Cross-Cultural Play: Deepening Therapeutic Awareness Through Culture and Creativity
Co-Presenter Name: Iván González
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Ivan Gonzalez, LMHC, is a psychotherapist and facilitator focused on healing, emotional growth, and whole-person wellbeing. He blends evidence-based practice, contemplative wisdom, and relational warmth to support individuals, couples, and communities in navigating trauma, strengthening connection, and cultivating resilient
Cultivating a Pl Attitude in the Relationship Realm? What Could that Look Like?.
Co-Presenter Name: Lisa Makstein
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Lisa is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker practicing for over 35 years in Maryland and Washington DC, focusing on adults, couples, and groups. It is a privilege to join people on the journey toward more authenticity and life-affirming paths. Participating in AAP has been an important part of my own evolution to do the same.
Do We Always Have to Play By the Rules?
Co-Presenter Name: Gayle Neufeld
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Gayle Neufeld spent the first fifteen years of her career seeing patients mainly for psychopharmacology in consultation with therapists. A desire to connect more with her patients and to enrich her practice through collaboration with colleagues led her to pivot towards providing individual, couples and group psychotherapy.
Play Is the Thing To Catch the Conscience of the King
Co-Presenter Name: Marvice Marcus
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Marvice D. Marcus, PhD, is a licensed psychologist in Durham, NC. He maintains a private practice and oversees a clinical training program. Marvice is an avid reader, with interests ranging from psychoanalysis, to cultural studies and critical social theory, to Black epistemologies.
Playing in the Midst of Disaster
Co-Presenter Name: Kelly Barclay
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Kelly Barclay, Psy.D. is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Huntington Beach, California. She has been in practice for 30 years and works with older adolescents and adults in individual therapy as well as with couples and families. She believes "play" can be an adaptive form of coping for people of all ages.
Playing with How We Present
Co-Presenter Name: Liz Marsh
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Liz Marsh is a Social Worker, Art Therapist, and Group Psychotherapist working. Liz strives to help each of her clients find their personal agency through understanding the dynamics in their families AND our society as a whole. In this way, Liz sees mental healthcare as a tool for social justice.
Playing with the Edges of Vulnerability
Co-Presenter Name: Michelle Leyden
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Michelle Leyden, LPC, is an existential psychotherapist educated at the University of West Georgia and professionally raised by the community of AAP. Having used experiential modalities to heal her own fears around physical vulnerability, she now helps clients cultivate deeper mind-body awareness and presence.
Psychotherapist
Co-Presenter Name: Graham Hall
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Graham is a psychotherapist with a sub-specialty in addiction practicing in Georgetown, DC. Prior to starting his private practice, he worked as an executive coach and then as the assistant director of the Kolmac Clinic in DC. He holds a master's in organizational counseling and a p.m.c. in clinical community counseling.
Relinguish the Knowing: Stepping Into the Amorphous and Joyous Process of Play
Bradley Lake, LICSW, has been in private practice for over 37 years, offering individual, couples, and group psychotherapy. His clinical passions include supervising engaged and curious therapists in their pursuit of deeper self-knowledge, ultimately enhancing their effectiveness in the therapy room.
In 2023, Bradley creat
Sex Therapy & Consultation Training Institute
Co-Presenter Name: Anni Tuikka
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Anni is a psychosexual therapist and supervisor. She provides individual, relationship, and sexuality therapy in Atlanta. She is a PhD Candidate in Clinical Sexology at Modern Sex Therapy Institutes (Florida); her research focuses on societal factors that may contribute to consensual non-monogamy becoming more common.
Smile Though Your Heart is Breaking
Co-Presenter Name: Elizabeth Field
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Elizabeth E. Field practices psychotherapy in Charlotte NC. She specializes in group therapy and has developed several trauma informed groups. Currently she has done a deep dives into grief, and ritual. It is a great honor for her to present with Dr. Gould in AAP on this topic about how to hold the polarities in grief.
That's Funny? The Ethics of Humor in Psychotherapy
Co-Presenter Name: David Christy
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David Christy is a clinical social worker licensed in MD, DC and VA, seeing individuals and couples. A member of AAP’s Ethics Committee, David’s focus on ethics has deep roots, including years trying to prevent and extinguish fires as the chief ethics compliance officer of a law and lobbying firm in Washington, DC.
