2023 VSOF Conference Presentation Details
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #1
Title
Resistance & Persistence: Watching Violet on video struggle to help a 5-year-old boy make good contact – A VSOF Board panel discussion
Presenter Bio
Peter Mortola, Ph.D. is a Full Professor in the Counseling, Therapy and School Psychology Department at Lewis and Clark College’s Graduate School of Education and Counseling. He is the author of Windowframes: Learning the art of Gestalt play therapy the Oaklander way (Routledge/Gestaltpress, 2006), the culmination of 10 years of inquiry and research on Violet Oaklander’s methods of both child therapy and adult training. Windowframes has been translated into German, Spanish, Romanian, Italian and Korean. He is also the co-author of BAM! Boys Advocacy and Mentoring: A leader’s guide to facilitating strength-based groups for boys (Routledge, 2008), and The Bear Inside (19th Avenue Press, with Illustrator Mark Molchan), a children’s book about managing strong emotions. The Bear Inside has been translated into Spanish, Bulgarian, Russian, and Sinhala versions.
Presentation Description
In 1997, Dr. Violet Oaklander was invited to participate in Jon Carlson’s “Play therapy with the experts” video series as the “expert” representative for the Gestalt Play Therapy segment. As part of this project, Dr. Oaklander was flown to Chicago and worked with four different young clients, none of whom she had previously met. Each of these four sessions were filmed in a studio with all the distractions of cameras and bright lights. Out of the four sessions, one was chosen for inclusion in the “expert” series: Her work with a 13-year-old, adolescent male named Blake. One of the four sessions that was not chosen for inclusion in the “expert” series was her work with a challenging and deflective 5-year-old named Billy. In this conference session, Dr. Oaklander’s work with Billy will be seen for the first time publicly. We will watch Dr. Oaklander using various playful media including toy cars, puppets, and image cards in her efforts to engage Billy. Twenty-five minutes long, and in three distinct segments, we will see Dr. Oaklander struggle with and ultimately succeed in helping Billy create and make contact with a meaningful “figure” in their work and play together. Although not a perfect example of a smoothly developing session, Dr. Oaklander’s with Billy serves as a good example of her theoretical model of the therapeutic process in practice, including the following aspects: Having no expectations; Building relationship; Making contact; strengthening the self; figure formation; and how work with children often occurs in small chunks. During the viewing of Dr. Oaklander’s work with Billy, the video will occasionally be paused so that members of the VSOF board can underline in their comments key aspects of this unique example of the Oaklander model of Gestalt Play Therapy.
Three presentation learning objectives for participants
- Participants will be able to identify and describe aspects of the the Oaklander model of Gestalt Play Therapy, including: Making contact; strengthening the self; figure formation; and how work with children often occurs in small chunks.
- Participants will be able to identify and describe operational examples of how Dr. Oaklander’s work with Billy reflects her statement: “I work to build the child’s sense of self, to strengthen the contact functions, and to renew her own contact with her senses, body, feelings and intellect.”
- Participants will be able to apply aspects of the Oaklander model to their own work with young and resistant clients.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #2
Title
Healing trauma with the Oaklander Model – A workplan
Presenter Bio
Giandomenico Bagatin is a developmental psychologist, psychotherapist, author and trainer from Trieste, Italy. He’s a Gestalt Trainer and Supervisor certified from FISIG, the Gestalt Psychoterapy Schools association in Italy. He’s also an EMDR practitioner, NLP international coach certified with John Grinder, Gestalt Play Therapist certified from Felicia Carroll and Violet Oaklander at WCI, California. Giandomenico is also contributing member of VSOF, trainer and supervisor in Oaklander Model and actually leads Gestalt Play Therapy Italia and certification process for Oaklander Model in Italy. He’s author of two books in Italy; one of them has been published in Hungary. He’s also author of the Italian edition’s introduction of both Violet Oaklander’s books. He trained and presented in several institutes and psychotherapy schools from different countries, including Italy, US, Spain, Portugal, Serbia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Switzerland and North Macedonia.
