Connecting Creatively in a World of Disconnection: Accessing Ego States Through Creative Expressive Exploration (Lemke Counseling & Consulting)

Organization: Lemke Counseling & Consulting

Website: https://www.wendylemke-psy.com/est-expressive-art

Event Title: Connecting Creatively in a World of Disconnection: Accessing Ego States Through Creative Expressive Exploration, Advanced Workshop

Agenda:Timed_Agenda_Template

Date: 11/13/2025

Location: Virtual

CE: 6

Contact: Lemke Counseling & Consulting, Wendy Willberg-Lemke – wendylemkelp@gmail.com

Abstract: The last couple of years have left the vast majority of people with a sense of turbulence, insecurity and a dysregulated central nervous system. People in general, and also helping professionals responsible for maintaining emotional well-being, are challenged with central nervous systems that feel overwhelmed and dysregulated, pendulating between overactivation and experiences of collapse. Enabling helping professionals to manage their own central nervous system responses creatively, empowers them to apply mindsight in order to utilize the ‘gifts’ their clients possess in an ethical manner. As mental wellness practitioners, the challenge is to render support that initiates containing movement, in order to explore Ego States, as a neurophysiological and psychological manifestation of the autonomic nervous system response. Utilising the ‘gifts’ implicit to the symptom presented by the client, greater compassionate connection is established which enhances the sense of safety and stabilisation. Using the ladder of activation (as described by Deb Dana) different degrees of activation will be explored and ideas shared as to how connection between the energy parts can be established through a variety of expressive arts activities requiring low skill high sensitivity. This workshop will therefore make use of Expressive Arts applied therapeutically, referring to art creation, sound and voice, movement/dance, creative writing/poetry, and playfulness as a bottom-up approach within various contexts such as psychotherapy and counselling (Malchiodi, 2005).

Learning Objectives:

• Utilize breathing through creative engagement to bring awareness to the body.
• Create a sense of safety to enable containment in the face of activation using sensory awareness through connection with the external and internal world.
• Engage with bodily sensations related to the ladder of activation for self- and co-regulation.
• Explore Ego States in relation to autonomic nervous system (ANS) activation and dysregulation.
• Demonstrate expressive movement for grounding, stabilization, and inter- and intrapersonal connection.

Speaker Info: Elzette Fritz is a registered Educational Psychologist in private practice and supervisor in the Department of Educational Psychology, at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She was the coordinator for the Masters Educational psychology programme with lecturing responsibilities in therapeutic interventions and counselling skills in the Department of Educational psychology, University of Johannesburg, for nine years. Elzette was a part-time lecturer at the South African College for Applied Psychology. She is a fellow director of MEISA (Milton Ericksonian Institute of South Africa) that provides training to professionals in Ericksonian hypnotherapy and Ego State therapy and previous president of SAPSAC (South African Professional Society for the Abuse of Children). She is an international accredited Ego States therapist, trainer and supervisor. Elzette has been trained through the Milton Ericksonian Institute of South Africa in Ericksonian and Ego States psychotherapeutic approaches and she is passionate about creative expressive arts in psychotherapy, acknowledging somatic experiences. Elzette completed an Expressive Arts Coaching course presented by Markus Alexander, PhD, Founder of Expressive Arts Without Borders and Director of World Arts Organization, during 2023. She has presented at international and national conferences on the utilization of Ericksonian principles in conjunction with Ego States therapy, especially utilizing creative expressive arts in psychotherapy. She published a children’s book: Pim, the rock who became a star in 2024 with illustrator Nicola Fourche (also translated into German).