Articles by Jude Treder-Wolff about creativity, the process of change, and applications of improvisation and storytelling

When we are in the thick of it, change can feel like our improv set opening might appear — chaotic, unstable, a bit wild. Even a change we have chosen — to take the promotion, give up a toxic habit, renovate the kitchen — has to be lived through without the comfort of knowing how it will all work out. It can be messy, fraught, and feel deeply unsettling. But it is possible to mine something useful at any stage if we know how to look for it. For that to happen we need to be in an expanded state of mind that is almost opposite to the stress response most likely to take hold in situations of great uncertainty. This is where improv training can be the most helpful and empowering.

A 2022 study published in Journal Of Creativity shows that divergent thinking is tapped most easily and rapidly in situations with strong social support and an element of fun. And new studies find that improv training strengthens transferable skills for navigating the stressful realities of facing the unfamiliar.

Some specific skills cultivated by improv training and practice that empower our capacity to manage change:
Greater situational awareness, the capacity to “read the room”
Greater tolerance for ambiguity;
Strengthen creative confidence;
Practice non-linear thinking
read the article with research links

Engagement and effort that are at the heart of a group creative process - which is what improv is from most basic skills-training games to scene work and beyond - can be uniquely psychologically empowering. To stat, the experience itself is the reward. As a creator, our decisions drive what happens, which can strengthen our sense of personal agency. But improvisers are not alone in the process. It is distinctively a shared experience and responsibility. No one player has to carry the weight of how things go. In am improv game or scene, we are not there to solve the problem, but to discover a moment-to-moment collaboration, to participate in a co-creative event, and everyone involved has a stake in the outcome. The healing that improv can generate arises from not only a neurochemical uplift but a spiritual one grounded in the sense of “we” that makes improvisation happen.

After such a difficult year of separation from loved ones due to the pandemic, ongoing uncertainty about our health and safety, and the pressures of negotiating the post-pandemic social environment, we need to do all we can to build each other up. Improv can be a non-medical, unconventional resource that can produce new neural connections that expand our range of choices for how to think and act, but also generate social connections to a network of people who are willing to risk enough to grow, and will thank us for playing through the tensions of the creative experience.

A 2019 study published in The Journal Of Mental Health looked at a “short-term, group intervention that used improv exercises in a therapeutic manner to treat psychiatric patients,” and found it effective for reducing anxiety and depression. A 2020 study published in the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, showed that students who began improv training with a relatively lower level of self-concept experienced significant gains that were maintained over time. The researchers attribute this to improv’s “specific emphasis on cognitive constructs that underpin self-concept, such as working in agreement, spontaneity, commitment, and being present in the moment (e.g., through maintained focus, active listening and observing, eye contact, and emotional presence).” Read more

Kat Koppett says she always has three thoughts at once. Sometimes more, but at least three. An improviser, consultant, trainer and author who is founder and CEO of Koppett — a company that designs and facilitates group learning experiences, provides powerful coaching and kick-ass keynotes — Kat is a thought leader in the field of Applied Improvisation. In a recent conversation about an improv exercise called “Inside Out” she presented at the 2021 Applied Improvisation Network World Conference with her colleague and co-developer of the exercise Dion Flynn, her “out loud” observation that she always has at least three thoughts was on point. You might even say it was meta. Because “Inside Out” is a way to think out loud about what we are thinking— meta-cognition — the practice of which boosts awareness of what motivates, irritates, inspires and intrigues us and is linked to expanded capacity for learning and change, increased flexibility in the cognitive process, and enhanced capacity to learn and apply prior knowledge to new problems.

“This notion of hiding or revealing our real thoughts is, of course, not new. We do this all the time in real life but in real life it can take much longer,” explains Dion Flynn, who is a prolific performer who has appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show as well as many other shows on stage and screen, and founder of The Improvisor’s Mindset which offers improv workshops for professional and personal development. “Let’s say we have a troubling conversation at work and feel annoyed by a colleague’s remarks and so later that night we share our real thoughts with a trusted other. We unburden ourselves by telling them the real thoughts we were having at the time of the earlier work conversation, as well as the things we wished we’d said. The beauty of ‘Inside Out’ is that we can let our “characters” express these inner thoughts — thoughts which polite society would perhaps consider objectionable or impolite — and then immediately continue the same conversation.”