Presentation Description
In this presentation I want to explain a way to use the Oaklander Model with child trauma, especially severe ones. I have used for almost 13 years the framework of the Oaklander model for treating children who suffer severe trauma and loss in my private practice in north east Italy. Trauma is a complex issue and protocols always have to be adapted to the individual. Still, having a clear map and steps to follow can help us not getting lost between defenses, avoidance, negative introjects, unsafety and overwhelming emotions. We’ll have a brief experience on “Using time travel imagination for bringing ourselves to safety”.
The presentation aims to cover several topics:
- Stabilization and safety: What it takes to work fast and securely (how to assess contact functions and self-strength and build internal safety)
- Use of media (especially clay and drawing) and projecting traumatic memories: How to, the internal parts, introjects and the pendulum idea of therapeutic process
- A 6 step protocol: Steps toward healing
- How to honor the resistance (Specifically dissociation) and still go through
- Time travel technique, working with parts and introjects: Self-nurturing and how to help kids taking care of themselves with traumatic memories
- Integrations: Connections and possible integrations between the Oaklander Model, Ego States Therapy and EMDR in working with trauma.
Three learning objectives for participants
- Participants will be able to learn a clinical protocol for trauma intervention with Oaklander model.
- Participants will be able to hear ideas for an “enhanced” safe place technique for making the kid feel more secure in dealing with severe trauma and loss.
- Participants will be able to use the time travel and parts of the self-gestalt metaphors for helping kids healing from PTSD.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #3
Title
Creating a Therapy Room that is Culturally Safe and Welcoming for All Children and Families
Presenter Bio
Christiane Elsbree, MSW, LICSW began her study of Gestalt therapy at the Gestalt Therapy Institute of Los Angeles in 1978. In 1980 Violet Oaklander, Ph.D. invited her to be a co-founder of the Center for Child and Adolescent Therapy in Hermosa Beach, California. Christiane worked there with Violet until 1987 when she moved to Seattle and Violet moved to Santa Barbara. Christiane is a founding member of the Violet Solomon Oaklander Foundation. In 2006 and 2007 she had the privilege of assisting Violet with her last two-week long summer training programs. In 2009 Christiane interviewed Violet for the International Gestalt Journal (Vol. 32, No.2). She wrote an introduction to the 2015 Gestalt Journal Press edition of Windows to Our Children, which also includes the full 2009 interview. Christiane is in private practice in Seattle, Washington, working with children, adolescents and adults and teaching the Oaklander Model. Her interests in spirituality, diversity, anti-racism and her love of cinema inform her clinical work. She is grateful for her husband, and the three generations of young women who are her Seattle family.
Presentation Description
In addressing self-nurturing Violet wrote:“It is at an early age that we begin to determine who we are and how we should be in the world to get our needs met. In other words, we form a belief system about ourselves and how to function in the world at a very early age, and we take this belief system with us right into adulthood!”
How a child experiences themself in the world includes how they see themselves reflected and represented in the world around them. In Gestalt therapy and the Oaklander Model we approach the work within an I-Thou relational framework. Violet emphasized how she conducted that first encounter with the child to support that I-Thou relationship—i.e. including the child in the initial meeting, inviting the child to participate, giving the child her full attention. What has often been left unstated is the part that the items in the physical therapy space play in supporting that relationship. Violet’s playroom was full of items from many different cultures. It was a vibrant, diverse space in which children and families could find themselves reflected. In this presentation, I’ll describe what to look for in assessing the cultural safety of your playroom, how to create a culturally safe and welcoming playroom, and the relevance of that space in supporting the child’s self-nurturing. I’ll show examples of culturally relevant spaces and materials.
Three learning objectives for participants
- Participants will be able to identify the marginalized populations in their communities (These may be groups marginalized by ethnicity, skin color, religion, ability, age, socio-economic status, housing, gender, sexual orientation, caste, occupation or other characteristics) and describe ways that their own play spaces are welcoming and the ways that they create obstacles or cause microaggressions for those communities.
- Participants will be able to describe how the I-Thou principal of Gestalt therapy, self-nurturing and the values of diversity, equity and inclusion intersect.
