Preface
What Is Creative Therapy?
Part I Practical Basics of Creative Therapy Know-How
1. Structuring a Session as a Three-Act Play
2. Making Enough Room for Creative Experience
3. Enacting the Aesthetics of Change
4. Returning the Client to the Everyday
Part II Creative Therapy Case Studies
5. Half a Beard with a Slice of Sour Cherry Pie
6. The Lady with Two Violins
7. Building a House for a Gentle Feather
8. A True Fairy Tale
9. 120 Centimeters from Sainthood
10. The Intestinal Friend
11. Tears for Homeopathic Marmalade
12. Collecting Jars of Air
13. Sharing the Bitterness Until Death Do Us Part
14. A Gypsy Band Remembers Mother’s Favorite Song
15. Our Love Is Here to Stay
16. The Life Box
17. The Lightning King
18. The Altar of Mistakes
Part III Looking Back and Dreaming Forward
19. The Historical Development of Creative Therapy
20. Dreaming the Performance Art of Therapeutic Change
Biography
Hillary Keeney, PhD, is Director, Institute for Creative Therapy, Distinguished Visiting Professor at Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, and Associate Editor of the journal, Dance, Movement, and Spiritualities.
Bradford Keeney, PhD, is the former director of several clinical doctoral programs, an improvisational pianist, and an explorer of creative approaches to psychotherapy.
"This book brought me great surprise and delight as the Keeneys, the audacious creative therapists of our time, tread where most therapists fear to go. Their innovative interventions seem magical, but are here clearly shown as inspired by novel ideas and powerful techniques that activate change. This book will truly inspire and challenge you to change how you perform and reform your practice."
PEGGY PAPP, LCSW, a founder of family therapy and faculty, Ackerman Institute for the Family
"Goethe wrote: "All theory, dear friend, is gray; but the golden tree of life springs ever green." Hillary and Brad offer "the wake-up zap, the exuberant tap, and the rhyming rap" to add zing and swing to make your sessions sing. Inspired by Carl Whitaker, Milton Erickson, and Gregory Bateson, as well as improvisational performance and healing traditions around the world, The Creative Therapist in Practice invites clinicians and their clients into greater aliveness, hope, love, healing and health. Roll over, Beethoven, the Keeneys are in the house!"
MICHAEL F. HOYT, PhD, Author/editor, Brief Therapy and Beyond, Therapist Stories of Inspiration, Passion, and Renewal, and Single-Session Therapy by Walk-In or Appointment.
"The Keeneys have created a beautiful and magical book. Its graceful blend of imagination and wisdom brings a creative therapeutic performance that goes far beyond interpretation. Watch out, this rich counter-therapy-culture message with its long lasting effect deserves widespread attention!"
DAVID KEITH, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine, Director of Family Therapy, SUNY Upstate Medical University, and author of Continuing the Experiential Approach of Carl Whitaker: Process, Practice, and Magic.
"I don’t know how to adequately convey that the Keeneys are true to the work of Milton H. Erickson."
BETTY ALICE ERICKSON, MS, International teacher of psychotherapy"A thirst quenching revitalization of the experiential approach to eliciting change that is based on evocative orientations, arousal states, and artistic improvisation. The Keeneys’ innovations turn the parched earth of academic psychotherapy into an oasis for both the client and the clinician."
JEFFREY K. ZEIG, PhD, The Milton H. Erickson Foundation
"The Keeneys have the gift of helping people change. As authentic healers with impeccable scholarship, they bring us inside the heart of transformation and the soul of exuberant, creative living."
PAUL TRACHTMAN, Former Science Editor, Smithsonian Magazine
"Creative therapy brings the excitement and surprise found in the improvised performance of theatre, poetry, dance, and music. This is not a theory; it is a radical call for the kind of experience that changes lives. Move over, Shiva, the Keeneys are recreating therapy!"
STEPHEN LANKTON, LCSW, DAHB, FASCH, Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis and author, The Answer Within and Tools of Intention
