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Often lips are sealed, and delicate topics avoided, when children or adolescents are in a conflict situation or have experienced a trauma. Psychologists, psychotherapist, teachers are challenged and must find alternative ways to connect to the individual or group. Talking alone is not sufficient.
In this book-Volume 7 of the Zürich Lecture Series-a therapeutic method and conflict management approach is presented, which is successfully employed in group work with children and adolescents in despair or in a conflict situation. Mythodramas main focus are specially selected stories, which mirror the issues of the respective group, connect to the issues of the group, and serve as an entrance to the imaginal. The book describes how the stories are selected, told, enacted, and linked to the issues and concerns of the group or individual. Mythodrama is a potent method, based on Jungian psychology, which helps groups to move on, express their emotions, concerns, and get motivated to find solutions. Mythodrama has successfully been applied in groups consisting of traumaticised children or adolescents, violent youth, bullies, victims of aggression, adolescents with identity crises, etc. Mythodrama is also a method which is employed in conflict management in schools. The key elements of Mythodrama are Stories, Play, Imagination, Drama, and Concrete Changes.
About the author
Allan Guggenbühl is a Psychologist & Jungian Psychotherapist in Zürich, Switzerland; Prof emeritus of the University of Education of the State of Zürich; Director of the Institute for Conflict management (IKM AG) in Zürich; and former director of the department for group psychotherapy at the education counselling centre in Bern. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and Zürich, Switzerland. He is one the most renowned child and adolescent psychologist of Switzerland and an accomplished book author in the German speaking world. Guggenbühl gives lectures on a regular basis in China, Japan, and the neighbouring EU-Countries of Switzerland. He is an author of numerous articles (NZZ) and has written books on adolescents, wisdom, men, school, group therapy, conflict management, violence, and bullying. Contact him at info@ikm.ch or www.allanguggenbuehl.com/www.ikm.ch His focus is the well-being of children and adolescents in conflict situations, be it in families, among peers or at school. He developed Mythodrama, an approach in group therapy, which relies on specially selected stories, which enable children and adolescents to be aware of their concerns, voice their problems, and find solutions.