In training therapists and people who help people make meaningful change, the “Inside Out” exercise is a kind of living “process recording,’ a self-awareness tool used by therapists and social workers in their training and ongoing professional growth work.  Read more

Improv is the art of making things work, taking stock of “what is” and imagining “what if,” sometimes in the same beat. As new information or needs emerge, improvisers adapt. The imaginative agility that improv cultivates is just one reason it is increasingly recognized as an essential mind and skill set for the pace of change and creative demands of the 21st century workplace. One current, cultural “what is” that calls for corrective action is the fact that 70% of people who are blind or low-vision and could otherwise work are unemployed, largely because of bias and misinformation about their capacities. Because of the technology that now exists, people with visual impairments can perform and compete in the workplace, and in so doing add the richness that diversity brings to any group or system.

To address this need, Perkins School For The Blind — the 2nd oldest school for the blind in the world, teaching people who are visually impaired and deaf/blind — created Career Launch @ Perkins, a 14-month career services training program for adults, when they recognized the drop-off of services for people once they finish high school. “In addition to our Career Launch groups, our program does advocacy to address the black-hole of knowledge that exists in the corporate community and get people up to speed on the fact that there is a talent pool here that they are missing,” says Deana Criess, Teacher of Applied Improv in the program. After 20 years as an educator and improviser, Criess describes experiencing new joy as she works on “solving the puzzle of first taking the improv exercises originally designed for sighted folks, and making them work for people with varying levels of vision or no vision at all.” It is a daunting challenge. “All terminology that experienced improvisers know and love — even the very sacred ‘circle up’ — has to be broken down into information that is non-visual,” she explains. “I go back and rethink how to describe every exercise, asking myself ‘if I didn’t have the visual cues, what information would I need to understand how to do an exercise?”

Adapting existing improv exercises in this way preserves the cognitive, emotional and creativity-boosting benefits while adding elements that meet the specific needs of the group. READ ARTICLE ON MEDIUM.COM

Discovery is one way to frame what can be difficult and painful about psychotherapy, when we gain new clarity about old conflicts In improv scenes, and in real life, a creative approach to what we think of as a problem might redefine it entirely, and the process is more important than the outcome.

“Improv training focuses on principles that apply to the work we do in psychotherapy,” states Richard Berger, MA a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and part of the ensemble at Improv Therapy Group. “Connecting to the moment and to the other people in it, playing with and heightening reality to examine and have fun with it, for example, give your brain a first-hand experience of doing something you did not know you could do.” The spirit of possibility realized in action during a psychotherapy session can have a galvanizing effect. Rather than talking about the pressure, pain or problem, something actually happens that shifts perspective.

Berger applies improv techniques in sessions with clients as the needs arise, coming up with real-time adaptations of exercises grounded in the skills that improvisers use to tune into their onstage partners and co-create a coherent scene with out planning anything. “The idea is to come from the imaginative/intuitive space that I call well-being,” he explains. “When in our well-being we have access to our intelligence and knowledge that we can handle things, we can be playful, adventurous, communicative and connected to people in our lives, and give and receive love. We are in touch with our intuition, have patience and allowance for what life gives us. Residual pain from trauma, neglect, abandonment, and the internal terror that comes with it takes away our access to our well-being qualities and leads to the development of patterns of very rigid behaviors and distress patterns.”

Teens are in a process of continuous emergence, their “right now” an ongoing story that is like an improvisation in that they are building a bridge to their future while walking on it. Because the teen brain is being rewired, and their sense of self as well as view of the world is taking shape, it is a time of great opportunity to develop talents and pursue interests, and of great risk if chronic stress, trauma, loss or other negative conditions are present. Wants, needs, impulses and emotions are heightened at the same time the reasoning part of the brain that can think long-term and make rational choices is still under construction. “Teens Tell Better Stories After Improvisational Theater Courses,” an article in the March 2021 issue of Frontiers In Psychology reports about research showing that narrative skills — the ability to organize, connect and express ideas in a coherent way that others can track — were strengthened by participation in an improv training group.

