Life Unscripted ― Using Improv Principles to Get Unstuck, Boost Confidence, and Transform Your Life

Learn to collaborate with others, think on your feet, and both welcome and celebrate mistakes using the skills of improve theater

Offering readers critical tools to enrich relationships, unleash the imagination, and build a more personally meaningful life, psychiatrist Jeff Katzman and TheaterSports LA cofounder Dan O’Connor draw from contemporary understandings in neuroscience and psychology to explore the nature of our personal capacities and limitations. Many of us go through life following a script written for us before we were even born—designed by our friends and family, and shaped by the expectations from others that we meet. But the script that worked when we were younger can impact us in different ways as adults and make it hard to get along in the world. Using concepts from improvisational theater, we can all learn to think spontaneously, relish our mistakes, and improve how we work with those around us.

JEFF KATZMAN, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He studied at Stanford University where he received his BA, UC San Diego for medical school, and then UCLA for his psychiatry residency. Before this, he ran Behavioral Health Care at the New Mexico VA Medical Center specializing in treating veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is currently the Chair of the Education Committee of the American Association of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry (AAPDP). He lectures regularly at approximately four national psychiatric conferences a year on the topics of psychodynamic psychotherapy, attachment, applied improvisation, and educational techniques. DAN O'CONNOR is a multi-faceted actor, improviser, writer, and director. Dan is the founder and producing artistic director of the critically acclaimed Impro Theatre. He is a co-founder of BATS Improv in San Francisco and LA Theatresports. Dan is one of the world's most foremost innovators in the world of unscripted theatre. He is the on the advisory board of the International Theatresports Institute which includes over 300 theatre companies and festivals globally and is an officially recommended ITI teacher and performer and a member of the Applied Improvisation Network.