- Participants will have resources to know how to build a welcoming play therapy space–books, puppets, games, sand tray figures, toys, etc.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #4
Title
Climate Grief and the Oaklander Method: A Sisters’ Presentation
Presenters Bios
Claire Mercurio, Ph.D. received her B.A. with High Honors in Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1984 and her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Southern California in 1991. During her internship with Community Counseling Service/Pacific Center in Los Angeles she was exposed to Violet’s book, “Windows to our Children.” Shortly after becoming a licensed psychologist and having her first child, Claire moved to Santa Barbara, where unbeknownst to her (at that time), Violet lived! Claire has had a private practice in Santa Barbara for almost 30 years. She was an adjunct faculty member at Antioch University for six years, and supervised interns at Family Service Agency and New Beginnings. Violet’s methods have continuously been the driving force behind what she teaches and practices. Claire can be contacted at this email: cmercuriophd@gmail.com, or on her website: cmercuriophd.com.
Sara St. Antoine is an environmental educator and writer who has spent her career working at the intersection of nature, children, and story. She has written educational materials for organizations such as World Wildlife Fund, Audubon, and the Children & Nature Network. Her novel Front Country (Chronicle Books, 2022) is a portrait of a 14-year-old girl contending with climate grief. Her middle grade novel Three Bird Summer (Candlewick Press, 2014) explores empathy for people and other animals as a 12-year-old boy visits his aging grandmother at her lakeside cabin. Sara holds a BA in English and Environmental Studies from Williams College and a Master’s degree from the Yale School of the Environment.
Presentation Description
Claire and her sister Sara are a Venn diagram of sorts. Claire is a psychologist in private practice, and Sara is an environmental journalist/young person novelist. Where they overlap is with the belief that Nature is important and healing, especially for children and young people. Sara and Claire have had many discussions over several decades sharing each other’s expertise, and hoping to collaborate one day. That day is here! Sara will discuss climate grief/trauma, using her novel “Front Country” and the 14-year-old protagonist Ginny as a point of reference. Claire will then discuss how watercolors can be used in the Oaklander Model to express feelings. She will present a session with “Ginny,” addressing her climate grief (as played by Sara’s daughter Margot, who knows the character very well!). Participants are recommeded to have paper, watercolors and pens available in case they would like to follow along in an experiential way with the case study that will be presented.
Three learning objectives for participants
- Participants will be familiar with the terms “climate anxiety,” “climate trauma,” and “climate grief.”
- Participants will learn how watercolors can be utilized to express feelings in the Oaklander Model
- Participants will learn a practical application of watercolors using the Oaklander Model in a case example involving climate grief
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #5
Title
Missing a chance to “be it”? What happens when Violet doesn’t follow the Oaklander approach
Presenter Bio
Peter Mortola, Ph.D. is a Full Professor in the Counseling, Therapy and School Psychology Department at Lewis and Clark College’s Graduate School of Education and Counseling. He is the author of Windowframes: Learning the art of Gestalt play therapy the Oaklander way (Routledge/Gestaltpress, 2006), the culmination of 10 years of inquiry and research on Violet Oaklander’s methods of both child therapy and adult training. Windowframes has been translated into German, Spanish, Romanian, Italian and Korean. He is also the co-author of BAM! Boys Advocacy and Mentoring: A leader’s guide to facilitating strength-based groups for boys (Routledge, 2008), and The Bear Inside (19th Avenue Press, with Illustrator Mark Molchan), a children’s book about managing strong emotions. The Bear Inside has been translated into Spanish, Bulgarian, Russian, and Sinhala versions.
Presentation Description
In 2002, Dr. Violet Oaklander was invited to participate in Jon Carlson’s “Play therapy with the experts” video series as the “expert” representative for the Gestalt Play Therapy segment. As part of this project, Dr. Oaklander was flown to Chicago and worked with four different young clients, none of whom she had previously met. Each of these four sessions were filmed in a studio setting, including all the distractions of multiple cameras and bright lights. Out of the four sessions, one was chosen for inclusion in the “expert” series: Her work with a 13-year-old, adolescent male named Blake.