Improv scenes and stories unfold in real time, created through players’ focused attention on their own and others’ actions and choices. Because it is created without a script, props or a set, clarity of communication is key. “I’m very conscious about how an object moves through a scene,” says Greer Gerney, a 2021 High School graduate who started improv training at age 11 with Elana Fishbein, MA, who teaches Improv For Teens classes through The Magnet Theater in NYC and Improv For Educators — with a new online class starting July 7 — through her own practice. Objects in improv scenes are imaginary, and they enrich the action by placing the characters in an environment or situation. “I learned that when an object is used in a way that tracks with the story as it unfolds, it helps enormously to maintain the reality of an improv scene. If you are drinking a cup of coffee you need to remember where it is in the space, and go back to it.” Learning to think with this level of complexity is just one of the benefits she attributes to improv training, a process she describes as “an enormous part of my life and how I express myself creatively.”

We might think of the “self” as a collection of interconnected stories, or layers of stories, some of which are fully conscious and some so woven into the day-to-day reality we have we have to stand back from them to see how they shape who we are. The stories we tell are how we get others to see what we see, a way to be known and understood for what we want and value. Story also connects the feelings, facts and framing of experience. It is a way to be more fully aware of the impact of our own experiences, and to have an impact on other people.

“We can be inspired by one others’ ideas, create flow and a sense of group narrative by using each others’ vocabulary,” states Elana Fishbein. “Using what was just expressed in a game or a scene to inspire the next thing, demonstrates narrative coherence amid uncertainty. READ MORE

Heroic Improv, a model developed by researcher Dr. Mary Tyszkiewicz, (Dr. T) author of the chapter “Practicing For The Unimaginable: The Heroic Improv Cycle” in the groundbreaking book Applied Improvisation: Leading, Collaborating and Creating Beyond The Theatre helps small groups respond to high-stakes crises through training, facilitation and evaluation. Dr. T uses improv principles and exercises to train for exactly this kind of scenario. “The beginning of an improv scene feels exactly like a disaster,” she explains. “In both situations, people don’t know where they are at, whom they are with or what is next.”

It was her first improv performance, in front of hundreds of people, with a class that had bonded so closely it felt like a team, that led her to this novel approach to a difficult question raised by her work evaluating peoples’ response to disasters. “My research showed that traditional disaster training does not adequately prepare people for real life disasters or for the real emotions they might experience. Current training either provides book-based “knowledge” or teaches hands-on “skills” but does not strengthen one’s “ability” to put “knowledge” and “skills” together in high-stakes situations. Just think of any first-aid training we typically receive. Having “knowledge” of heart attack symptoms and the “skills” of CPR do not test our “ability” to move into action when there is a heart attack victim in front of us. Disaster training has to go beyond seminars and drills — the practicing of skills — in order to develop this ability.”

“Through improv, people can practice what it feels like to be in a disaster using low-stakes theater improv exercises and directly practice the small group abilities they need for high-stakes crisis.” READ MORE ON MEDIUM.COM

Engagement and effort that are part of a group creative process can be uniquely psychologically empowering because the experience itself is the reward. As a creator, our decisions drive what happens, which can strengthen our sense of personal agency. But improvisers are not alone in the process. It is distinctively a shared experience and responsibility. No one player has to carry the weight of how things go. In am improv game or scene, we are not there to solve the problem, but to discover a moment-to-moment collaboration, to participate in a co-creative event, and everyone involved has a stake in the outcome. The healing that improv can generate arises from not only a neurochemical uplift but a spiritual one grounded in the sense of “we” that makes improvisation happen.

