid isolation and engagement (i.e. "If you test positive for COVID-19, stay home for at least 5 days and isolate from others in your home."). If anyone tests positive for covid, they must wait to attend until 5 days after the first day of developing symptoms (and in this situation, if they are still testing positive at this point, they can attend, but with a mask). If any participant has symptoms of covid (i.e. cold symptoms), we ask you to please take a home-test and if you test positive you cannot attend the workshop. If you test negative, and you are sick, we ask you to still wear a mask (as tests can deliver false negatives). For everyone else, masks are optional.
Note: This weekend intensive is intended for participants who reside in Portland, OR. The Deep Play Institute is not able to provide accommodations for out-of-town participants. DPI is also not able to refund any travel or housing costs in the unlikely event of cancellation.
Disclaimer: This intensive is not therapy, nor should be considered a substitute for therapy. That said, the explorations we will engage in will have the potential to go rather deep, and may be quite intense. The Deep Play Institute upholds the belief that deep play lives on an edge between safe and dangerous. As such, we invite participants to play in this liminal space, and as facilitators we work to help participants stay on this edge. We see it as our responsibility to design a space that is trauma-informed, holds space for emotional processing, includes self-care, and normalizes opting out at any time. We ask participants to gauge when their experience has crossed into territory that they deem “too edgy” and take the steps necessary for their own emotional safety. Finally, we want to acknowledge that insofar as we occupy privileged identities we bring our personal limitations and biases into the space, and while we are working to educate ourselves and minimize harm, we recognize that harm may be caused and we take accountability for this.
Sliding Scale: Hopefully the sliding scale fees make this workshop accessible for those who want/need to participate. DPI recognizes the incredible value of this work, and wants very much to make this workshop both accessible for participants, while also providing fair payment to both facilitator and venue. If the tiered, sliding scale, price structure does not work for you, and you are very much wanting to take this workshop, please reach and we will try to accommodate your needs [ [email protected] ] .
Refund Policy: A refund of 50% of the total tuition is available (if a participant needs to cancel) in the form of credit for future workshops or virtual sessions.
The weekend intensive will begin on Friday evening with safety agreements, a brief explanation of the practice, and then exercises to help the group warmup to each other and begin to deepen self expression. The rest of the weekend will contain four 3-hour blocks during which the group will enhance somatic and dramatic expression, enact short vignettes and solo-plays, access allies and self-energy, and perform full psychodramas as well. Participants will learn tools for self-facilitating psychodramatic play, so that these resources can be practiced on one one's own outside of a group. This intensive hopes to give participants greater insight into their inner systems of parts or roles, and provide renewed creative vitality and agency to play with these inner worlds together towards the collective goal of healing and self expression.
The weekend is a closed container, and all participants will be required to attend Friday evening to set a safe container for the group. We will have 2-hour breaks on Saturday and Sunday from 1-3pm for participants to eat lunch they bring, or find lunch to purchase in the area. Maximum number of participants is 13. Price is via sliding scale: Tier 1 $350, Tier 2, $250, Tier 3 $150 | BIPOC Tier 3 Please see chart.
About the facilitator: Aaron Finbloom is a philosopher, artist, pedagogue and counselor. He is also the founder and director of the Deep Play Institute. Finbloom's work (and play) involves expanding and deepening transformative inquiry through games, performance, and structured play. After an initial 40-hour psychodrama training in 2018 Finbloom co-led a psychodrama group in Montreal, and has directed dozens of psychodrama sessions in the forthcoming years. His facilitation style is informed by training in Circling, Authentic Relating, Vipassana Meditation and profoundly inspired by Internal Family Systems Therapy both in theory and practice. Finbloom has been seeing individual clients for over two years using transformative deep play techniques derived from these aforementioned practices. He holds a PhD in relational practice from Concordia University's Interdisciplinary Humanities & Fine Arts program, and teaches philosophy at the City College of New York and The University of Portland.
Covid Policy: We will follow CDC protocol regarding covid isolation and engagement (i.e. "If you test positive for COVID-19, stay home for at least 5 days and isolate from others in your home."). If anyone tests positive for covid, they must wait to attend until 5 days after the first day of developing symptoms (and in this situation, if they are still testing positive at this point, they can attend, but with a mask). If any participant has symptoms of covid (i.e. cold symptoms), we ask you to please take a home-test and if you test positive you cannot attend the workshop. If you test negative, and you are sick, we ask you to still wear a mask (as tests can deliver false negatives). For everyone else, masks are optional.
Note: This weekend intensive is intended for participants who reside in Portland, OR. The Deep Play Institute is not able to provide accommodations for out-of-town participants. DPI is also not able to refund any travel or housing costs in the unlikely event of cancellation.
Disclaimer: This intensive is not therapy, nor should be considered a substitute for therapy. That said, the explorations we will engage in will have the potential to go rather deep, and may be quite intense. The Deep Play Institute upholds the belief that deep play lives on an edge between safe and dangerous. As such, we invite participants to play in this liminal space, and as facilitators we work to help participants stay on this edge. We see it as our responsibility to design a space that is trauma-informed, holds space for emotional processing, includes self-care, and normalizes opting out at any time. We ask participants to gauge when their experience has crossed into territory that they deem “too edgy” and take the steps necessary for their own emotional safety. Finally, we want to acknowledge that insofar as we occupy privileged identities we bring our personal limitations and biases into the space, and while we are working to educate ourselves and minimize harm, we recognize that harm may be caused and we take accountability for this.
Sliding Scale: Hopefully the sliding scale fees make this workshop accessible for those who want/need to participate. DPI recognizes the incredible value of this work, and wants very much to make this workshop both accessible for participants, while also providing fair payment to both facilitator and venue. If the tiered, sliding scale, price structure does not work for you, and you are very much wanting to take this workshop, please reach and we will try to accommodate your needs [ [email protected] ] .
Refund Policy: A refund of 50% of the total tuition is available (if a participant needs to cancel) in the form of credit for future workshops or virtual sessions.