About Daniel J. Wiener

About Daniel J. Wiener // History of RfG // About Dramatic Enactment // Teaching Philosophy // FAQ

Curriculum Vita
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Statement of Teaching Philosophy
(web page)

Dr. Wiener is a Professor at Central Connecticut State University, where he teaches in the Graduate Marriage and Family Therapy Program. Licensed both as a Psychologist and a Marriage and Family Therapist, he is a Diplomate in Marital and Family Psychology, an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, and a Certified Group Psychotherapist. Dr. Wiener has 30 years of experience in academic teaching, psychotherapy practice, postgraduate clinical training, and organizational consulting. Since founding RfG in 1985, he has offered RfG training to clinicians, educators and lay-people and has presented this work both nationally and internationally at over 100 professional conferences.

In addition to twelve book chapters and 21 articles, Dr. Wiener has written three books:

Rehearsals for Growth: Theater Improvisation for Psychotherapists (Norton, 1994), which captures the alluring quality of improvising and shows how to apply over 150 variations of games and exercises to therapy;

Beyond Talk Therapy: Using Movement and Expressive Techniques in Clinical Practice (APA Books, 1999), a comprehensive guide to practical action methods drawn from therapies using art, music, dance, drama, yoga, and ritual.

and

Action Therapy with Families and Groups: Using Creative Arts Imporvisation in Clinical Practice (APA Books, 2003), introduces clinicians to innovative therapeutic options that can be used with families and groups: action methods or therapy approaches involving physical movement and expressive arts techniques. These methods provide clients and therapists new ways of both looking at problems and discovering solutions to these problems and are thus especially appropriate to skills training, role development and expansion, relationship enhancement, and short-term treatment with groups, couples, and families.

"I have been training professional psychotherapists for the past fifteen years and am currently teaching Marriage and Family therapy (MFT) to graduate students at Central Connecticut State University (Masters Program in Marriage and Family Therapy). I strongly believe in the importance of therapists developing themselves as effective healing and change agents for both their clients and themselves. The competent practice of MFT requires a synthesis of knowledge, judgment, skill, and personal presence (use-of-self) which cannot be imparted by conceptual learning alone. I have found that experiential learning (particularly action methods that involve physical movement and dramatic enactment) promotes growth in use-of-self far more effectively than does the exclusive use of verbal-conceptual methods.

"In promoting a use-of-self perspective to the study of family systems thinking and clinical practice I attempt to establish and maintain a safe, supportive classroom atmosphere that encourages inquiry and self-expression. I am continually monitoring the class context to maintain a balance between an over-distanced stance, in which family process in self as well as others is objectified and stripped of feeling, and an under-distanced stance, in which the student becomes emotionally reactive to, and part of, the family emotional process."