One of the four sessions that was not chosen for inclusion in the “expert” series was her work with a quiet but imaginative 11-year-old named Andrew. In this conference session, Dr. Oaklander’s work with Andrew will be seen and discussed for the first time publicly. We will watch Dr. Oaklander using various playful media including a “safe place” drawing and an “unsafe place” drawing, as well as “Medicine Cards”® in her efforts to engage Andrew. Thirty-seven minutes long, and in three distinct segments, we will see Dr. Oaklander struggle with and ultimately succeed in helping Andrew create and make contact with a meaningful “figure” in their work and play together. .Open for discussion is whether Dr. Oaklander might have missed an opportunity to help Andrew make better contact with his own experience, and with her as therapist, if she had encouraged him to “be” and speak “as if” he were the drawings and cards that he chose. During the viewing of Dr. Oaklander’s work with Andrew, the video will occasionally be paused so that members of the VSOF board can identify and discuss key aspects in this unique and rare example of the Oaklander model of Gestalt Play Therapy.
Three learning objectives for participants
- Participants will be able to identify and describe aspects of the the Oaklander model of Gestalt Play Therapy, specifically the importance of the “be it” step in working with clients.
- Participants will be able to identify and describe operational examples of how Dr. Oaklander’s work with Andrew reflects her statement: “I work to build the child’s sense of self, to strengthen the contact functions, and to renew her own contact with her senses, body, feelings and intellect.”
- Participants will be able to apply aspects of the Oaklander model to their own work with young and resistant clients, specifically the ability to use both the “safe” and “unsafe” drawings as well as using image cards as a way to make contact with a child’s existential reality.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #6
Title
Use of puppets in the different stages of the therapeutic process
Presenter Bio
Tzveta Misheva-Aleksova, PhD is a Gestalt therapist certified in the Oaklander Model, international trainer and supervisor, storyteller and storywriter. She works mainly with children and adolescents.
Tzveta is the founder of Gestalt Play Therapy Bulgaria – an organization devoted to spreading the Oaklander model in Bulgaria. She leads workshops for parents and professionals working with children, helping them to learn how to address difficult emotions and situations with the use of stories and puppets. As a mother of three children and a keen outdoor person, Tzveta firmly believes in the power of imagination, creativity and humor in facing any challenge, both in her professional and personal life. Author of the book “Why always me – therapeutic stories for children and parents” (in Bulgarian).
Presentation Description
The workshop will focus on the use of puppets in Gestalt Play Therapy according to the Oaklander model in the different stages of the therapeutic process and with different age groups. Some of the “classic Oaklander” puppet experiences will be demonstrated and discussed in the light of the newest neurobiological findings. Evidence will be presented for their beneficial use in therapy not only with preschool children, but also with adolescents and families. Tzveta will share examples from her therapeutic work with a physically challenged client in which puppets were used to renew the client’s lost contact with his senses, body and feelings. Another case will be discussed in which through the use of puppets an overly anxious client was able to get in touch with her intellect and cognitive functions. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in a puppet experience. Ways to use this experience to strengthen the child’s sense of self will be discussed. Specific attention will be devoted to the role of the therapist in the puppet interaction.
Three learning objectives for participants
After the completion of the workshop participants will be able to:
- Describe three ways Dr. Violet Oaklander used puppets.
- Describe three situations in which puppets would be a therapeutic media of choice.
- List at least three reasons why working with puppets is beneficial in the therapeutic work.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #7
Title
Integrating Oaklander’s Gestalt Play Therapy Model with trauma protocols to manage dissociation and move towards healing
Presenter Bio
Ann Beckley-Forest, LCSW, RPT-S, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Buffalo, New York. Her specialties include attachment and child and adolescent trauma, and she also works with adult survivors. She is certified in EMDR and is an EMDR Approved Consultant and Trainer and a faculty member of the Child Trauma Institute, as well as a Registered Play Therapist and Supervisor and Approved Provider of play therapy continuing education through the Association for Play Therapy. She provides consultation in person and remotely and gives trainings locally and internationally and is the co-founder of Playful EMDR, an online hub for training and consultation. Her primary interest is in the intersection of play therapy and EMDR and has published on this topic including as co-editor of EMDR with Children in the Play Therapy Room: An Integrated Approach (2020).
Presentation Description
Exposure to severe and long-term trauma can lead children to exhibit concerning behaviors such as rages, destruction, self-harm, and switching into different self-states or emotional parts which are now understood as related to attachment wounds, dissociation, and the accompanying fragmentation of the self. Therapists who are attempting to use evidence-based trauma exposure protocols such as EMDR or TF-CBT with these children encounter difficulties in helping the child to access these disturbances without emotional flooding or increasing the phobia of these intense emotional states.
