Weaver of Workshops
Befriending Our Defences: Emotional Intelligence in Action
We go along managing life in a reasonable way, despite the challenges. Then we or someone we care about feels threatened in some way. Enter the expert defence system. The defender is reactive, full of distortions and holding on for dear life.
Living defensively is familiar, tiring and alienating. Worse still, one defensive stance evokes another, and before you know it, the battle escalates, and the impasse is in place! With action methods, expressive arts, encouragement and humour we will find new mastery of challenging life situations that tend to evoke our defences.
In this workshop we introduce four common defensive stances and explore the dynamics of each reactive position. Participants identify their personal favourite, and the ones in others that they find most challenging. Using expressive arts and action techniques, they learn to recognize their own and others’ defence systems, and to find respectful and effective responses to themselves and to others to break the impasses that inevitably result from defensive behaviour.
Liz will be participated in the Expressive Therapies Summit - November 8 - 11, 2012, New York City
Liz will be presenting a workshop on Befriending our Defences at the International Conference of Psychodrama, Group Psychothereapy and Group Processes on Day 3, Satureday August 30th, 2014.