Whole-Person Approach to Character Building

Learn an Integrally informed approach to building characters with depth and breadth—integrating a character’s inner life, outer behaviors, relational dynamics, and physical worlds into one coherent, dynamic, and believable whole.   Ten modules with more than four hours of recorded programming and supplemental materials give you a fast track through research to assess your current process, and to sharpen the tools you need to fill or fortify existing gaps.

Psychological Toolbox for Compelling Backstory

Fully embrace your characters, their  contexts, and their motivations with expert instruction and a curated collection of contemporary resources and research.  This is advance prep work to support your inspiration and to set your imagination free. IFS therapist, author, and Lead Trainer Mariel Pastor lends warm guidance through original,  customized skills practices for dedicated storytellers to use for reliable results with any character, story, or medium.

Tools to Nurture Your Own Artistic Health

To get deep characters, you have to do deep work, especially if your own life is the source material. Here, you're invited to explore more of your own story and your self, safely, alongside your character's. Gain clarity about if, when, and how to use yourself, without losing yourself, when doing character work. Engage in reflective exercises and mindfulness practices tailored to each module's theme, to integrate your learning and point the way toward a more compassionate relationship with your characters, your craft, and yourself.  

Curriculum

  1. 1

    Welcome to Character Mapping

    1. Welcome & Program Overview Free preview
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    Module 1

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    Module 2

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    Module 3

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    Module 4

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    Module 5

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    Module 6

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    Module 7

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    Module 8

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    Module 9

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Meet your instructor, Mariel Pastor

Mariel Pastor, developer of Character Mapping

In the mid-90s, Mariel Pastor made the more-obvious-than-it-seems progression from entertainment industry executive to licensed mental health therapist—a move she’s never regretted. After starting out as a professional singer herself and having worked many years with performers, storytellers, and musicians, Mariel knows firsthand the vulnerable risks and rewards that come with the creative life. Today, she is an author and international trainer for Internal Family Systems™ (IFS) therapy, a powerful psychospiritual approach developed by Richard Schwartz, PhD, that fosters healing and wholeness for the “multiple characters in our minds.” As a sought-after teacher, Mariel is renowned for her ability to make complex topics clear and accessible, using a collaborative style that playfully elicits the inherent wisdom of others.​ Now, with more than 30 years of private practice and consultation, Mariel brings her clinical wisdom back to the arts through Character Mapping™—an innovative method and psychological toolbox that reflects her passion for systems thinking and spirituality. Drawing on decades of professional experience, it’s through Character Mapping that Mariel finds endless inspiration to reflexively elevate both the art and the artist, by mining the depths of a character and creating a transformative vehicle for the artist’s psychological health. 

Build your characters.  Find your Self.

Character Mapping helps you go deeper—without exhausting yourself in the process. Get started today.