The Performing Art of Therapy explores the myriad ways in which acting techniques can enhance the craft of psychotherapy. The book shows how, by understanding therapy as a performing art, clinicians can supplement their theoretical approach with techniques that fine-tune the ways their bodies, voices, and imaginations engage with and influence their clients. Broken up into accessible chapters focused on specific attributes of performance, and including an appendix of step-by-step exercises for practitioners, this is an essential guidebook for therapists looking to integrate their theoretical training into who they are as individuals, find joy in their work, expand their empathy, increase self-care, and inspire clients to perform their own lives. "The Performing Art of Therapy is a significant contribution to the field of counseling and psychotherapy. Mark O'Connell has given us a smart, practical, and deeply personal book that will be useful to therapists of all orientations. So much of psychotherapy is taught by text, in a removed, scientific, objective style. O'Connell presents therapy as a creative art, emphasizing performance and the experiential dimension of the encounter. This is not a list of techniques but rather a journey into the use of oneself as the essential instrument of therapeutic engagement." -- Lewis Aron, Ph.D. director, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis " Mark O'Connell writes to enliven therapists' use of their selves as creative artists. He situates himself at the intersection of acting and psychotherapy from which he offers practical exercises that focus on mind, body, emotion and breath; he does so not in the manner of a how-to guide but in keeping with a therapist's reach for the freedom of potential and the luxury of being. Sweetening the read, O'Connell serves up wonderful anecdotes from well-known actors who help bring to life his valuable psychotherapeutic suggestions." -- Ken Corbett, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis " The Performing Art of Therapy brilliantly explores the nuances of therapist and patient on the therapeutic stage. O'Connell's creative, useful and inspiring work offers us new ways of thinking about our clients as well as our own aliveness, engagement, and self-care." --Galit Atlas, Ph.D., author of Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients and the Legacy of Trauma; The Enigma of Desire: Sex, Longing, and Belonging in Psychoanalysis; and Dramatic Dialogues: Contemporary Clinical Practice "This revelatory book proposes that the elements of observation, empathy and truthful self-examination so essential to the art of acting are also fundamental to the practice of therapy. In clear, readable, almost conversational prose that is remarkably free of scientific jargon, Mark O'Connell shares insights learned through years of training and practice that are equally applicable to artists and mental health professionals. Any student actor could open a page of this delightful, thought-provoking book and find a nugget of wisdom or practical advice, and any seasoned professional could find--analyzed with simple clarity--the lessons of a lifetime of experience and training. This book, written in a voice that is at once wise and wise-cracking, serious and ironically self-effacing, is a great gift to the field of therapy." -- Brian McEleney, Head of M.F.A. in Acting, Brown University "The Performing Art of Therapy, is a tour de force presentation of how skills in which actors are commonly trained, can become ways to prepare for being on the "stage" of each therapeutic session. [Both therapist and client] assume a variety of roles depending on the contemporaneous dramatic context. These roles shift rapidly for both participants, revolving through being players, audience, directors, editors, and so forth to one another, all in an effort to author a new, more meaningful and fulfilling fiction." -- Philip Ringstrom, Ph.D., Psy.D., author of A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Couples Psychotherapy "The Performing Art of Therapy explores the value of the relationship that develops between therapist and client. It brilliantly demonstrates how authentic connection forms the foundation of all therapeutic processes, and more important, how therapists can use their presence to help build this connection with their clients." --Psych Central Mark O'Connell, LCSW-R, MFA, is a New York City-based psychotherapist in private practice, an author, and an actor. He is the author of Modern Brides & Modern Grooms: A Guide to Planning Straight, Gay, and Other Nontraditional Twenty-First-Century Weddings. For more information, see markoconnelltherapist.com and theperformingartoftherapy.com.