Life Staging

13/11/2025

AGPA CONNECT 2026 New York

"Dear Elisabet Wollsén,

The Workshop Committee is pleased to invite you to serve on the faculty for AGPA Connect 2026: Group Life: Holding Space for Deeper Connection taking place on Monday, March 2 through Saturday, March 7. Workshops will be scheduled on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 5-7, 2025. We are grateful for your contribution to this important program".

"You are invited to lead an in-person Workshop: 2 ½ Hours (Half-Day) for Life Staging® – Using Group Sculpting for Creative Supervision and Group Work."

For the sixth time, I will be presenting my work at this fantastic gathering, which attracts around a thousand international participants every year. It is not easy to get a place in this crowd; being accepted requires an enormous amount of work, before but not after, fortunately.
Then it's time to mingle and hit the dance floor! I feel honoured and, at the same time, it is really fun to return to this context, with what it means to make new contacts and maintain previous ones with colleagues I have met there.
The content is also of a high standard, with psychotherapists, researchers and other inspirational figures generously sharing their experience. It's a little bit special, as I've come to realise...

"You are invited to lead an in-person Workshop: 2 ½ Hours (Half-Day) for Life Staging® – Using Group Sculpting for Creative Supervision and Group Work."

05/09/2025

BACK FROM EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL TOUR

Last week, 1 600 family therapists from 66 countries gathered in Lyon for the EFTA conference. The opening welcome session was a moving ceremony featuring a video about the current wars and suffering in the world. Followed by welcomes from the president, Umberta Telfener and other keynote speakers, such as Maurizio Andolfi and Carlos Sluzki (90+!).
The workshops, symposia and meetings with old and new colleagues/friends were very rich and inspiring. I lead two workshops: one on 'Life Staging' and the other on 'The 5-Question Approach', both of which I developed from my nearly 50 years of professional experience.

I will write more about these workshops in an upcoming post!

24/08/2025

Professional tour in Europe!

After rewarding, fun and creative days, living and working with European colleagues from seven different countries, we ended our 3.5-year Intervision Group collaboration in Nordhorn, Germany. We are a group that has met both in person and via Zoom. Sharing and exploring our ways of practicing our profession and joining other art experiences (music, ballet, painting etc.) has given us inspiring ideas on how to use and deepen the arts in our work as supervisors and coaches! And realized that through our long experience in the subject, we can already consider ourselves practitioners in the “Art of Supervision”!

After Nordhorn, together with two colleagues from Norway and one from Austria, we gave a workshop entitled “Art in Supervision and Supervision as an Art” at the “ANSE Summer University” in Munich. Focusing on developing the resonance we get through our senses. Activating and inviting the embodied, non-verbal, auditory, kinesthetic and visual experiences, talents and knowledge that was already there, but is often overlooked in many common supervision approaches.

I am now on my way to the EFTA (European Family Therapy) conference in Lyon where I will give two workshops and meet colleagues in family therapy.

On the way a stop in Lausanne with more art and ambiance!

My workshops at EFTA are about “The Life Staging Approach” and “The five question structure” (Ria-Ra in Swedish), both of which I have developed during my (now 46 years) as a family therapist, researcher, supervisor and teacher in Family Therapy.

Maybe see you there?

08/08/2025

Like to know more about my approach? Check out my you tube channel;

A Swedish Company, also working internationally. Offering a narrative and artistic approach in doing: Supervision Management Psychotherapy Education Workshops Webinars Group Work Handledning, meta-handledning, föreläsningar, par- och familjeterapi, utbildning mm. inom psykosocialt och psykoterapeu...

24/07/2025

From IFTA conference in Toyama/Japan 2025

This is a short interview with Elisabet Wollsén at the 2024 IFTA conference in Toyama, Japan.

05/07/2025

Come and join!
The International Relations SIG (of AGPA*) is very excited to host our next global group practice sharing on July 12th at 9:00 AM EST / 3:00 PM CET.

We will hear from two of our esteemed colleagues:

Elisabet Wollsén (Licensed Psychologist and Psychotherapist in Family Therapy – Sweden), developer of the Life Staging® therapeutic approach. Elisabet will explain how our embodied wisdom—activated through unique, collaborative team-building activities—can support greater complexity and richer storytelling in therapy.

Marcia Honing (PsyD in Group Therapy; Expressive Arts Therapist – Israel, Brazil), who will share insights from her experience and research on integrating these two therapeutic methods, including the benefits and challenges involved

Please see the attached flyer for more details.The Zoom link is as follows:
https://kellen.zoom.us/j/91736334277?pwd=ALb6FeylGUU2cm9fweHagWeSR3dRF5.1
Meeting ID: 917 3633 4277

*American Group Psychotherapy Association.

23/05/2025

MEETING SYSTEMIC FAMILY THERAPISTS AT THE EFTA CONGRESS IN LYON IN AUGUST 2025 (photo from IFTA japan 2024).

This will be so much fun! I have had two workshops accepted despite the large number of proposals. Here are the reviewers' comments;

Title: Life Staging family therapy supervision; a body-based approach Workshop: “An experiential collaboration will be important during this congress.
Reviewers; "A closer attention to the body's influences and reactions, the knowledge that is embedded in the body, is inspiring and developing to use.”

Title: *5-question model: making the context understandable and optimal for its purpose! Workshop
Reviewers; "Curious about what the five questions are, curious to participate. *Ria- Ra in Swedish.

