In The Creative Therapist in Practice Hillary and Bradford Keeney present a radically innovative approach to the practice of therapy. Combining improvisational performing arts, action-oriented cybernetics, and ecstatic healing traditions, therapy is re-imagined as a creative transformative art. The book demonstrates the principles of creative therapy through numerous transcriptions of sessions conducted by the authors. It guides practitioners in conducting a three-part therapeutic performance: beginning with therapeutic techniques that broaden the context, igniting a session to creatively "cook," and finally concluding with a creative prescription for change that can be incorporated into the client's daily living. As well as tracing the historical development of creative therapy, chapters explore what is possible for the future of therapy when practitioners leave behind conventional models and theoretical interpretations. Applying case examples of creative therapy to a wide range of presenting concerns, The Creative Therapist in Practice will be relevant to clinicians working across the field of mental health, including licensed psychotherapists, psychologists, and clinical social workers. Filled with inspiring anecdotes, unique interventions, and fascinating case illustrations, it will benefit anyone looking to become more naturally improvisational and wake up the creative life force in their sessions.

For some time the family therapy field has been moving away from a problem-based approach to work with clients. Ideas such as "creating a new family story", focusing on strengths and solutions, and making contracts with family members have all shifted interest toward a new approach to therapy. The authors have been in the forefront of this thinking for several years and they have been experimenting with their ideas by working together with clients in order to create their own coherent, effective model for therapy. Resource Focused Therapy is the result!

In The Creative Therapist, Bradford Keeney makes the case that "creativity is the most essential aspect of vibrant, meaningful, and successful therapy." No matter what therapeutic orientation one practices, it must be awakened by creativity in order for the session to come alive. This book presents a theoretical framework that provides an understanding of how to go outside habituated ways of therapy in order to bring forth new and innovative possibilities. A basic structure for creative therapy, based on the outline of a three-part theatrical play, is also set forth. With these frameworks, practical guidelines detail how to initiate and implement creative contributions to any therapeutic situation.

In addition to telling the story of Bradford Keeney, the first non-African to be inducted as a shaman in both the Kung Bushman and Zulu cultures, the authors present applications of indigenous shamanistic concepts to the practice of helping and healing.

For some time the family therapy field has been moving away from a problem-based approach to work with clients. Ideas such as creating a new family story, focusing on strengths and solutions, and making contracts with family members have all shifted interest toward a new approach to therapy. Ray and Keeney have been in the forefront of this thinking for several years and they have been experimenting with their ideas by working together with clients in order to create their own coherent, effective model for therapy. Resource Focused Therapy is the result

In The Creative Therapist in Practice Hillary and Bradford Keeney present a radically innovative approach to the practice of therapy. Combining improvisational performing arts, action-oriented cybernetics, and ecstatic healing traditions, therapy is re-imagined as a creative transformative art. The book demonstrates the principles of creative therapy through numerous transcriptions of sessions conducted by the authors. It guides practitioners in conducting a three-part therapeutic performance: beginning with therapeutic techniques that broaden the context, igniting a session to creatively "cook," and finally concluding with a creative prescription for change that can be incorporated into the client's daily living. As well as tracing the historical development of creative therapy, chapters explore what is possible for the future of therapy when practitioners leave behind conventional models and theoretical interpretations. Applying case examples of creative therapy to a wide range of presenting concerns, The Creative Therapist in Practice will be relevant to clinicians working across the field of mental health, including licensed psychotherapists, psychologists, and clinical social workers. Filled with inspiring anecdotes, unique interventions, and fascinating case illustrations, it will benefit anyone looking to become more naturally improvisational and wake up the creative life force in their sessions.

In The Creative Therapist, Bradford Keeney makes the case that "creativity is the most essential aspect of vibrant, meaningful, and successful therapy." No matter what therapeutic orientation one practices, it must be awakened by creativity in order for the session to come alive.

This book presents a theoretical framework that provides an understanding of how to go outside habituated ways of therapy in order to bring forth new and innovative possibilities. A basic structure for creative therapy, based on the outline of a three-part theatrical play, is also set forth.

With these frameworks, practical guidelines detail how to initiate and implement creative contributions to any therapeutic situation.

Step into the imaginative realm of one of the oldest continuous cultures on Earth, the Kalahari Ju/'hoan Bushmen. Translated by Beesa Boo, a Bushman, and interspersed with detailed commentary from Bradford and Hillary Keeney, this book presents the core teachings of the Kalahari Bushmen as told by the tribal elders themselves. Decades in the making, it constitutes the first comprehensive work on the world's oldest tradition of healing and spiritual experience. Told in their own words, these teachings reveal how the Bushmen are able to receive direct transmissions of God's love in the form of the universal life force, n/om. The individuals who are filled with this force describe it as an awakened, energized feeling of love that inspires a spontaneous and heightened ecstatic awareness that opens mystical perception. Having your heart transfixed by this force enables true healing and spiritual growth to occur. Experiencing the force in your entire being, through a vision of "God's egg", awakens deep spiritual wisdom and extraordinary healing gifts. Those who "own the egg" are blessed with the ability to have direct communication with the Divine, a "rope to God," and can communicate with others for all "ropes" are connected. Conveying the deep love that is the dominant emotion of Bushman spirituality, the book explores tribal legends and teaching tales, the importance of dreams and encounters with animals, the origins of their dances, such as the giraffe dance, and specific rituals and ceremonies, including puberty rites for boys and girls.

Bradford Keeney s extraordinary odyssey began in 1963, when, as a respected professor, psychotherapist, and author, he found himself suddenly visited, without the influence of hallucinogenic drugs or shamanic teachings, by remarkable visions of shamanic realities that called him to some of the most remote areas of the world. Shepherded on his journey by the spirit of the Oglala Sioux medicine man Black Elk (whose time of death was virtually the same as Keeney s birth), Keeney was initiated into the healing practices of tribal peoples in North and South America, of Christians in the African-American sanctified church, of songomas, sanusis, and healers throughout Africa (among them the bushmen of the Kalahari and the Zulu of Southern Africa), and finally one of the only living masters of a pre-Buddhist healing art in Japan. Illuminated with the author s own photographs of his life among the shamans, and blessed by elder healers throughout the world (who passed along not only their sacred knowledge but their spirit guides as well), Keeney s story gives voice to the mind, heart, and soul of shamanic healing.