Dorothy Ann Gould is a South African actress; the recipient of 19 Best Actress Awards, her career has taken her to America, Europe and especially the United Kingdom where she has worked and continued to work since 1989.
In November she worked with our PEM Master Instructor Sarah Victoria in Johannesburg and wrote about her experience:
Working with Sarah at UJ Arts on the 11th and 17th of November 2014 was truly a remarkably empowering experience for this 61 year old.
As a fascilitator of the Stephan Perdekamp Method, she works with incredible empathy and serenity.
As a teacher of some 43 years I found that in my particular area of interest, emotional connection and emotional release work, some of what we did confirmed for me that my exercises in helping actors, young children in squatter camps and my company of homeless men, were instinctively on track but I had never linked emotions to a particular body organ except for always saying “work with an open heart.” The exercises helped me to see where I, out of fear and deep grief, had retreated behind my eyes, behind my mask of “I’m OK” and so I was initially overwhelmed by how many tears I was holding. I had not learnt how to objectify or distance myself in a given situation. I feel now that I can be a better teacher and healer without such a cost to my own wellbeing.
We live in a country torn by grief, guilt, humiliation and anger; as a teacher, I have for many years, tried to absorb those feelings released from my students in order to free THEM – issues of abandonment and emasculation and disempowerment because, I think in a way, I felt that as a white South African, somehow I “deserved to suffer ” for my ancestors mistakes; as a healer, I had stopped allowing myself to heal and did not know how to release what came at me daily.I spent too short a time with Sarah and this method and so I really do hope that she returns to us soon.
Even in our daily lives in South Africa we seem to have only two options – feel less connection with the outside world because it hurts too much or feel and do what you can but at a huge cost of depletion to one’s own psyche; thank you Sarah and Stephan for showing me that there are alternatives.