The purpose of this demonstration project was to develop a training video for mental health professionals to help improve their active listening skills and skills promoting creative engagement, including such concepts as creativity, spontaneity, and play. This was accomplished through improvisational theatre warm-ups, exercises, and scene-work integrated into a workshop format. The literature demonstrates that improvisational theatre has been shown to prompt the development of trust between players, in this case a therapist and patient, in a manner in which conventional technique is not always capable (Ringstrom, 2001). This seems closely related to Rogers' (1961) belief that three conditions are necessary for the establishment of a helping relationship: congruence, unconditional positive regard/acceptance, and empathic understanding.

Five licensed mental health professionals were recruited from the Greater Boston area to participate in the videotaping of an improvisational theatre workshop focusing on active listening and creative engagement. Participants were then asked to participate in an additional brief (7–10 minute) post-workshop videotaped interview in order to: (1) obtain preliminary data regarding aspects of the content or format of the workshop that could be altered to improve a final product; and (2) compile early reflections regarding if and/or how the content of the video could be useful in clinical work. Based on the results from this project, improvisational theatre techniques appear to be a useful training tool for teaching therapists empathy, widely considered to be one of the most important conditions for establishment of a helping relationship/therapeutic alliance. A complete presentation of these results, including individual post-workshop interviews, a critique of the methodology, a discussion of improvisational theatre as a training tool for mental health professionals, and future directions for further development of and research on this training video are presented.