The Gestalt play therapy (Oaklander) model relies on the expressive and projective power of play and mediums such as art and sand tray as the setting for developing enhanced relationship and regulation skills via deeper contact with the therapist and within the child’s own self. Since these efforts do not rely solely on the child’s ability to express emotions or describe internal experiences of fragmentation or emotional introjection verbally, they offer a potent interweave for trauma exposure work.
This presenter will use a case example to support the notion of integrating Gestalt play techniques in processing early traumatic experiences using projective and expressive prompts and support to help the child come into contact with the fragmented parts of the self that are holding the most painful traumatic experiences. The case will also illustrate the importance of sensitivity to the therapists’ own cultural and ableist biases and how to move through that work with respect and humility. A model for moving gradually and successfully towards EMDR processing supported by Gestalt play therapy will be briefly articulated. In addition, an experiential exercise for the participants will illustrate the power of these techniques.
Three learning objectives for participants
- Describe the intersection of 3 principles of the Gestalt play therapy with current models of treating complex trauma-related dissociation
- Describe 2 prescriptive play therapy activities for grounding and increasing somatic regulation
- Apply a Gestalt play therapy projective technique to increase contact with fragmented parts of the self in support of trauma work.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #8
Title
Resistance and contact functions: Anna’s Session
Presenter Bio
Cassiana Silva Castro (Curitiba, Brazil) is a Psychologist, Gestalt Therapist and clinical supervisor since 1992. At her clinic in Curitiba (PR) she works with children, adolescents and adults and, at her country house in Piraquara (PR), she has conducted workshops and training programs in Gestalt Therapy focusing on children and adolescents since 2018. Her first encounter with Violet Oaklander, Ph.D. was at a workshop in São Paulo (Brazil) in 1994 and afterwards she has participated of Oaklander’s training program in Santa Barbara, and has ever since assimilated the Oaklander method to her professional practice with children and adolescents.
Presentation Description
During the COVID-19 pandemic, specially at its beginning, I saw my patients exclusively online. Anna started her process at this period and she was also one of the first patients whose sessions I decided to go back to presential mode as soon as it was possible. Her entire process has changed a lot ever since this decision.
In this presentation, I will describe how this work dealt with the resistance at a session in which it is possible to observe the shift in Anna’s energy because of her affective and sensorial experience, helping her to strengthen her sense of self. This session, in which my dog had an important participation and in which my memory made me hear Violet’s voice saying “pay attention to where the child’s energy is at”, was a turning point in Anna’s process.
Three Learning Objectives for Participants
- Observing the relationship between the resistance and the strengthening of contact functions
- Understanding how Oaklander’s method transcends cultural frontiers, emphasizing the importance of meeting the child where the child is at, in other words, the importance of contact.
- Taking note of the change in the energy level of the child when we work the resistance.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #9
Title
Drop in, drop out: An Oaklander music-making experience
Presenter Bio
Jon Blend MA www.gacp.co.uk is British, of Austro/ Ukrainian heritage. He is an adult, child and adolescent Gestalt psychotherapist working in private practice, faculty member of Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education (Wellbeing), clinical supervisor, trainer and an improvising musician with London Playback Theatre www.www.londonplayback.com. Jon has worked for forty years in various hospital and community settings, counselling children and parents. Since 2002 he has delivered Oaklander-inspired trainings and presentations to institutes in UK, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Russia and USA. His writings include: ‘Am I Bovvered?’ in Harris & Lee’s Relational Child, Relational Brain; ‘I Got Rhythm’ International Gestalt Journal V 32,2 and ‘Witnessed Improvised Diaspora Journey Enactments: an experiential method for exploring Refugee history’. Jewish Historical Studies 2020 v5.
Presentation Description
Violet took a keen interest in music-making throughout her life and brought her enthusiasm for this into her work, including her summer training groups. She was influenced by the humanitarian folk songs of Pete Seeger and others that emphasized everyone’s voice and entitlement to be heard. She also had an appreciation for sounds of nature and at one point studied with the composer Paul Winter, famous for his opus ‘Wolf Eyes’ in which he invites audiences to join in a collective howl. Violet’s ‘Drop In, Drop Out’ piece requires no prior musical training nor experience, just a willingness to participate and have fun. Used in 1:1 work, with families or in groups, it fosters relational closeness and wellbeing whilst also developing attuned listening and responding- useful skills to possess in therapy and in life. (For further ideas on how to use music in therapy see chapter twelve in Oaklander’s ‘Hidden Treasure’). Here we are adapting Violet’s method to manage the challenge of doing this in real time, enabling us to play together online with minimal latency effect (sound delay).
