Dear Maurizio, thank you very much for your time for this interview. Could you tell us about your first encounter with IAGP? How long have you been a member of IAGP?

I was invited by Anna Mara Traveni, the founder of APRAGI in IAGP International Congress in Amsterdam 1989, Greta Leutz was the IAGP President and there were almost two- thousands of group psychotherapists. I was impressed n Amsterdam by Anne Anceline Schützenberger, Malcom Pines, Augusto Boal, Zerka Moreno, Monica Zuretti and I decided to jon and the Association and from that time I attended to every IAGP International Congresses, Montreal 1992, Buenos Aires 1995, London 1998, Jerusalem 2000, Istanbul 2003, San Paulo 2006, I was the co-chair of Roma IAGP International Congress 2009, Cartagena de Indias 2012, Rovigno 2015, Malmo 2018, Pescara 2022. From Montreal congress until now, I have always presented workshops, training courses, papers n Symposium, also I conducted the large groups. IAGP is deeply related to my life story.

In all these years in IAGP, what kept you motivated to be a member of IAGP?

In a General Assembly of IAGP Psychodrama Section in Jerusalem in 2000, Zerka Moreno and Anne Schützenberger shared with us that there were trainers that dedicated their life to IAGP in the service of the organzation, and Marcia Karp and Monica Zuretti agreed, this touched me so much. I became aware that to be a member of IAGP gave me the possibilities to know and to work with the best group analysts and the best psychodramatist in the world and learn from them. I was enriched by the international network, and it gave me the possibilities to grow as a group psychotherapist and to travel in many countries where I was invited by IAGP members.

I know that your main theoretical approach is Jungian. Why do you feel closer to this approach?

My first psychodrama conductor was a Jungian analyst. In high school I liked to read C. G. Jung’s books. I was impressed by Jung’s wisdom. The words and reflections of Jung are still alive nowadays, his teachings are useful for our life and society. Dreams are very important to understand ourselves and where we are going. Also the concept of collective unconscious is very useful for group psychotherapists.

Maurizio Gasseau, was born in Rome, Associate Professor of Dynamic Psychology at the University of Aosta. Co-Chair of the Education Committee of the Psychodrama Section of International Association of Group Psychotherapy and Group Processes IAGP, Past Chair of the Psychodrama Section of IAGP, Jungian analyst, honorary member of ARPA, member of International Association of Analytical Psychology IAAP, certified psychotherapist and psychodramatist in Italy, as well as leader of training groups all over the world. His main interests are researching dream interpretations in individual analysis and psychodrama and group psychotherapy, social dreaming matrix, and working on transgenerational topics.
He developed the Jungian Psychodrama method and theory in 1980 and Psychodramatic Social Dreaming in 2004. Director of Training of Postgraduate School of Psychotherapy IPAP – Institute of Analytical Psychology and Psychodrama. Board member IAGP 2003 – 2012 and 2015 – 2025. Co-chair of IAGP Education Committee.

Co-chair of FEPTO Task Force for Peace Building and Conflict Transformation to share experience in intercultural work, working with refugees, using Morenian tools. He led training groups in 46 countries and presence.

Author of more than ninety publications on group psychotherapy and research, such as Lo psicodramma junghano co- edited with Gulo Gasca and Il sogno. Dalla psicologia analitica allo psicodramma junghano co-edited with Riccardo Bernardini.

He received the Federation European Psychodrama Training Organizational Excellence Award in 2017 and the Fellowship Award of the International Association of Group Psychotherapy and Group Processes IAGP in 2022.
e-mail: [email protected]

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