After such a difficult year of separation from loved ones due to the pandemic, ongoing uncertainty about our health and safety, and the pressures of negotiating the post-pandemic social environment we need to do all we can to build each other up and maintain mental health. Improv can be a non-medical, unconventional resource that can produce not only new neural connections that help us think and act in new ways, but also new social connections to a network of people who are willing to risk enough to grow, and will thank us for playing through the tensions of the creative experience.

Creativity is the energy of change, and the big question of our lives is how to tap into it and expand to meet the unexpected challenges and unimagined opportunities that show up in our path. Even change that we choose or aspire to can feel threatening and emotionally-charged, which can narrow our field of attention to imagined problems rather than imaginative choices. We all share the challenge of navigating a sea of continuous change but not everyone is sold on the idea that we all share the capacity to be creative, which is the unique and powerful province of uncertainty and risk. Adopting these 5 beliefs about creativity can help cultivate the mindset for applying it in real life situations.

1. Creativity is what powers your capacity to choose. Creativity is the part of every human being that allows us to see situations from a new perspective, to solve a problem when the old ways are not working — like figuring out a way to get the baby to take their medicine, or how to talk to mom when her memory is failing. In The Courage To Create, psychologist and researcher Rollo May describes creativity as “the process of bringing something new into being. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life.” And the belief about creativity as an inner strength that anyone can tap into may be enough to activate its power.

2. Believing you are creative can make you more creative. In a study published in the journal Psychological Science research subjects who stated they believe in the existence of luck were primed to believe they were being given the “lucky putter” in a golf-related task. These individuals performed better on the task than the control groups who did not believe in luck or were not primed to think they had the upper hand going into the task. The researchers based this study on previous work showing that “people’s belief in their capabilities to succeed in a particular situation may play a central role in turning seemingly irrational superstitious thoughts into directly observable performance benefits.”

The research demonstrates that we can choose our attitude toward change and about what it means to fail or succeed. And that if we believe we can learn something new or develop a skill set that is needed to realize a goal, we will be more likely to stick with the process until we have mastered it. Other studies show that belief is related to the sense of self-empowerment, optimism, hope and confidence. Quoting the Psychological Science article: “The more people believe in good luck, the more optimistic, hopeful, and confident they tend to be. On the performance side, it is well established that next to existing abilities and skills, one of the most important and consistent predictors of people’s performance is their perceived self-efficacy. The more confidence people have in their abilities to master a given task, the better they perform.”

3. Creativity is the ability to adapt and grow. Creativity is like the “push” within a seed that propels it to form roots growing downward and tiny shoots that grow upward with enough force to defy gravity and break through the ground. It is the unseen current within all life that turns acorns into oaks. And in our own lives and inner selves, that “push” is the creative energy that human beings can direct toward realizing dreams, growing into more evolved versions of ourselves and flowing with the changes we cannot control. The relationship between change and the creative force is, perhaps, best understood by looking at nature where change is continuous and unstoppable. For a cell, it is either change or die. A naturally-occurring enzyme within the cell facilitates a series of stages that results in transformation, and the process itself liberates energy at specific points, which is then available for use in other pathways.

The same is true for human beings. Creativity is a kind of spiritual “enzyme” that drives the ongoing change process. The “push” from within is the natural tendency toward growth and expansion, and our conscious choices determine the direction that change will take. Just as in nature, the process itself frees energy along the way. In this way, creativity can unleash new possibilities over the entire course of life.

4. Discomfort is an important feeling. Structure and predictability produce mental patterns that streamline our thinking process and save us from having to relearn the same things over and over. Getting outside the familiar structures can be uncomfortable, but creative pursuits can be a fun and fascinating way to develop the psychological resilience to manage those tensions just long enough for discovery and new perspectives to rise up. Discomfort is one of the most interesting psychological states to explore, and doing that in an atmosphere of psychological safety is an ideal pathway for gaining the strength to tolerate the uncertainty between what we are leaving behind and what is still taking shape in the now as we move through the process of change. If we can stay the course - and positive creative experiences are one way to remain engaged - we reshape our sense of self and direct our energies toward the life we desire.