Publications
Solstice
Sándor Ferenczi and the Origins of Humanistic Psychology
Integrating dance/movement into a Voice Dialogue session
Dreams - Your Special Gift
A Lifetime of Learning, A Passion for Service
A Lifetime of Learning, A Passion for Service - Dassie Hoffman, PH.D.'57
by Laurel A. Saville
Bennington College, The Alumni Magazine, Spring 2003
Click here for the complete article in printer-friendly format.
Dassie Hoffman'57 says that she's "always been kind of restless for more education." She has turned this yearning into three degrees and a career that incorporates love of dance and interest in humanity into a lifetime of teaching, counseling, and healing. "When I came to Bennington, I wanted to be a writer," she says. "But it was there that I discovered psychology and modern dance and my life has not been the same since." Dassie is now co-director of the Center for Experiential Psychotherapy. She and a colleague, who is a gestalt therapist, started the Center 11 years ago, and it now includes a social worker, vocational counselor, holistic health counselor, drug and alcohol counselor, hypnotherapist, massage therapist, and a Reiki practitioner who holds workshops and sessions on the weekends.
It all began with dance. Dassie raised her family in Scarsdale, New York, where
"
I was doing all the volunteer things-League of Women Voters, PTA-and teaching
dance. Then one day when I was 39, I looked up and said, 'I'm bored. I need to
go back to school.' I took an Intro to Dance Therapy course at SUNY Purchase,
and that was it." She got a Masters degree in Dance Therapy at New York
University just as her daughter was graduating from high school. She parlayed
this degree into a job at a psychiatric hospital where she did dance therapy
for eight years. By then, new and different kinds of experiential therapies were
evolving, and Dassie continued her pursuit of knowledge. She started studying
Voice Dialogue, a therapeutic technique that was being developed in the mid-80s. "This
sub-personality work helps you develop a strong Aware ego, which forms a central
self, through the exploration and separation from your many selves, primary
and disowned," she says. She not only started practicing and teaching this
process, but also created a series of women's workshops focused on seasonal celebrations
that "...employ dance-therapy techniques, and offer many movement experiences
to facilitate the ritual processes."