Judye Hess, Ph.D.

Deepen and resolve unfinished issues with family members

Growing into adulthood and having families of our own does not necessarily mean we have differentiated from our families of origin. Most of us still feel the burden of painful introjects from our families that influence our relationships with our spouses and children. To make matters even more difficult, many of these influential people from our past are no longer living, unavailable for therapeutic contact or have changed so much that the parent we grew up with bears little resemblance to the person we know today. The use of psychodramatic techniques, with fellow participants acting as members of each others families, is a powerful way to re-create the past and elict and resolve our buried feelings from childhood.

In this intensive, experiential workshop, participants will have the opportunity to explore unresolved relationships with their family members by psychodramatic means. In an atmosphere that is both safe and challenging, members can begin to unravel their childhood conditioning and reconnect with deeper aspects of themselves. Compassion and wisdom can start to replace the blame and resentment that has been held for less than optimal childhood experiences.

Judye Hess, Ph.D. has been a core faculty member of the Integral Counseling Psychology program at the California Institute of Integral Studies since 1984, as well as teaching at John F. Kennedy Univesity and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. She is particularly interested in experiential learning and interpersonal dynamics. Her background in Gestalt therapy, psychodrama and family systems have influenced the style in which she teaches classes in Family Dynamics, Marriage and Couple Counseling and Group Dynamics. Judye is the co-author of Dual Dwelling Duos: An Alternative to Long-term Relationships which was published in the Journal of Couples Therapy in October, 2001. Workshopon Psychodramatic Family Therapy to be held as part of the 64th Annual Conference of the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama in San Francisco, CA. April 27-May 1, 2006

For more information, please see the CIIS home page or my CIIS faculty page.

Core Focused Family Therapy: Moving From Chaos to Clarity by Judye hess, PhD and Ross Cohen, M.A. IdyllArbor.com or Amazon.com, available June, 2008. $24.00 Describes how to use Psychodramatic Family Therapy in classroom setting or in seeing family when some of the members cannot be present.

Book Signings: California Institute of Integral Studies, June 12, 2008. Cody's Book Store, Berkeley, CA, summer, 2008.