Composing the Self: A Healers’ Retreat in PhotoTherapy, Collage & Improv

Facilitators: Marshall Lyles, LMFT-S, LPC-S & Terry Kottman, PhD

Dates: July 29–31, 2027

Time: 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Central Time daily

Location: The Workshop, 300 Allen St., Austin, TX 78702

Description

Composing the Self invites healers into three days of hands-on exploration across interconnected expressive modalities: PhotoTherapy, collage, and improvisational acting. Rather than sitting in the observer's chair, participants will step into the client's seat, engaging directly with each technique to deepen their own self-awareness while building a practical, embodied toolkit for clinical use. Through guided photo-based exercises, hands-on collage-making, and playful improv work, this retreat explores how image, assemblage, and spontaneous embodiment can access material that talk therapy alone often can't reach. Some work with poetry will also be sprinkled throughout. Participants will leave with concrete techniques, a clearer sense of their own creative process, and renewed language for helping clients access feeling, memory, and identity through nonverbal and symbolic means.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this retreat, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the theoretical foundations of PhotoTherapy.

2. Apply at least three PhotoTherapy techniques using personal photographs to elicit affect, memory, and narrative material in session.

3. Demonstrate the use of collage as a projective and integrative technique for accessing nonverbal or difficult-to-articulate experiences.

4. Facilitate a basic improvisational exercise designed to reduce client self-consciousness and increase spontaneity and embodied presence.

5. Compare the therapeutic mechanisms underlying visual (photo, collage) versus embodied (improv) expressive modalities.

6. Evaluate ethical and clinical considerations specific to using and taking personal photographs with vulnerable populations.

7. Apply at least two of the three modalities into a cohesive session plan tailored to a specific clinical population or presenting concern.

8. Discuss their own creative process and person-of-the-therapist material, articulating how self-awareness informs their clinical use of expressive techniques.

   
   

Continuing Education

18 CEs

Marshall Lyles has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 8158. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Marshall Lyles is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Cancellation Policy

There are no refunds available for this event, but participants can secure their own replacement.