Facilitator Comments

Drum therapy has opened up another avenue to connect with teenage clients that have spent their entire teenage years disconnecting with adults and authority figures in their lives. Drum therapy has also opened up my eyes to the struggles that these clients have been through and have had no one or have had no means to express what they have been through in their short lives. They have shared events and things that I could never have imagined a teenager having to face in their lives through drum therapy and there are times that they don’t even have to say a word – And everyone in the group knows what they are communicating with us through their drums and their expressions. Not only have the kids been able to process some pretty horrible events and some pretty exciting events, I have learned from them to become a better person not only in the counseling that I do but in the everyday living that I do.

---Cindy Mahoney, Case Manager/Therapist at Bethesda Children’s Home

Quotes from Training Participants

What did you like most about the training?

• Its narrow focus on adolescents
• The skill experience
• The  wisdom of the facilitators
• The comprehensive nature of the material
• Very concrete
• Very useful
• Very tangible and workable
• Clarifying specific situations, how to use/incorporate conditioning elements.
• Understanding how the group and the focus of the group changes over time
• Discussion of the steps and role-plays for real application; with variables, etc
• The experiential nature of how the training was structured
• The excitement, knowledge and overall sequence of the weekend
• The practice facilitating, sharing of ideas, role-plays, and examples
• I really enjoyed the great group that we had and the excellent trainers
• The information was very helpful and I’m excited to use it with adolescents
• I liked all of the training
• Overall interaction with the group facilitators
• Experiential training
• Training was very well constructed and professionally done
• The organization of the protocol
• The big boards were wonderful
• Actually going through sessions and practicing how to handle situations
• New ideas