More information click on the links here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh0_k5DNbYg&t=46s
https://efta-relates2025.com/

21/05/2025

WORKSHOP WITH EUROPEAN COLLEAGUES AT ANSE SUMMER UNIVERSITY AUGUST 2025

Participants of the Intervision Group “Supervision Music and Art” are offering a 180-minute workshop during Summer University in Munich with the title: "The Art of Supervision - Supervision as Art"
As participants of the Intervision Group “Supervision Music and Art” we explored our art experience in connection with our supervisory work. In this workshop we want to invite the participants to do the same together with us.

• What is creativity?
• What is art?
• Where is the bridge to supervision?

More info:https://zurl.co/UrAAg
Registration: https://zurl.co/dmZvH

11/03/2025

What prior knowledge is needed to participate in a Life Staging workshop?

I was recently asked this question, which made me reflect: Have I been unclear about what Life Staging is? Who the workshop is for and what participation might involve?

Capturing the essence of something that has evolved and taken shape over many years, influenced by various sources, is difficult—especially when the approach is experimental, intuitive, and largely non-verbal. But I will try:

Life Staging invites participants into an exploratory space where, through body, voice, collaboration, and movement, a collective wisdom emerges—a form of knowledge that cannot be defined in advance but arises organically in the moment. It does not rely on established theories or traditional frameworks and norms of learning and professionalism.

Instead, it challenges conventional ideas about what is considered valuable knowledge, offering an alternative way of thinking about the subject.

So participating in Life Staging requires no prior knowledge—being human is enough. Everyone contributes with their unique experience, intuition and creativity. It is neither difficult nor intimidating, and there is no right or wrong. Everyone has a place here, and everyone takes something with them—always.

Participating in the workshop can be about learning and mastering the method, or simply about awakening the human richness we all carry within us. However, to practice Life Staging professionally requires training, solid knowledge and experience in working with people, the courage to navigate the unpredictable and a willingness to transform oneself.

The method itself is not particularly difficult to learn and is always aimed at bringing out one's artistic and personal expression—primarily using the simplified structure of Life Staging as a tool.

A workshop in Swedish is in april 26-27. Workshops "on demand" can be in English or outside Sweden too. Read and see more www.lifestaging.se

13/12/2024

WHY LIFE STAGING IN SUPERVISION; COACHING AND PERSONAL GROWTH?

Life Staging supervision and coaching want to make a difference, at least offer an alternative to the professional worldview that primarily is performed and described in theoretical and reductionist ‘maps’. Often focusing on the measurable. Where documentation and administration easily overflow and the ‘unmeasurable’ is ignored.
Instead, the approach and practice want to contribute to a language (use) and dynamic that encourages richer complexity, interaction and experiential learning. From within. With the focus on resonance, rather than reflection.

Life Staging is a wake-up call to realize how we need each other to be able to see, face and embrace the complexity of life.
Let the immeasurable, the dormant skills and marginalized experiences and stories be heard! Challenge the normative power and take power over the norms we dislike in the professional culture, by no longer agreeing to follow them! Refuse to use and reproduce thin inscriptions! Instead, let us explore more about what is universal in humanity and discover the (small) nuances of everyday life.

10/12/2024

TIPS. Anmäl senast 17 december!

Jag ger två workshops i formatet Life Staging i vår. De sista jag planerar hålla i egen regi. Så vill du handledare, coach, intresserad av professionell och personlig utveckling, lärare/utbildare eller av annan anledning uppleva/lära dig utöva uppläggen/modellerna så passa på tillfället! En genomgång av Ria-Ra frågorna, användbara i alla sammanhang, ingår också.

Första workshopen sker den 25-26 januari, den andra 26-27 april. Sista dag söka till workshopen i januari är den 17 december. Till april den 22 mars.

Mer om innehållet finns att läsa på www.samtal eller www.lifestaging.se

04/11/2024

SHOULD HALF THE GROUP/FAMILY AND THE SUPERVISOR CLOSE THEIR EYES WHEN SOMEONE TALKS?

The annual Culture Day at KI (Karolinska Institutet) attracted with the title ‘Perception in Focus: Arts, Science and Human Experience. Invited to sensory experiences and interactivity between stage and audience.

After an introduction on the subject of Clinical Neuroscience, three experienced musicians took over the stage, showing how improvised music is created by ‘reading’, listening and following each other. Being in touch with both their own instrument and those of others.

It is well known that our senses have ‘blind spots’. That incoming sensory experiences are filled in and given meaning based on our expectations. A meaning that needs to be corrected if it turns out not to be ‘right’. We also got to try this out. Half the audience had to close their eyes, the other half watched a video of a man making a sound. The half that watched heard the sound ‘Fa’, we who closed our eyes heard the sound ‘Ba’. Which was the right one. An illustration of how the visual easily takes over.

For me, the experiences above resonate with what happens when you practice Life Staging constellations. When one's own ‘personal sound’ interacts with the sounds of others, being corrected based on preconceived models, it leads to unpredictable ‘works of art’ every time. Through improvisation, in harmony with the unique "richness of colour" we all possess, the ability to read, follow and "listen in" is continuously exercised. In a process transformative in itself. See more on www.lifestaging.se

That ‘culture is needed to open our hearts and provide knowledge that makes us grow,’ argue also Sissela Nutley, who this evening received KI's Culture Prize 2024. As a researcher, scriptwriter and composer, who has conveyed knowledge about the brain and mental health through the musical “It's not visible”. Very impressive to see how knowledge and empathy are communicated in the musical format. See more at detsynsinte.se, Art&Heart.