Featured Articles, Podcasts & Writings on Social Therapy, Performance Activism & Emotional Growth
Explore a collection of articles, podcasts, and blog posts that reflect the heart of social therapeutics, performance activism, and the reimagining of mental health and community building.
Through play, creativity, and collective development, these works showcase how people grow emotionally and socially — together.
🎭 Featured Articles
Play and Performance for Activism
By Lois Holzman, Sylvia Malta & Valéria L. Carrijo (2024) — Published in Diálogos Vygotskianos, Pontes Editores, Campinas, Brazil
This article explores how improvisation, play, and performance can be used as powerful tools for social change and activism, especially in times of crisis. It highlights creative collaboration as a pathway for community transformation.
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Some Challenges of Challenging Psychology
By Lois Holzman (2024) — Published in Re: mind Magazine, Tokyo, Vol. 1 No. 1
Holzman examines how traditional psychology can limit human growth and introduces a developmental, community-based alternative grounded in creativity, collaboration, and performance.
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The Joy of Dementia: A New Perspective on Aging and Connection
By Mary Fridley & Susan Massad (2021) — Published in The Applied Improvisation Mindset (Dudeck & McClure, Eds.)
A groundbreaking take on dementia care that shifts the focus from decline to joy, creativity, and shared humanity — inviting readers to see aging as a stage for continued development and connection.
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Medicine Across Borders: The Subjectivity of Health and Healing
By Dr. Susan Massad (2021)
This piece challenges Western medical models by introducing a performative and cross-cultural approach to healing, highlighting the social and emotional dimensions of health.
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🎙 Featured Podcasts
All Power to the Developing – Episode 1: Featuring Murray Dabby
Hosted by: The Social Therapy Group
Murray Dabby discusses the origins and impact of social therapy, a revolutionary practice that emphasizes collective emotional growth and the transformative power of play and performance.
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Revolutionizing Relationships – Social Therapeutic Coaching with Murray Dabby & Carrie Sackett
Produced by: Social Therapeutic Conversations Series
Murray Dabby and Carrie Sackett explore how social therapeutic coaching transforms communication, deepens connection, and helps people grow emotionally within relationships and communities.
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Having Fun with Failure: Using Improv to Ease Social Anxiety with Murray Dabby
Featured on: Curtain Up Anxiety Down Podcast
This episode highlights Curtain Up Anxiety Down, an improv-based therapy program that helps participants overcome social anxiety, embrace spontaneity, and build confidence through playful performance.
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🎙 Podcasts by Colleagues in Social Therapy
Working with Children & Families – A Conversation with Christine LaCerva
Christine LaCerva shares how social therapy nurtures emotional growth and collaboration in families, helping children and parents co-create new possibilities for development.
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Something Other Than Psychology – Featuring Dr. Lois Holzman
Hosted by: Chris Hoff
Dr. Lois Holzman discusses the origins of social therapeutics, the pitfalls of traditional psychology, and how The Developmentalist opens dialogue on everyday developmental challenges.
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Non-Knowing Growing – Live from Festival of the Brain
Lois Holzman explores the radical idea of “non-knowing” — embracing uncertainty as a source of growth, creativity, and deeper connection.
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Insightful Blog Post
The World Needs Social Therapy
This reflective essay underscores the urgent need for social therapy in today’s fast-changing world, showing how collective creativity and emotional development can help individuals and communities thrive.
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Together, these articles, podcasts, and blogs offer powerful perspectives on how social therapy helps people, couples, and communities navigate emotional challenges, strengthen relationships, and create new possibilities for growth and connection.