The Joy of Play in Practice
Co-Presenter Name: Gary Frankel
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Gary C. Frankel, Ph.D. enjoys practicing in DC, doing individual, group, and couples psychotherapy, as well as individual and group supervision. Dr. Frankel is a past Ethics Chair with a particular interest in the interface of ethics and countertransference. He also enjoys participating in the Academy.
The Many Forms of Play in Psychotherapy
Co-Presenter Name: Matthew Varley
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Matthew Varley, PhD, is a psychologist in private practice in Durham, NC. He offers depth-oriented psychotherapy and supervision for individuals, families, and fellow clinicians. Once eager to grow up, he now works to rediscover - and protect - the playful parts of himself and his clients.
The Therapist Online: Ethics of Playfulness, Authenticity, and Self-Disclosure in Our Digital Lives
Co-Presenter Name: Ronda Bostick
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Ronda Bostick is a licensed mental health counselor located in Daytona Beach, FL. She has worked primarily with community based, non-profit agencies, and has a part time private practice. Ronda has 10 years of clinical experiences, specializing in mental health, substance abuse and trauma working with youth and adults.
Workshop Title: Books as Play
Name: Stephanie Ezust
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Workshop Desc.:
Books as Play is a dynamic, experiential workshop that invites participants to engage with books as catalysts for imagination, connection, and creative exploration. Through shared reading, playful interpretation, improvisation, and expressive art or writing, participants will actively experiment with multiple ways to “play”. The workshop emphasizes embodied engagement, relational sharing, and the creation of simple, transferable book-based activities that foster curiosity, emotional ex
Stephanie Ezust received graduate training at Georgia State University and has practiced as a licensed psychologist for more than 45 years in Decatur, Georgia, working with individuals, couples and groups. She is a lifelong lover of books, having majored in Comparative Literature as an undergraduate.
Workshop Title: Boys Just Want to Have Fun: Men's struggles with passion, play and pleasure
Name: Avrum Weiss
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Workshop Desc.:
Note: This is a workshop for men. Men are socialized to equate their self-worth with what they produce in the world and the extent to which they protect and provide for women and children. As a result, many men neglect to develop their own internal lives, including their capacity for pleasure and play. In this workshop, men will have the opportunity to explore internal barriers that hinder their capacity for passion, pleasure, and play.
Avrum Weiss is a psychotherapist, author and teacher. He is the author of four books, including the best-selling "Hidden in Plain Sight: How Men's Fears of Women Shape Their Intimate Relationships." He lives on an island in coastal Maine and a sailboat in the Bahamas.
Workshop Title: Crafting A Mission Statement That Matters: Defininf Purpose in Psychotherapy and Community
Name: Kristie Nies
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Workshop Desc.:
This workshop explores how mission statements can shape clinical practice to improve client outcomes and strengthen professional identity with a community. Participants will see how concise statements clarify purpose and inspire action that directly supports healing and growth.
Kristie Nies, PhD is a board certified neuropsychologist, psychotherapist, and yoga instructor. She works in a Memory Care center and teaches NeuroYoga to seniors. She is currently the president of AAP.
Workshop Title: Cross-Cultural Play: Deepening Therapeutic Awareness Through Culture and Creativity
Name: Ariana Prawda
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Workshop Desc.:
The ways in which children, families, and communities engage in play are deeply shaped by cultural values, norms, and histories. By exploring our own cultural play experiences, we can strengthen our capacity to recognize, honor, and integrate culturally meaningful play within clinical settings. We will invite you to reflect on the cultural play traditions that have shaped your identities and deepen your understanding of how culture and play intersect within therapeutic work.
Ariana Prawda, Psy.D., is a bilingual (English/Spanish) clinical psychologist in Washington DC who provides individual, couples and group psychotherapy. She has been a member of AAP since 2019. She has extensive experience specializing in culturally informed psychotherapy, trauma, and crisis-intervention.
Workshop Title: Cultivating a Playful Attitude in the Relationship Realm? What Could that Look Like?
Name: Neil Makstein
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Workshop Desc.:
This workshop will aim to provide an opportunity to explore our most playful mindset and to play with each other in a creative and interpersonally fun way. Through sharing some of our life stories, we can authentically connect with each other by listening, taking risks in sharing, laughing, digging in deep and letting go. We will play with each other as openly as we can and see what we can learn about doing psychotherapy in this improvisational process.
