Sintra
4-8 April 2017
„If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.”
Barry Lope
From 4 till 8 April 2017 the charming vila of Sintra hosted the third International Seminar on Fairy-tale and Storytelling Therapy. It was another opportunity to bring together specialists, academics, therapists, storytellers and other enthusiasts of fairy-tales and storytelling, and their therapeutic and healing potential.
These were five, very special, days with participants from all over the world, lots of sharing and listening to many stories in an environment full of charm and magic.
Our participants were also very pleasantly surprised to find Andersen’s image on the label of the wine served during the Dinner, courtesy of Cortes de Cima Family Vineyards, Alentejo. This award-winning wine produced in honor of Hans Christian Andersen is made exclusively from selected Syrah grapes.
As in previous years the Seminar has an institutional support and patronage of the Municipality of Sintra, the Institute for the Study and Tradition of Nova University of Lisbon and National Center of Culture.
See you next year!
Summary of the First Seminar on Fairy-tale Therapy is available here:
Summary of the Second Seminar on Fairy-tale and Storytelling Therapy is available here:
Pre-Seminar Speakers
Olga Lipadatova PhD, Registered Psychotherapist. Olga holds Master’s Degree in Creative Arts Therapies, Arts Therapy and PhD from Concordia University, Montreal Quebec. She is the recipient of a Federal research grant for her P.h.D. research focused in working with immigrants using Jungian Psychology and Sandplay Therapy. Since 2003, Olga worked in Mental Health and community organizations, and in private practice as a psychotherapist, art therapist, and a counselor. For a number of years she served as a board member of Art and Sandplay Therapy Associations, and presently, as the president of the Canadian Association of Sandplay Therapy. Olga is a Certified Supervisor and Teaching Member of the Canadian Association of Sandplay Therapy and the International Society of Sandplay Therapy and works in Canada and abroad. Since 2014, Olga works as a psychotherapist in private practice in Guelph, Ontario and conducts Art Therapy groups. Olga is an advocate of the storytelling through art and sandplay expression as a method of helping to make individual and social change in life. More information: Arttherapy Olipa
Shai Karta Schwartz is a group and individual therapist originating from 30 years of professional theater and storytelling. Shai studied group facilitation, education, and the various art and performance art therapies (drama therapy, story therapy and art therapy), psychodrama, ‘Focusing’ and Gestalt and began integrating storytelling and role play in models of intervention in dialogue and therapy. For the last 18 years beside his practice in Israel, he has been cooperating with Sheila Melzak from the ‘Baobab Center for Young Survivals in Exile’ in London in therapeutic work with young asylum seekers in London. In Israel besides his private practice he works in group therapy with HIV Positive Ethiopians and teaches a course in ‘Storytelling, Drama and Puppets as Tools in Therapy and Education,’ and runs personal development courses.
Josie Felce has been a professional storyteller since 1995. In the 80’s she spent five years running her own puppet theatre company, which performed in the ancient castles of Gwynedd, Wales. She ran puppet workshops in schools focussed on discovering African culture and Welsh stories. Now based in the west of UK, she has told stories in schools in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Cornwall and Wales, as well as in Barcelona and Costa Rica. She published a book in 2012, “Storytelling for Life” (Floris ) which gives ways of telling stories, her personal journey through storytelling, the way the Steiner curriculum uses stories for the development of children, the importance of conversational stories, and much more. She is passionate about the healing power of stories. She plays the lever harp, and uses it in story sessions.
Seminar Speakers
Katia Leonardo embraces all arts to share her knowledge, weaving them in order to design programmes for schools and corporations as well as individual sessions, guiding hundreds of people around the world to find their authentic voices both in speech and singing voice. More information: Katia Leonardo
Workshop’s title: The Storyteller’s Voice – Strategies for comfort and health
Jenny Reid e Rosie Dymond both trained in Non-directive Play Therapy at the University of York, UK. They have several years’ experience of supporting children and young people through local charities, including domestic abuse services, a cancer support centre and a Rape Crisis centre. They now co-own The Apple Tree Centre, a dedicated children and young people’s therapy service in Sheffield, offering Play Therapy and creative counselling to children and young people up to age of 24, as well as Child-Parent Relationship Therapy groups for parents and carers. More information: The Apple Tree Centre
Presentation & Workshop’s title: Finding the Story: Modern myths in creative talk-based therapy with adolescents
Nesrin Duman is a Psychologist, lecturer, PhD student in Forensic Medicine Institute of the Istanbul University, Turkey. Nesrin started her professional career as psychologist at the Special Education and Psychological Consulting Centre in Turkey. After that she worked for the Ministry of Justice for the Children and Youth Prison and Probation service. Since 2014 she has been collaborating with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Maltepe University in Istanbul.
