By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

When my very elderly mother-in-law died quietly in her sleep nearly six months ago, we searched for a way to honor and acknowledge her life without endangering our friends and family.

We settled on a short and simple service at a local funeral home, politely discouraging most  friends from attending while planning an  program in early January.

We engaged a local Playback Theatre troupe to present an online memorial performance and invited people to tell stories about Erma and her 96 years on this planet.  And then we laughed, we cried, and we laughed and cried some more. With the help of the members of River Crossing Playback Theatre, we saw and heard our stories literally “played back” as we watched and listened to the complexities of one woman’s life.   

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

This year, psychodrama is celebrating its 100th year. That’s a lot of years.

It's been an interesting century. Every serious psychodrama student knows the history of this amazing method. A young physician, fascinated by theater and priding himself a rebel to the Freudian philosophy of the time, rents a theater in Vienna on April 1, 1921. He dresses dramatically as a jester and places a throne on the empty stage. With dignitaries watching, he invites someone to sit upon the throne, willing to take leadership of still-recovering Austria, which was repairing the ravages of World War I.

In celebrating this psychodrama milestone, we have the opportunity to look at its history and evolution through the years. Indeed, it may be challenging to find a philosophy that is hardly known by the public and at the same time so firmly embedded in our culture with group therapy, support groups, social networks, role play, experiential psychotherapy and other action activities. 

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP
 
Let’s talk about puppets.  And play.  And why play is so essential for discovery,  growth, healing and change no matter who you are or how old you are.
 
Play is often considered suitable for little people – children – until they are able to grow older and “talk” about their problems and transition into the kind of therapy that “big people” do. Which is why I want to tell you about puppets, stuffed animals and dolls and their value for people of all ages. The fact is that children, teens and adults hugely benefit from play as a genuine therapeutic intervention that not only support learning to emotionally regulate but also to build spontaneity and creativity that is so valued in Dr. J.L. Moreno’s method of psychodrama.

My good friend and colleague Linda Ciotola, M.Ed., TEP,  and I have talked a lot about this.  We co-wrote the book Healing Eating Disorders with Psychodrama and Other Action Methods: Beyond the  Silence and the Fury,  where we briefly the use of props in education and psychotherapy, and we mention play in our conversations practically all the time. One  of the best times I've had in recent years is sitting in Linda's play room in her home, talking with puppets.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP
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The Winter Solstice – known as the longest night – has opened the way to the coming light.
 
From this moment, each day will become a few seconds longer and each night a few seconds shorter, as our planet’s Northern Hemisphere twirls closer to the sun.
 
The Winter Solstice, which we popularly call the first day of winter, is the holy day of our ancestors, one not burdened with the hurry and commercialism of our modern Christmas Day. The solstice only asks that we pause and look to our relationship with the sun, the light, the dark, and other great powers beyond our comprehension.
 
**Our ancestors celebrated** the “fire” festivals to acknowledge the rebirth of the sun, and these festivals are found in variations throughout the ancient world. 

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP
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Nearly 10 months into this experience of the 2020 pandemic in the United States and around the world, there's a lot of profound writing and evocative art coming from writers and artists.

They ask us to consider our experience of the pandemic as something that is more than terrifying, although it is certainly scary, and one that allows for deep change to happen on multiple levels.

This prose poem from Kitty O'Meara has been making the rounds online, become widely shared and  truly a viral phenomenon. O'Meara is a former teacher and retired chaplain who lives near Madison, Wis., and penned this writing to work through her own anxiety: 

Here is the poem:

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Beyond multiculturalism education and cultural competency, we discover a new phrase – that of decolonizing therapy. This important movement demands that we explore how we can begin to include the trauma of oppression within our healing and helping sessions and dismantle the often-unconscious structures of racism that permeate the field of mental health as we know it.

This “decolonizing” trend is related to the larger decolonizing movement, which is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby a nation establishes and maintains its domination on overseas territories, and speaking up for social justice and inclusion. Within the educational context, for instance, this means confronting  the colonizing practices that have influenced education in in the past, and which are still present today; in application, this would include diversifying  materials and content, teach to learning outcomes that address power and social justice and design assessments that allow diverse students to demonstrate mastery in diverse ways.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

One of our dearest illusions in the workings of the brain is the belief that, “It can’t happen here.”

Too frequently, and in too many ways, we come to learn – actually experience – that it can indeed happen here. The latest place of this lesson is the medium-sized Midwestern city of Kenosha, Wis., which has been everywhere in the news because of what happened two weeks ago today. 

Sadly, the community is the place where Jacob Blake, an apparently unarmed Black man was shot seven times in the back at extremely close range by a police officer while Jacob's three children watched from the back seat of the car that their father was trying to enter.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Prayers are powerful. We know this. Studies have actually proven that prayer makes a difference in people’s health and well-being. I like to refer to the book Prayer is Good Medicine: How to Reap the Healing Benefits of Prayer by Larry Dossey, which documents how prayer has been steadily gaining interest in the traditional medical establishment.

Dossey, who is a physician, takes a look at promising data, as well as the skeptics, delving into  questions as why doesn't prayer always work – and if prayer simply creates a "false hope." He has gone on to write several other books to muse and document the science and controversy of premonitions and the shadow side of prayer.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Today is Juneteenth, which celebrates the day in 1865 when enslaved black people in the United States won their freedom after centuries of uprisings and struggle. It is also a time to look more deeply into our nation's history. 

In these times, we are invited into challenging conversations about racism and white privilege and how they impact our lives, the health of our communities and the structure of our society.

As a white human, a psychotherapist and an educator, I am committed to not only speaking out for justice and equality but also to examine my own hidden prejudices and blind spots, and I am encouraging others to examine their own.

By Karen Carnabucci, LCSW, TEP

Earlier this month, I was asked by Jenelle Janci, an editor and reporter at LNP in Lancaster, Pa., to comment on mental and emotional health related to the re-opening of the United States as we suffer and navigate the continuing effects of the Coronavirus pandemic. She excerpted some of my thoughts in today's article here, and I’m sharing the full interview below:

How are feelings of anxiety and other mental health issues around reopening different than what people might have experienced at the beginning of the stay-at-home order?

It’s easier to manage a difficult experience when we know there’s an end to the experience. With this pandemic, the stay-at-home order may be modified and eventually lifted, but the Coronavirus hasn’t gone anywhere. We are still asked to face this highly infectious virus with lots of uncertainties.
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People’s anxieties may focus on different parts of this collective experience. Some may feel anxious about their health and worry about