Neil is a Psychologist in Virginia and Maryland, seeing couples, individuals and groups as well as consulting to organizations, I have loved being in AAP for 20 years, presenting workshops and serving on EC. Friends call me a “group junkie” as I find group processes fascinating and delightful to co-create with others.
Workshop Title: Do we always have to play by the rules?
Name: Kelly Ezickson
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Workshop Desc.:
We will explore the role of rules and how they impact play and therapy. Do rules make you feel safer or do they limit what you feel you can do? Are you someone who likes to push the limits in your work and play or do you feel comforted by the boundaries? How do frames, guidelines and boundaries play a role in group therapy.
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Kelly Ezickson has been practicing since 1989 and works with individuals, couples and groups in her private practice in Washington DC. She also LOVES to play.
Workshop Title: Play in the Midst of Disaster
Name: DevaJoy Gouss
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Workshop Desc.:
Participants will be led to connect with their inner child parts and embody positive parenting. We will invoke the power of experiencing movement, imagination, play and creative flow, individually, in dyads and as a group. In this workshop, a safe container will be constructed that is dedicated to safeguarding our inner child's experiences, supporting expression of whatever is inside from pain to play, despair to hope, loneliness to connection.
Devajoy Gouss, LCSW, is an experiential therapist, working with groups, couples and individuals. She has evolved her own style of experiential therapy, rooted in Psychomotor Therapy and the power of ritual. She facilitates the Marrying Yourself Journey and has published books on grief and a workbook for living with illness.
Workshop Title: Play in the Midst of Disaster
Name: Deva Joy Gouss
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Workshop Desc.:
Participants will be led to connect with their inner child parts and embody internal positive parenting. We will invoke the power of experiencing movement, imagination, play and creative flow, individually, in dyads and as a group. In this workshop, a safe container will be constructed that is dedicated to safeguarding our inner child's experiences, supporting expression of whatever is inside from pain to play, despair to hope, loneliness to connection.
Devajoy Gouss, LCSW, is an experiential therapist, working with groups, couples and individuals. She has evolved her own style of experiential therapy, rooted in Psychomotor Therapy and the power of ritual. She facilitates the Marrying Yourself Journey and has published books on grief and a workbook for living with illness.
Workshop Title: Play Is the Thing To Catch the Conscience of the King
Name: Murray Scher
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Workshop Desc.:
Most men only know how to play when a ball is involved; they have lost the sense of play they had as boys. In this workshop, we will work toward unlearning the restrictions and societal demands that have kept men from knowing how to be playful. As men—and as therapists working with men—it is essential that we know how to be playful and give ourselves and those we work with the freedom and ability to play. This workshop for men will be both experiential and didactic.
A Past-President and Fellow of AAP and a Fellow of APA, I hold the PhD in Counseling Psychology. Practicing for 55 years, my scholarly work has been male gender roles including their intersection with psychotherapy, as well as the dynamics of psychotherapy. Despite all that, I have not forgotten how to play and be playful.
Workshop Title: Play, Pleasure, Power, and Pussies: A Workshop for Women
Name: Brooke Bralove
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Workshop Desc.:
Historically, women’s pleasure has largely been ignored, and therefore many women have shut down their own connection to their bodies as a source of pleasure. You are invited to come play and learn more about your own pussy power in this 3-hour experiential workshop for women. We will write, meditate, move our bodies, and process together for greater awakening to promote pleasure and embodied, authentic confidence.
Brooke Bralove, LCSW-C is a Psychotherapist, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, and Master Accelerated Resolution Therapy Practitioner. Brooke helps women of all ages let go of perfectionism and move toward greater authenticity, joy, pleasure, and connection. She has been in private practice in Bethesda, MD for 22 years.
Workshop Title: Play, Presence, and Countertransference in Non-Ordinary States: Holding Ourselves While Holding Our Clients in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy
Name: David Fogel
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Workshop Desc.:
Ketamine-Assisted-Psychotherapy can evoke powerful emotional and somatic expressions beyond those seen in traditional talk therapy. Using videotaped clips from live ketamine sessions, participants will learn to recognize, interpret, and respond to intense medicine induced physical and emotional responses. Through didactic teaching and group process, this workshop explores how to stay attuned and grounded while supporting clients in non-ordinary states.