Presentation’s title: Investigating mental state terms in western and eastern fairy-tales
Jill McWilliam has a background in teaching and Advisory work on Inclusion and Ethnic Minority Achievement schools in multi cultural settings with a specialism in assessment and the overlap of EAL and Additional Learning need and is a qualified Educational Psychotherapist and is passionate about her work using therapeutic story group work to motivate and empower children and professionals in schools and build learning resilience.
Between 2004 and 2011 Jill her interests to develop a training and evaluation framework through which to create safe spaces for embedding Therapeutic Story Groups in schools – using Gill Morton’s model of sessions. Jill continues her work in schools through Metaphors having also successfully rolled out this framework for The Caspai Foundation between 2011/14 as Coordinator of a Big lottery funded project running groups in schools. Jill also tutors on and supervises therapeutic work and is currently chair of Child Faculty (UKCP).
Gill Morton is an Educational Psychotherapist who has specialized in running Therapeutic Story Groups in mainstream schools and in providing training and Supervision to others in this work. She has moved through a number of different work settings, working as: a peripatetic teacher for Inner London Authority School Psychological Service; an Educational Therapist in a Child & Family Consultation Service; a teacher of small class groups at the Tavistock Day Unit; a member of the team working with families in the Education Unit of the Marlborough Family Service. In exploring the different demands of the work in these varied contexts, she became increasingly interested in how children make use of the therapeutic story groups, particularly within mainstream school settings. She has contributed to Caspari Foundation courses, including the Diploma course in Educational Psychotherapy for which she has also supervised trainees. She has offered training to mental health colleagues in Norway and contributed to the Master’s course in Educational Therapy at the University of Trondheim, Norway.
Presentation and Workshop’s title: An Educational Psychotherapist’s perspective: indirect communication and the use of metaphor in reaching highly defended, damaged children
Emma designs dramatherapy programmes that give vulnerable children the space to process problems, be seen, achieve literacy goals and to grow to work harmoniously within a group. Before training in Integrative Arts Psychotherapy and specialising as a Sesame Drama and Movement therapist she was a primary school teacher for many years. With her insight and experience of both primary education and therapy she developed the dramatherapy company Storyworks with focusses on fundraising and putting these projects and therapists into as many schools as possible throughout the UK. More information: Emma Dramatherapy
Presentation and Interactive Workshop’s title: Using stories to heal ourselves
Sherryl Clark has published more than 65 children’s and YA books, in Australia and countries round the world. She writes for all ages, from picture books to young adult novels. Her books have won awards and been on many notable reading lists. She is currently undertaking a PhD at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, on the topic of writing new fairy tales for today’s children. As well as an exegesis, she is also writing six new fairy tales and a middle grade novel. She has been teaching creative writing to people of all ages for more than 30 years. More information: Sherryl Clark
Presentation & Creative Component’s title: New fairy-tales from Old
Alexandra Fidyk is poet, philosopher, pedagogue and psychotherapists, serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Secondary Education, University of Edmonton, AB; Canada. Here she teaches curriculum studies, teacher education, advanced research and post-Jungian studies. Her work draws deeply upon her prairie roots and the fields of process philosophy, Buddhist thought, hermeneutics and transgenerational studies. She has a private psychotherapeutic practice in Edmonton and consults and teaches with the Portuguese Center of Jungian Studies, Lisbon.
