Crystal Spiegel, PhD, LCSW Trauma Therapist NYC | IFS, EMDR, & Somatic Therapy
Crystal Spiegel, PhD, LCSW Trauma Therapist NYC | IFS, EMDR, & Somatic Therapy
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.
353 West 48th Street, New York, New York 10036, United States
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.

A 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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