David Fogel, MD is an integrative physician and psychotherapist practicing for over 30 years doing individual, couples, and group therapy. He is a certified ketamine medical-therapy provider and, using a harm reduction model, administers IM ketamine and psychedelic integration in a ketamine-assisted psychotherapy framework.
Workshop Title: Playing on the Edge: Exploring Our Grief, Fear and Desire of Stepping into the Unknown
Name: Svetlana Kreimer
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Workshop Desc.:
Whether looking at a career move, a relationship shift, or an end of a life journey itself, approaching change is like stepping off the cliff into the darkness: from the solid ground into the abyss of the unknown, both scary and exciting for the new dawn. This workshop participants are invited to explore their relationships with upcoming life turns through the series of creative exercisers and the following group processing. We can play with darkness together.
Svetlana Kreimer, LMFT works and plays in California, where she serves as a clinical director at Process Therapy Institute. She believes that all therapy is, in essence, play therapy, whether for young children, grown-up children practicing “adulting”, or our inner children often starving for attention and loving playmates.
Workshop Title: Playing with How We Present
Name: Elena Scher
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Workshop Desc.:
This workshop will allow participants to explore issues and play with the idea of appearance and presentation in different spheres. In a process group, they will share and discuss how their relationship with their own appearance, and that of others, affects relationships. Clinicians will gain a deeper awareness of themselves in different environments. This increased knowledge will help grow clients’ understanding of how they present thereby creating greater personal insight.
Elena Scher earned a BA in art history Washington University and a MSSW from UT Austin. She has learned that these two different disciplines share many overlapping concepts. This thought has led her to pay attention to how people present themselves. Also, she spends lots of time worrying about how her curly hair looks.
Workshop Title: Playing with our Parts
Name: mary gresham
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Workshop Desc.:
We will review 4 schools of therapy ( Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, Satir Transformational and Internal Family Systems) and their use of parts work in psychotherapy. Participants will be invited to identify, name and describe their own parts as represented in each system of therapy. We will break into small groups to allow participants to embody and interact with their parts as a way to learn and practice various ways of working with parts of the self.
Mary has been interested in the history of psychotherapy since first being asked to embody Virginia Satir in graduate school at Georgia State. Recently she has become aware of how few therapies give credit to those who preceded. She has learned and used Gestalt, Transactional Analysis, Satir's method and IFS.
Workshop Title: Playing with the Edges of Vulnerability
Name: Anne Pincus
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Workshop Desc.:
What is your current growing edge - as an individual, in groups, as a therapist? This workshop invites you to meet vulnerability playfully by offering a creative piece of yourself - movement, memory, art, role-play, or improvisation - for a 15-20 minute shared exploration. Each day ends in group process, supporting the integration of inner parts and connection at the contact boundary.
Anne Pincus, 30 years now a member of the Academy, has always enjoyed playful, improvisational, expressive art and body-oriented workshops offered at AAP. She has, from the beginning, resonated with the transpersonal and experiential approaches in psychotherapy - even when these were less accepted or appreciated.
Workshop Title: Playing with writing and drawing to unlock creativity
Name: Jennifer Leach
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Workshop Desc.:
We will use writing and drawing techniques based on author, graphic novelist, cartoonist, and creativity educator Lynda Barry’s works, Syllabus, What It Is, and Picture This. As we write and draw, we will explore where play, reverie, memory, ideas, and creativity converge. Participants will learn psychological theories underpinning this method and how to apply it therapeutically. We will focus on playing, learning, and creating together, not the quality of our skills or our results.
Jenny Leach is a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City. She majored in studio art at Wellesley College, MA and continued painting until working in a residence for adults with mental illness led to becoming a therapist. She is enjoying the process of rediscovering drawing and painting.
Workshop Title: Relinquish the Knowing: Stepping Into the Amorphous and Joyous Process of Play
Name: Jenny Savitz-Smith
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Workshop Desc.:
Relinquish the Knowing is a 3-hour process group inviting you to step out of certainty and into curiosity and play. You’ll explore resistances, loosen control, and rediscover the joy of unstructured discovery. Grounded in contemporary play and connection theories, it offers a safe yet provocative space to practice “not knowing” as a pathway to deeper creativity and authenticity in a safe yet provocative space.
