Therapy as Play

Hi I’m Allison Priestman. I am a white, slim, cis gendered woman; living and struggling with both my disability and my ableism. I have been working as an Embodied-Relational Therapist for over 20 years. I'm continually being woken up, challenged and nourished by my contact with clients, supervises and trainees. At this time of climate, diversity and equality crises, I’m interested in being part of a collective understanding of their interwoven causes. And part of a collective search for a way forward.I’m interested in creating training spaces from three-hour webinars to the two year-long residential Embodied- Relational Therapy training, which allow participants to drop deeply into themselves. Combining experiential learning with rigorous theoretical input. Supporting practitioners to relax into the complexities and paradoxes of working as a therapist. Of supporting work from the non-expert position.I'm re-running for the fourth time my Playing with Fire Online Course Oct 2024- June 2025. Exploring an Embodied, Relational, Intersectional and Wild Therapeutic Approach. How can working in an embodied, relational and wild way support the decolonisation of your practise?https://www.allisonpriestman.org/copy-of-playing-with-fireMore information to follow in the new year. Please note I will be running a series of Friday morning webinars in the Spring and Summer to act as tasters for the training.The next Embodied-Relational Therapy two year training begins in Juner 2025. It’s a robust, immersive, modular, residential training that will be run from Devon this year. I will be co-running the first year with Stephen Tame. For more information and the application documents please check out theEmbodied-Relational Therapy website. If you'd like to  know more about the Embodied-Relational Therapy  training check out this video.https://vimeo.com/498402917I’m creating a series of informative videos to communicate some of the ideas that inform my work. A video onworking with Erotic Chargecan be seen here.Thank you for reading, I hope you’re able to make it to one of my webinars or trainings, Allison

Allison Priestman

Psychotherapy needs to take place in the overlap of two areas of playing, that of the patient and that of the therapist. D W WinnicottPlay, like therapy, is a very serious business when done properly. What the two centrally have in common is the quality of &#x27;as-if&#x27;&#x27; -- that things both are and aren&#x27;t as they seem, that I both really do and really don&#x27;t love you or hate you. Entering this as-if space together, client and therapist are able to explore feelings and impulses that would otherwise be too dangerous and/or mysterious to entertain.What also helps us to tolerate these scary feelings is play in its other sense of playfulness. We will be exploring how we can usefully bring in playfulness to help explore the spontaneous and creative aspects of living, enabling us to relax and let things happen of their own accord.This webinar is part of the now occasional &#x27;How to Be a Bad Therapist Webinar Series&#x27;. Nick and Allison have recently published the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Bad-Therapist-Nick-Totton/dp/B094L58Y4G/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=Allison+Priestman&amp;qid=1621780570&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">How to be a Bad Therapist </a>book. We hope you can join us, for a creative exploration. The webinar will be limited to 23 participants.<a href="http://homepages.3-c.coop/erthworks/nick.htm" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">For more on Nick&#x27;s work</a><a href="https://www.allisonpriestman.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">For more on Allison&#x27;s work</a>

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Therapy as Play

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