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This playful approach begins with curating novelty from positive felt-sense memories- then co-creating an even more novel "prescriptive" memory from these lived experiences so that it becomes the place where healing can happen.

This training requires no artistic background, and is applicable to all licensed mental health providers: LMSW, LCSW, LMHC, LMFT, LPAT, ATR-BC

Continuing Education

This program provides 3 hours of continuing education units.
-Approval NASW-KY #050522. NASW-KY is an approved provider for social work credits through the KYBSW.
-Approved Provider #50-33522 Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling. Course #20-946039.
-Accepted by the OH CSWMFT Board.
Continuing education requirements vary by state, while many accept the above approvals, please confirm with your board.
When working with a client’s memory, how do we locate the fleeting, joyful bits so often overshadowed by loss that no new insights can emerge? In this master class, Nancy Gershman will introduce a cinematic technique for arriving at the memory our client needs in order to move from isolation to re-integration in the world. Case studies will demonstrate how prescriptive memories are compounded in a client’s imagination, with magic realism launching memory reconsolidation capable of updating long term distressing memories. Live demos will give you an excellent sense of how to listen or prompt for incongruity so you can lead your client to new sources of courage and humor, based on personally-developed imaginal or photo-based artwork. Implications for using this method in-person or via telehealth, with adult populations (grief and non-death related loss) and in clinical settings (hospice) will be addressed.
Get an immediate sense of how prescriptive memory-making can liberate a client’s thinking about grief and loss by reading transcripts from actual Dreamscaping sessions :

Learning Objectives

  1. List (3) identifiers for suitability and (3) contraindications for Prescriptive Memory-Making/Dreamscaping.
  2. Identify the (3) critical types of narrative “material” which work best as retrieval cues for positive memory during interviewing.
  3. Describe (2) or more ways Dreamscaping’s brain based approach launches memory reconsolidation and updates a distressing long-term memory.
  4. State (1) or more reasons why it is beneficial for the prescriptive memory to “violate the expected” so it can open the bereaved individual to a therapeutic, corrective experience.
  5. Apply (1) or more times how to evoke a client’s memory with observational humor, deep play and magic realism— to optimize its positive charge.
  6. Name (3) arts intervention skills to help a client transform the prescriptive memory into an image-based tangible object [they can practice with or share with their support network].
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Nancy Gershman

LCSW, Integrative Psychotherapist
Nancy Gershman is a psychotherapist with BHAVA Therapy Group, and the developer of Dreamscaping (Prescriptive Memory-Making), an imaginal and photo-based therapy supported by the way memories get encoded in the brain. Her publications include Prescriptive Memories in Grief and Loss: The Art of Dreamscaping (Routledge, 2019) with Barbara E. Thompson, and case studies in Robert A. Neimeyer’s Techniques of Grief Therapy (Routledge, 2012, 2016). Her Dreamscaping work with end-of-life patients and their families at Visiting Nurse Service of NY was featured on NY1’s “New Yorker of the Week” (2016). Her work with the eating-disordered culminated in the traveling exhibit, “The Brides of Ed” (2013). Since 2013, Nancy has hosted Death Café New York City.
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