Jenny Savitz-Smith, PhD, is a clinician who loves exploring how people connect, heal, and grow. She brings curiosity, humor, and heart to her work—and to this process group with her colleague, Bradley Lake. Her passion for Pilates and helping people stay grounded in their bodies informs the mindful, embodied approach
Workshop Title: Seriously, Let's Play
Name: Barry Wepman
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Workshop Desc.:
Each of us develops a characteristic style of relating over the course of our lives, beginning in our earliest relationships and evolving through later ones. The interplay between play, trust, vulnerability, and connection can deepen the bonds between people. Play becomes a rehearsal for trust, a test of safety, responsiveness, and reliability. .
We will use play, process, and a wee bit of structure to build trust, strengthen attunement and cultivate more authentic connections.
Barry Wepman was in the practice of individual, couple, and group psychotherapy and supervision for 45 years, he has been a memebr of AAP since 1980. He has taught in psychiatry departments and in post graduate institutes. Now retired, he is playing more and spending his time deepening his relationships.
Workshop Title: Seriously, Let's Play
Name: Z Rosenzweig
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Workshop Desc.:
See previous submission
Having practiced for 45 years, I retired at the end of 2019. While I practiced, I worked with children of all ages (from actual chronological children to adults). I came to appreciate the trust invested in me as the basis of our relationship and enjoyed the playfulness we often shared in pursuit of significant exploration.
Workshop Title: Sex Therapy & Consultation Training Institute
Name: Steve Eichel
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Workshop Desc.:
Sexuality plays a significant roles in human development, relationships, and life in general. This Training Institute (TI) meets annually at Summer Workshops and runs for two years, ending 2026. Each 6-hour TI meeting includes a 3-hour presentation and feedback/discussion on a topic relevant to sexuality and relationships and 3 hours for case consultation/discussion on the topic of the meeting.
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Steve K. D. Eichel is a licensed and Board‐certified psychologist with over 40 years experience. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from University of Pennsylvania and advanced certificates in sex therapy, addictions, and clinical hypnosis.
Workshop Title: Shared Laughter, Tears and Play: The Essence of the Psychotherapy Relationship
Name: Jacob Megdell
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Workshop Desc.:
This workshop will be an experiential, improvisational conversation exploring how shared laughter, tears and play are essential to creating the therapeutic relationship, and contribute to the therapist's personal and professional journey. The workshop with encourage consideration of our own growing edges. As expressed by Dr. Carl Whitaker to a patient, "The only difference between us is that I've been a patient longer than you have." This will be a 2 day workshop with 12
members.
Jacob Megdell, Ph.D, has been providing Psychological services and Psychotherapy for individuals, couples, and families for 58 years. His primary focus is the development of effective psychotherapy relationships. He has published research on the role of humor in psychotherapy.
Workshop Title: Smile Though Your Heart is Breaking
Name: Angela Gould
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Workshop Desc.:
A broken heart may come from a variety of experiences including a divorce, a break up of a relationship, loss of health, death of a beloved, becoming an empty nester, and any number of other losses. We will explore ways to smile during the healing of a broken heart which may be prolonged. Learning to smile during these times is essential. We've learned to use fractionated abreactions in the 90s, taking it in small pieces and embodying some peace and/or joy, which we’ll process.
Angela Gould is a clinical psychologist practicing in Boulder, Colorado and the US Virgin Islands with 49 years of experience. She specializes in trauma therapy with 20 years of experience at a Boulder hospice facilitating bereavement groups. She is an eclectic psychotherapist utilizing a number of adjunct therapies.
Workshop Title: Stop Helping and Get in the Game
Name: Lee Blackwell
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Workshop Desc.:
Chronic helping severely limits our ability to be intimate and engage dynamically and can become obvious and/or subtle ways of competing for social dominance. I will ask you to do your best to not help during our time together, and limit your conversation to "I" statements. This directs us inward to experience our inner worlds and ultimately express them.
Lee Blackwell, Ph.D. is in private practice in Newport Beach, California, specializing in couples therapy and sexual issues, including sex and love addiction. He has presented nationally and internationally on couples therapy, sexuality, mentalization, psychotherapy and neuroscience. He values authentic engagement, which i
Workshop Title: testing
Name: Brian
Workshop Desc.:
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Workshop Title: That's Funny? The Ethics of Humor in Psychotherapy
Workshop Desc.:
Together we’ll explore the use of humor during the therapeutic encounter by ourselves or our clients as a reflection of our personal histories, personalities, or therapeutic style. When does humor foster the therapeutic relationship? When does it miss the mark to deflect, defend, or manage anxiety? What ethical considerations guide our use of humor so we can be authentically present, yet demonstrate self-awareness, sensitivity, and good clinical judgment that most benefit the client?
