Contact! Unload

Contact! Unload: Military Veterans, Trauma and Research-Based Theatre

George Belliveau and Graham W. Lea, editors.

The latest title in the University of British Columbia’s Studies in Canadian Military History Series, Contact! Unload explores the development, performance and reception of the play that weaves together the personal stories of veterans.  Contact! Unload showcases an arts-based therapeutic approach to dealing with trauma, depicting ways of overcoming stress injuries encountered during service. 

Now a lieutenant in the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada, Phillip Lopresti was doing his master’s degree in counselling psychology at UBC when he began working on Contact! Unload.  Phil contributes a thought-provoking analysis in his essay “Holding on to the Script” in chapter 10 and the Regimental Association couldn’t be prouder of Phil’s involvement in this project.

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This book contains the full script of the play, along with academic, artistic, personal and theoretical perspectives from those directly involved in the performances of Contact! Unload.

Publisher’s link: https://www.ubcpress.ca/contactunload

Chapters link: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/contact-unload-military-veterans-trauma/9780774862639-item.html

Lt Phillip Lopresti performing ‘Contact! Unload’ at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, October 2016