Three Learning Outcomes
After this presentation participants will:
- Be able to use simple percussion and voice to begin a dialogue with young clients
- Understand how working with embodied musical improvisation offers a multi-sensory vehicle for self-expression that develops childrens’ sense of self, mastery, and confidence whilst strengthening their contact functions.
- Be able to appraise and adjust ways of working musically with young clients that suit the specific field conditions/cultural context they are working within.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #10
Title
An adaptation of the polyvagal theory to the Oaklander approach
Presenter Bio
Susana Millán Mtg, is Director and founder of Instituto de Terapia Gestalt para niños y adolescentes, in which therapy is offered and Gestalt therapists are trained for children and adolescents using the approach of Violet Oaklander. She is a certified Gestalt Therapist with Children & Adolescents, May 2018, West Coast Institute. In recent years I have taken various courses in Neurosciences and Bioneurology. .My passion is to understand how the brain works and my mission is to do what is in my power to help the greatest number of children to recover their mental health.
Presentation Description
Children who have suffered a trauma can be hyper-alert, which makes them perceive danger even in places or situations where there is no danger. This prevents them from establishing relationships with others; they can only be at peace if they manage to find a place or circumstances in which they feel safe. Helping the child to have a functional, flexible alert system is necessary to accomplish what Violet describes as “building the child’s sense of self, to strengthen contact functions, and to renew his own contact with his senses, body, feelings and intellect.”
I first explain the function of the alert system and how it develops, then I mention why it may have been altered and finally, I describe techniques based in polyvagal theory that I use successfully in the office to support the child in reestablishing a functional alert system.
I have experience with good results. After doing a series of experiments, I tried some exercises in the office that allow children to significantly improve their sense of self, experiencing the world with more flexibility and openness; thus, little by little, achieving more security and beginning a path to experience their world, managing to come into contact with their senses.
Participants will learn what happens when the alert system is disturbed in a child at an early age and how parents present it to the therapist. Participants will learn the basics of polyvagal theory. I will also teach them at least one exercise that, I have verified on many occasions, is effective in restoring childrens’ sense of security, or in other words, regulating their alert system. We will do at least one of the exercises that I have tried.
Three learning objectives for participants
- Participants will learn the basics of polyvagal theory.
- Participants will be able to match the polyvagal theory with the way a child is presented to them as therapists, and to find a way of thinking according to what Violet describes as “building the child’s sense of self, to strengthen contact functions, and to renew his own contact with his senses, body, feelings and intellect.”
- Participants will learn a new exercise they will be able to use.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #11
Title
Rewilding the soul: Experiential sand tray for indigenous youth
Presenter Bios
Dan Morta, is a Chilkat Tlingit of the Dakl’aweidi clan from Klukwan, Alaska. He received his
Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2001, his Master of
Science in Botany from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2004, his
Master of Art in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2002 and will complete
his PhD in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2025. His clinical interests
include the effect of language revitalization and language learning on people experiencing
acculturation, colonization, and historical trauma. As a clinician, modalities include gestalt
therapy, depth psychology, and traditional indigenous practices.
Rekha Khuon obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from National University in 2014. She
received a Masters in Social Work from the University of Southern California with an emphasis
in Macro Social Work in 2017. She became board-certified in California as a Licensed Clinical
Social Worker in 2020. In 2022, she earned a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from
Pacifica Graduate Institute and is in pursuit of her Doctor of Philosophy degree in Clinical
Psychology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology with expectations to graduate in 2025. She is
passionate about transpersonal depth work. Her clinical interest and scholarly work will be
focused on complex trauma and attachment wounds, breaking intergenerational trauma cycles,
and holistic and integrative healing practices.
