DEI Annual Workshop : Queening Out: Drag as a Model and Mode of Exploration in Group Spaces

Hosted by: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Committee. 

Queening Out:

Drag as a Model and Mode of Exploration in Group Spaces

In this immersive and experiential workshop, presenters John Stitt and Geoffrey Hervey draw from their clinical training and lived experience as drag artists to examine how drag can serve as both a metaphor and a method in group psychotherapy. Using drag as a lens, participants will explore themes of identity performance, projective identification, stigma, and liberation within the group process. 

This workshop explores the therapeutic potential of drag within group psychotherapy by conceptualizing the group therapist as a performer and examining how projective identification—particularly around gender and sexuality—can be transformed through embodied processes. Participants will engage in a didactic presentation, take part in an experiential activity focused on crafting a drag persona, and conclude with a live demonstration group.

Presenters John Stitt (They/Them) and Geoffrey Hervey (They/Them) are both PsyD. students at George Washington University's Professional Psychology Program for Clinical Psychology. As scholars and drag artists, they aim to delineate the ways drag artistry interacts with group settings as it relates to sex, sexuality, and gender. Their scope is to identify ways that drag allows for creating psychically liberating spaces in groups for sexual and gender stigma as well as ways in which said stigma is activated or reinforced.

See an interview with our presenters.

Learning Objective for 3 Ethics CEUs

1. Analyze one or more parallels between the performer–audience dynamic in drag and the therapist–group member dynamic in group therapy.
   
2. Describe the therapeutic potential of drag artistry and discuss how historically queer cultural practices have been excluded from traditional psychological frameworks.
   
3. Develop and reflect on at least one intervention that incorporates drag-informed techniques into a therapeutic group setting.