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Workshop Title: The art and fear of slow running: Unleashing your inner sloth
Name: Jonas Horwitz
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Workshop Desc.:
In this workshop we will practice the Art of Slow Running. The aim is to move out of our quick heads and into our slower hearts as we explore the yearning space between us. Brief, very slow 60-second running intervals and group process will help clinicians translate embodied insight into deeper attunement with clients.
Dr. Jonas Horwitz is a psychologist in Durham, NC He is the author of Stop Feeling So Damn Depressed (New Harbinger, 2018) and Putting the Brakes on Anxiety (New Harbinger, 2027). Jonas enjoys backpacking in the Appalachian mountains, along with his family, who are always kind and wait for him to catch up.
Workshop Title: The Courage to Play: The Role of Courage In Group Process
Name: Noah Meyers
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Workshop Desc.:
This two-day process group will focus on the role of courage in group process. Through en vivo experience, we will explore the different factors the either promote or discourage authentic engagement, both in play and at rest. Group members will be encouraged to show up more fully with each other, especially in the presence of their own fear.
Noah Meyers, PhD is a therapist in private practice in Washington, DC, working with individuals, couples and groups. He is consistently curious about the role of courage in his own life, as well as in the lives of others.
Workshop Title: The Forest as Restorative Playground
Name: Penelope Norton
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Workshop Desc.:
This workshop introduces participants to Forest Bathing, utilizing including individual, solitary experiences and group sharing. Forest Bathing is a Japanese healing technique, shinrin-yoku, that enhances connection and relationship with trees and forests. Benefits of the practice include: reduced depression and anxiety, enhanced mental relaxation, and increased feelings of gratitude, selflessness and wonder. Experience and share healing benefits of forest bathing.
Penelope Norton, Ph.D. practices psychology and psychotherapy in Ormond Beach, Florida. She draws upon the healing power of the natral world as a Certified Forest Bathing Guide, leading group experiences in forests.
Workshop Title: The Joy of Play in Practice: The Ethical Imperative of Enjoying our Work
Name: Lyn Sommer
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Workshop Desc.:
This 2-day experiential workshop invites therapists to reconnect with our innate sense of joy as we engage our work. Playfulness can enhance our therapeutic presence, empathy, creativity and relational depth; while mitigating stressful overload and burnout. We will explore the ethics of focusing on work we enjoy doing, creating boundaries that maximize our energy, and enriching connection with colleagues – all with the goal of optimizing joy and longevity within our professional lives.
Lyn Sommer, PhD, ABPP, CGP enjoys practicing in Connecticut, doing individual therapy, couples work, intensive weekends for couples, and supervision, as well as participating in the Academy!
Workshop Title: The Many Forms of Play in Psychotherapy
Name: x x
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Workshop Desc.:
Many of the best moments in psychotherapy feel like play. We will explore the range of play forms, from spontaneous word play to board games to construction toys and purely imaginary play. Later, using examples from our own experiences in the workshop, we will identify the elements that make play so useful in psychotherapy: from wish-fulfillment to competition to discovery to stress reduction to intimacy, and so much more. But first: we play.
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Workshop Title: The Power of Symbols in Psychotherapy
Name: Robin Knoblach
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Workshop Desc.:
This experiential workshop explores how clinicians can work with symbols to deepen understanding and facilitate transformation in their clients. Integrating multiple theoretical approaches, participants learn to recognize and engage symbols through case examples and group exercises/process, enhancing their capacity for culturally sensitive, symbolically attuned psychotherapy.
Robin Knoblach, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Herndon, VA, with 29 years of experience working with adults, children, and families. Dr. Knoblach’s work emphasizes the healing power of symbols and metaphor in fostering connection, meaning, and psychological growth with clients of all ages.
Workshop Title: The Relationship with Play and the Development of Attachment Styles
Name: Annie Prescott
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Workshop Desc.:
This playful, risk taking 2 day workshop will offer experiential activities as participants explore the relationship with play and the develop of Attachment styles. Cooperative, versus competitive play will be explored. Various activities will test our comfort levels with both independent and social play. Creativity, make-believe/imaginary play, educational, game, and entertainment play may spark processing opportunities throughout this workshop.
