Crystal Spiegel, PhD, LCSW Trauma Therapist NYC | IFS, EMDR, & Somatic Therapy
Additional Information
No storytelling or visual art experience is necessary! This will be a closed group that will meet for 3 sessions with no more than 6 participants.
Purpose: This is a group for anyone who identifies as a survivor of trauma and is looking for connection. This group is for sharing and witnessing others through guided self-reflection, creative writing, storytelling, and visual media.
Goal: Engage in oral storytelling, write a short story, create a 1-2 minute video of your story, integrate what you have learned about yourself and your healing process.
This group will use an IFS, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Expressive Arts Therapy, and critical theory lens. Additionally, my own research on digital storytelling will inform how I support the digital storytelling group process.
FAQs
Why join a storytelling group for?
If you are feeling like you want to feel less alone, create something tangible, make sense of complicated feelings, or express feelings that are difficult to say out loud then storytelling could be beneficial for your healing process.
What will I do in the group?
Week 1: Share your story orally with the other group members in a story circle, engage in a writing exercise to find your story, find images that connect to your written story
Week 2: Technical Session. Record yourself telling your completed story in the story circle, and use video editing program to create the digital story
Week 3: Share completed digital stories with the group, reflect on and integrate the experience of creating and sharing digital stories
You may need to work on your story outside of the group time.
What if I am nervous to share my story?
It is typical to be nervous about sharing something vulnerable. The facilitator will be available to meet in-between sessions and understands that this is a sacred experience to share with others. Rules for the group will be set to create the safest space possible for the group.
I have never used a video editing application, can I still join?
Yes! This group is designed for people who have zero experience or many years of experience. You will have time within the group session to learn how to use the video editing program.
Digital Storytelling Group for Therapists
Are you stuck when a client feels hopeless?
Is it hard for you to sit with a client who tells the same story every time?
Is there a client you constantly think about in-between sessions?
Are you lacking confidence in a certain modality that you are
Are there parts of you that don’t feel confident as a therapist?
Developing a practice in a certain modality and feel stuck?
Purpose: This is a group for therapists to discover what is at the root of a professional or clinical challenge through guided self reflection, creative writing, storytelling, and visual media.
Goal: Share your professional or clinical challenge, engage in a self-reflexive exercise, write a short story based on your self-reflection, create a 1-2 minute video of your story, integrate what you have learned about yourself in relation to your professional or clinical challenge.
Crystal Spiegel, PhD, LCSW-EMDR and IFS Therapy
353 West 48th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
What is Digital Storytelling?
Digital storytelling is a form of creative expression using digital technology and storytelling.
No experience necessary!
A thoughtful self-narrated story witnessed by others may be vulnerable yet healing. When our self narratives get stuck it can be transformational to organize them through visuals, sounds, and words.
Video editing allows for you to control your new narrative.
what does a digital story look like?
Digital storytelling Research
Before the full study was conducted an exploratory pilot study was conducted in partial fulfillment of requirements for a PhD in Expressive Therapies at Lesley University.
The results of the pilot offer three major findings that point to using digital storytelling as a tool for people who have experienced a trauma:
(a) Connection to self and others related to sharing with others
(b) Meaning making
(c) Confidence
These outcomes may be especially helpful for people experiencing isolation, distortion or dissociation around the traumatic memory, and lack of confidence, which are common symptoms of trauma-related stress (Levine, 2015; Ogden & Fisher, 2015; Shapiro, 2018; Van Der Kolk, 2014).
The findings from the pilot provide supporting evidence for digital storytelling as a valid therapy group process and that outcomes may benefit people who suffer from trauma-related symptoms.
The results of this pilot study were presented in the Summer of 2023 at Lesley University.
References
Levine, P. (2015). Trauma and memory: Brain and body in a search for the living past. North Atlantic Books.
Ogden, P., & Fisher, J. (2015). Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for trauma and attachment. W.W. Norton & Company.
Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (emdr) therapy: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (Third). Guilford Press.
Van Der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books.
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