“Brainspotting My (True) Story: Using Fiction, Memoir, or Poetry to Deepen Healing” with Kristy Snedden, LCSW & Serene Calkins, PT
This 90-minute Brown Bag provides an opportunity for Brainspotting therapists to explore their own healing through writing. Participants need not have any experience with writing to enjoy this workshop. The workshop provides an opportunity for personal healing but also provides techniques and structure that Brainspotting therapists can offer within their practice to support healing through the combination of Brainspotting and writing. Attendees will be invited, but not pressured, to share short lines of writing created in the workshop. This Brown Bag is an introduction to a 6-hour, online, writer’s retreat of the same name.
Serene Calkins, PT has been a life-long writer as well as a Physical Therapist and Owner of Art and Science Physical Therapy. She is also a Brainspotting Therapist, Consultant and International Specialty Trainer for the “From Freeze to Thaw” trainings. The “From Freeze to Thaw” three-day trainings have been presented to audiences from 32 countries and translated into four languages. Summaries of “From Freeze to Thaw” were presented at the 2021 International Brainspotting Conference as well as for several national and international Brainspotting fundraisers and educational programs. Serene created the Stepping Stones Workshops in 2005. “Stepping Stones for Memoir Writers” uses a fluid structure to recall and record your personal history in a non-linear way to build into the collection of your personal history. Brainspotting supports deep recall and focused attention to interesting and valuable details of your history. “Stepping Stones for Fiction Writers: Deepening Your Character Development” provides a simple yet profound structure that guides fiction writers to uncover events in their characters’ lives that shape, color, and foreshadow who they will become. Brainspotting is also used in these workshops to deepen the connection to their character and the creative writing process.
Kristy Snedden, LCSW has been a Brainspotting enthusiast since 2013 and has studied extensively with David Grand, Monika Baumann, Deborah Antinori, Pie Frey, and Cynthia Schwartzberg. She has been a Brainspotting consultant since 2020 and holds an additional certification as a Brainspotting Consultant with a specialty in treating children and adolescents. She lives in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains of northeast Georgia where she maintains a full-time private practice whose clients range from the very young to the very old. She specializes in working with trauma, attachment, and unblocking the writer/artist within. Kristy created Brainspotting to Unblock and Unlock the Writer Within in 2022. Brainspotting to Unblock and Unlock the Writer Within is a small group experience for professional writers that combines writing craft education with Brainspotting to unblock and deepen the writing experience. Kristy created Brainspotting Through the Poet’s Eye in 2023. Brainspotting Through the Poet’s Eye is a small group experience for Brainspotting Therapists that combines writing craft education with Brainspotting to deepen the writing experience and healing potential of participants. Kristy is also a poet, and her poetry appears or is forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently Contemporary Verse 2, storySouth, Snapdragon, and Awakenings Review. She is the book review editor for Anti-Heroin Chic. Kristy is the recipient of the 2023 Small Orange Emerging Woman Poet honor, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