Dr. Annie Prescott has been a psychotherapist for over 46 years. Starting her career as a Recreation Therapist, she is an expert in how to playfully have fun. She is a Child Psychologist and has enjoyed play therapy with all ages. Animal-assisted psychotherapy, dancing, and meditation are some of Dr. Prescott's passion's.
Workshop Title: The Therapist Online: Ethics of Playfulness, Authenticity, and Self-Disclosure in Our Digital Lives
Name: Diane Christie Shaffer
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Workshop Desc.:
This workshop will explore the themes of authenticity, identity, intimacy and temptations that arise when therapists and patients have an online presence. Do therapists have a “right” to a personal life online? How do we manage our personal and professional details across contexts? We will explore the areas that are and are not within our control when it comes to “playing” and “working” in the digital realm.
Dr. Shaffer is in private practice in Swarthmore and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She works with individuals, couples and groups. She is a member of the AAP ethics committee and will serve on the executive council from 2026-2029.
Workshop Title: To Feel or Not to Feel? Addiction and Play
Name: Zachary Pyne
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Workshop Desc.:
This group contains a didactic portion about the role of substance use in regulating emotional experience, followed by a process group exploring addictive behavior from an attachment perspective and how it might inform work with clients in recovery.
Zach works as a professional counselor in Washington, DC, providing individual, couples, and group therapy services. He started private practice in 2020. One of his specialties is working with clients to address substance addiction and its related issues.
Workshop Title: To play or not to play ...
Name: Debbara Dingman
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Workshop Desc.:
In this two-day process group, we will experientially explore the ways we each approach the playfulness of the therapeutic encounter. We may choose to enter the playfulness of the moment, choose not to enter and play, or ambivalently move in and out of our connections with others. Greater awareness of our own cooperative, aggressive, and passive impulses will help us to guide our patients toward the experience of their struggles with authentic connections.
Debbara Dingman, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist at Pine River Psychotherapy Associates, in Atlanta. She enjoys her work with individuals, couples, and groups. Her years in AAP have promoted her ability to be playful, resilient, and somewhat flexible. She is a fellow of AAP and cooperatively plays on multiple committees
Workshop Title: Unveiling the Self: Burlesque as Mirror and Muse
Name: Rachel Keller
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Workshop Desc.:
Throughout history, burlesque has reflected society’s desires, tensions, and taboos. This two-day experiential workshop explores its evolution - from ancient origins to its modern role as a form of reclamation and empowerment. Participants will examine the cultural and personal meanings of this subversive art and engage in creative exercises to imagine their own burlesque personas. Each day concludes with a process group to integrate emotional and embodied insights that arise.
Rachel Keller, LCSW-C, is a Baltimore-based psychotherapist and founder of Alive Intimacy. For over a decade, she’s guided individuals and couples to heal shame, deepen connection, and reclaim pleasure - believing the heart of sex therapy is discovering the self through authentic intimacy and embodied aliveness.
Workshop Title: WHO TOOK THE FUN OUT OF DYSFUNCTIONAL? Bringing stories and more into the consultation room!
Name: Bob Rosenblatt
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Workshop Desc.:
Stories, anecdotes, and humor are another pathway to connection and attunement. It is also a powerfully impactful way of combatting client resistance to change and growth. In this workshop, we will explore our reservations to these types of interventions and aim to encourage more ease and facileness with bringing humor into one's consultation room. Be prepared to share a favorite intervention, and discuss other possible approaches to our difficult clients.
I have been providing individual, couples and group therapy for over 50 years (OMG!) and for 30 years, offering training and supervision for mental health providers. Bringing stories, anecdotes, and humor into the process is one of my favorite play-fulled ways of overcoming client resistance in order too facilitate growth
Workshop Title: Yes, And: The Playful Path to Authentic Connection
Name: Laura Fleming
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Workshop Desc.:
Discover how the principles of improvisation—presence, play, and “Yes, And”—can deepen authentic connection in therapeutic work. Through experiential exercises and reflection, participants will explore how improv fosters attunement, empathy, and flexibility in both therapist and client. No performance experience required—just curiosity and a willingness to play!
Laura Fleming has been in private practice in Rochester, NY. for 35 years. She has training in DBT and has led DBT Skills Traing groups for many years. She has been studying Improv for more than 10 years and firmly believes that Improv has improved the quality of her work as a psychotherapist.