Workshop’s title: The Inner Drama of Wasalisa the Beautiful: A Depth Psychological reading of a fairy-tale
Beatrice Bowles MFA, is a storyteller whose first mentor was mythologist Joseph Campbell. Beatrice has researched, retold and recorded five CD/audiobooks of world wonder tales with original musical settings. She tells her stories in schools, museums and botanical gardens across the country and on the radio. Her 2014 CD/audiobook ‘Cloudspinner and the Hungry Serpent’ won a Storytelling World award in 2015. Beatrice is voting member of the Grammy’s Recording Academy. More information:Beatrice Bowles
Presentation and Workshop’s title: Green Wisdom: Stories of Spiders, Secrets of Survival
Boaz Zur holds a Master’s Degree in Expressive Arts Therapy from the European Graduate School and Lesley University. He facilitates group work and individual sessions for therapy and professional development, using an intermodal approach. He holds a B.E.d in Special Education. He is a qualified Teacher of Special Education, with many years of experience. Boaz is a writer and storyteller, organizing storytelling events in Ireland and abroad. He integrates the art of storytelling in his work as an expressive arts therapist. He is currently completing his P.h.D. in Expressive Arts Therapy and is a member of I.A.C.A.T. More information: Expressive Arts Ireland
Vered Zur is qualified in Expressive Arts Coaching, Consulting and Education. She delivers, teaches and facilitates both professional and personal development workshops for groups and individuals. She holds a B.E.d in Education and Literature. Vered is an intermodal artist working with arts, nature and community. She is committed to building community by mirroring, building strengths, sharing creative experience and including difference. Currently Vered is completing her P.h.D., working with Eco Psychology/ Eco Therapy – using Expressive Arts and Eco-Therapy to deepen community engagement with the natural world. She is a member of I.E.A.T.A Executive Council in I.A.C.A.T. More information: Expressive Arts Ireland
Workshop’s title: Storytelling in Nature with Expressive Arts Therapy
PROGRAMME
During our Speakers’ Session on the last day of the Seminar one of our participants surprised us with a small tale she wrote…
‘Sharing without Egos
Once upon a time, there was a special place known as the Moon Mountain. This was a special and magical place that had the enchantment to call the inspired souls.
So one day, the moon mountain called a special woman named Adriana and gave her the message that she should get together special inspired souls to create a divine mission…Bring together in a new way, what had been lost and considered old. The mission was to open the big treasures of myths, stories, and tales from all over the world and spread them to the non-inspired souls.
Ando so the mission began… In the first year, these new souls were arriving at the Moon Mountain and Adriana herself couldn´t explain to the others what this message was… She just felt it!
On the second year, the inspired souls were getting familiar with each other as new souls were arriving.
And now, they’re getting together for the third year and it seems that just like in fairy tales, a kingdom of newly inspired souls whose mission is to bring back magic, is about to be formed…
I wonder how their quest will be?…’
Nádia, Portugal
‘Thank you again for a wonderful conference. I met so many interesting people and everyone was so friendly and sharing. I will go home with lots of notes and ideas and information. I loved my room at the hotel and the view of the castle and the valley – amazing.’
Sherryl, Australia
‘It was a unique, inspiring, gratifying and deeply magical experience to be part of the Sintra story, written by you and told by everyone !!! We embarked on a fertile journey into inner and relational discoveries, from which I have gained countless personal and professional gains’.
Dora, Portugal
‘I had a great time at the conference. Thank you for the opportunity. Sintra and its atmosphere is indeed lovely.’
Edit, Hungria
‘The Moonluza Seminar, Fairy Tales and Healing from Trauma, offered a stirring mix of practical healing strategies and the powerful magic of live storytelling. The perfect location, Adriana’s exquisite creative planning, the blend of sessions with hours of free time to explore the glories of Sintra, and the wonderful collective feasts, every aspect was excellent! Five gold stars!!!’
Beatrice, USA
‘Once again many congratulations for the way the seminar was conducted and organized. Everything very well thought. Very beautiful and very good energy!’
Catarina, Portugal
‘It was November 2016 that i saw on Facebook the announcement for the seminar. My heart did boom boom boom, because this was something i really really wanted, be surrounded by people who love stories and use it in their daily life for helping and healing others. I immediately booked it and booked a room in Sintra and started counting the days until i should leave for Portugal. When I came to Sintra I got tears in my eyes. It seemed like i recognized so much, i felt so at home. This is the place I really love and that gives me inspiration for writing and telling stories. In the seminar I met a lot of new people. Open hearted people who shared their dreams, their fears, and we all were very humble. We shared our stories and every day we got 2 or 3 new experiences with the trainers who shared their way of working with clients. I think especially together with the beautiful surrounding, people can open up and take the next step. I loved it and it inspired me a lot.’
Linde, the Netherlands
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