Amy A. Picco graduated with a BS in Community Health Education from San Diego State
University in 1996, received her Doctorate in Osteopathic Medicine in 2004 and worked as a
board-certified family medicine physician until shifting her focus to psychology. She obtained
her MA in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2022 and is expecting her
PhD in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate
Institute in 2026. Her current clinical interests include expanding depth-oriented theories in the
adolescent and youth populations and expanding access to these therapies in youth, adolescents
and children in the community mental health clinic setting.
Presentation Description
This presentation will show how Oaklander’s (1978) Model of Gestalt therapy with children and
adolescents is a best practice and evidence-based approach for supporting patients who have
experienced collective, complex, and intergenerational trauma. Presenters will provide an
overview of the model, connect it to depth psychological approaches, and provide a case
example of its utility in supporting a strengthening of sense of self and experience of
empowerment with indigenous youth.
Amy Picco will describe how the Oaklander Model (1978) is devoted to each patient’s authentic
presence in the world. Patients participating in this method experience self-discovery through a
deeper awareness of their body, senses, emotions, thoughts, and fantasies that link their inner and
outer worlds. This approach offers an understanding of one’s life process through the
experiencing of one’s fantasy process, which Violet Oaklander believed were parallel. Because
this method demands mutuality from the therapist, a shared, honest, respectful, and joyful
celebration of our patients, we have found it to be especially useful in patient populations who
have experienced complex, intergenerational, and persistent social or culturally-based trauma.
Rekha Khuon will share how the Oaklander Model is a best practice for supporting patient
populations who have experienced disempowerment or collective culturally-based trauma by
exploring its connections with depth-oriented psychotherapies. One example is that the
Oaklander model (1978) encourages the use of projection, which encourages the patients’ sense
of self by connecting with inner experiences. Therapists utilizing this model have a combination
of skills, knowledge, experience, intuition, creativity, curiosity, and are mindful of their own
reactions to clients. This approach can be helpful for integration of a sense of self as separate
from the traumatic experience, and highlights how transformation occurs when patients feel
accepted, seen, and heard.
The final portion of the presentation will focus on a specific case example from Dan Morta’s
clinical training supporting indigenous youth. The technique presented is an expansion of
Oaklander’s (1978) work where the child is presented with animal figurines that are indigenous
to the child’s ancestral homeland. By choosing animals which symbolize particular parts of the
child’s psyche or lived experience, the child creates a meaningful scene in the sand. Using this
method, the child’s imagination is projected onto the animal figures who are archetypal and
primordial. From this place of deep unconscious projection, gestalt and depth psychology
techniques can be used to help the child explore her lived experience.
Three Learning Objectives
- The participants will be able to identify at least three aspects of the Oaklander model that
promote a deepening awareness of self. - The participants will learn how the Oaklander model shares key elements with depth
psychotherapies for working with culturally-based disempowerment and complex trauma,
such as the ability to build trust, be relational, and use various approaches to understand
and express oneself. - Participants will learn one technique that expands on Oaklander’s work with animals and
the sandtray.
2023 VSOF Conference: Presentation #12
Title
Just for now: Checking-in with the VSOF 2023 international, in-person gatherings
Presenter Bio
Karen Fried, Psy.D., M.F.T. is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and an Educational Therapist in Santa Monica, California. She has a private practice in Psychotherapy and is Co-Director of the K&M Center. Inc., a learning center providing educational and remedial services to students ranging from 4 years old to college age. Karen uses the Oaklander Model of Child Therapy in her practice and is the President of the Violet Solomon Oaklander Foundation. She trains child and adolescent therapists in this model in the US and internationally. Trainings, online tools, and many resources can be found at oaklandertraining.org. Karen can be reached at karen@karenfried.com.
Presentation Description
The Violet Solomon Oaklander Foundation (VSOF) will be hosting a variety of in-person international Special Events during its June 2-4, 2023 Conference in the following locations:
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Bulgaria
- Mexico
- Sri Lanka
- UK
- USA (Carpinteria, California; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington)
Each Special Event will offer a unique program designed by local VSOF hosts, and all offer an opportunity to experience the Oaklander Model with colleagues in person during the weekend of the online VSOF Conference. Join us for a special JFN where we connect with each of these hosts who will be sharing highlights of these events.
Presentation Learning Objectives
Participants will learn:
- Many applications of the Oaklander Model
- How the Oaklander Model can be used across cultures
- How different media can be used to achieve healing and connection