"There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen!" Rumi
SOUL-WORKS SESSIONS - meeting outside the box
A Soul-Works session offers an alternative space to either supervision or therapy and is something different. It is mainly geared towards experienced therapists or health professionals who have been through a previous therapeutic process and are now looking for something else. This way of working is less defined than therapy and recognises unexpected new possibilities which emerge, unique to the person and the situation they bring. The Soul-Works session sets a space where the relationship and work is more fluid.
Soul-Works is an agreed and regulated meeting where the focus is on any issue the person attending brings. There may or may not be a goal or an outcome. People can bring aspects of their professional life which do not belong in supervision or something from their personal experience that allows work and individual circumstance to come together. People come because they want a different kind of accompanying and set their own agenda that may vary from session to session.
Similar to therapy, the work is confidential, but the boundary is lighter. It differs for each person and is discussed, co-worked and agreed at the beginning of the work. I may already know you or have worked with you before, and after sessions are over, we may return to our previous form of relationship. The relationship is mutual and co-participatory and occasionally I can be available for “outside the room” accompanying. I am open to negotiate how we can practically respond to what you need from our work.
A Soul-Works session lasts typically 50 minutes. Sessions can be on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis.
WHAT A SOUL WORKS SESSION IS LIKE
It’s hard to put into words what my learning with Mary has been like. I’d like to say she has been my therapist- but the experience has been much more than that. We’ve spoken on levels of soulful, practical no bullshit what is and isn’t ok boundaries, she’s been straight with me, I’ve been straight with her. She’s held room for me to find my true voice and relationship to parts of myself. But more than any of that - she has taught me it’s ok to be radically who I am.
To listen to myself, to deepen in my own whispers. Mary has quietly guided me to respond to life from these intuitive aspects of myself. This has not always been easy, and I would be lying to say I have got it down every day- but the experience has been like finding my own soul/ intuition/ mind / spirit as a compass for my everyday interactions and life decisions.
And for this, I believe what Mary teaches is how to live radically - radically confident, radically truthful, radically unapologetic. It sounds out there - but that is what she inspires in me. I feel able to sense when my actions or energy is out of this sacred alignment. I hope this short statement begins to share with others what might happen when they embark on work with Mary. It’s not just therapy, for therapy’s sake. You can throw the BS out the window.
I am very grateful for Mary being in my life. She has influenced my soul, helped me to heal my relationships and has helped me be the person I am today. Mary has a gift- and one I believe she has curated and consciously channelled into helping others.
I would very much encourage anyone who has a whisper that it may be of help to work with Ms Smail, to please do it.
Thank you, Mary.
Dramatherapist and Senior Staff Counsellor, Imperial College Healthcare Trust NHS .
BOOK:
Dramatherapy with Myth and Fairytale – the Golden Stories of Sesame
Jenny Pearson, Mary Smail and Pat Watts, Jessica Kingsley Pubs 2013
CHAPTERS:
Moving through a block in psychotherapy 1996
Discovering the Self through Drama and Movement – The Sesame Approach, Jessica Kingsley Press
Sharing the Space Inside - One to one work with people with Learning Difficulties 1996
Discovering the Self through Drama and Movement – The Sesame Approach, Jessica Kingsley Press
Open Sesame and the soul cave, Routledge International Handbook for Dramatherapy 2016
Ed Sue Jennings and Clive Holmwood
Maps for Soul-Making - Story Enactment in Psychotherapy, Transformation in Troubled Times, 2018
Chris Robertson and Sarah Van Gogh, Transpersonal Press, 2018
Doorways to the Deathlands - the imagined seeing of stories, Ed Sue Jennings and Clive Holmwood, Routledge 2022
Soul, Sesame Journal Spring, 2002
The Story Chalice, Sesame Journal October 2004
Resounding Myth - Voice work in traditional story, Sesame Journal October 2005
Conditions of a Soul Pedagogy, Sesame Institute Journal, November 2010
Downloading Soul, Teaching paper April 2014
The Making of the Sesame Psyche and Soma course, Sesame Journal Autumn 2010
Soul in a Baseball Hat - Meeting James Hillman. The Psychotherapist Summer 2013
Uneasy in Exile - the forest of Chemo Ther September 2014
Something About Soul. The Guild of Pastoral Psychology, London, UK November 2017
Video Story enactment in Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy Excellence 2017
Australia, Soul Play and the Sesame Approach, Psychotherapy Network Int Conf, 2011
Germany, Stories and Soul, Institut für Theatertherapie 2016
Greece, Playing with Soul Grace, Play, Perform, Learn, Grow. Anatolia College, Thessaloniki, Greece 2018
Greece, Workshop with Robert Romanyshyn. Play, Perform, Learn, Grow. Anatolia College. Thessaloniki, Greece 2019
THE “DEATH LANDS” - WORKSHOPS & PAPERS
God and the Afterlife – God in the Pub meeting, Wimbledon
The Spirituality of Dying – Handy hints for walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death – Retreat Weekend, Wimbledon
The Last Things. Death, Dying and the Life to Come, Advent Retreat
Something About Soul – Death, Grief and Peripheral Seeing – Death Conference, Wales
When Death Stops By – Korkut and Uncertainty – St Christopher’s Hospice, London
Loss and Grief – Re-Vision Counselling Students
The Soul and Death – Wales 2015 with Welsh Psychotherapy Partnership
Bereavement and Grace Initiations, Dr Banardos, Wales
The Death Edge and Soul Midwifery– Felicity Warne and the Soul Midwives. British Association of Dramatherapists 2017
Death and the Soul, Keynote. Mental Health Day conference, Wales,
The Village of Grief (Axel Schwaigert) and the Oracle Tree. British Association of Dramatherapists, 2019
Four Doors and a Candle - a Guided Tour of the Deathlands, Play Perform, Learn Grow International conference 2021
TEACHING
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, London, UK - MA Drama & Movement Therapy (Sesame) 1992 - 2015
Clinical Placement Supervisor
Group Clinical Preparation Tutor (sesame approach)
Group Clinical Supervisor
Myths and Fairytale Enactment Tutor
Viva Panelist
Central Sesame/Liason Group
Sesame Institute UK and International
Introductory pieces of training to Drama & Movement Therapy 1994 - 2015
Sesame Ireland
Annual training events in the Sesame Approach - Cork, Dublin, 1996 to 2015
Sesame Approach Foundation at Cork Institute of Technology planning team
Sesame Wales
Ongoing annual Sesame Insitute CPD Workshops 1999 to 2015
Keynote, Dramatherapy Wales first conference
Psyche and Soma - Soul making through Sesame - Course founder and convenor of one year CPD for registered professionals
Cowbridge, Wales 2008
Vauxhall, London 2010
Clapham, London 2012
Clapham, London 2014
Newport, Wales 2018
On-Line (Zoom) 2020
RE-VISION COUNSELLING & PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH SOUL IN MIND 2016 - ongoing
Stories of Soul-Making, Stage 4/5 Psychotherapy Trainees
Loss and Bereavement. Stage 3 Counselling Trainees
Transitions
Supervision of Psychotherapy Trainees
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