Narrative Expressive Arts Therapy:

Liberating Clients through Creativity

A training workshop for therapists, social workers, wellness and life coaches, human service professionals, educators, community leaders, and spiritual guidance counselors

Facilitated by:

Shoshana Simons, PhD, RDT

Danielle Burnette, MA, MFT Intern

  • Are you looking for creative ways to promote social justice and client empowerment through expressive arts?
  • Are you yearning for an approach that brings down the artificial walls that separate you from your clients?
  • Do you want to learn dynamic, arts-based methods that you can use with individuals, couples, families, groups and communities?

Join us for two colorful, creative, and stimulating days, offering you a rare chance to learn the "nuts and bolts" of Narrative Expressive Arts Therapy.  You will be introduced to exciting collaborative arts activities that can deepen your understanding of the relationship between larger social systems and individual, familial, and group distress and how to help alleviate it.  You will witness live demonstrations and gain opportunities for applying your newly emerging skills to the needs of your clients.

Prior arts experience is NOT required!

Saturday, June 29 and Sunday, June 30

10:00am to 5:00pm

The Living Arts Counseling Center

1265 65th Street, Emeryville, CA  94608

$225

*Limited discount scholarships available

12 CEUs for MFTs and LCSWs for additional $25

Course meets the qualifications for 12 hours of continuation education credit for MFTs and LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences

 

For More Information and Registration Contact:

Shoshana Simons

(617) 571-1542

fridapaz@mac.com

Narrative Expressive Arts Therapy is an emerging branch of Narrative Therapy, developed by Australian family therapy pioneers, Michael White and David Epston.  Narrative Therapy has been used extensively in working with a diverse range of populations across the globe including:

  • chronic mental illness
  • eating disorders
  • indivual and collective trauma
  • the effects of violence

Narrative Therapy is rooted in a social constructionist approach to understanding the role of family, friends, and community in both shaping and supporting personal and collective transformation.

Though Narrative Therapy and Expressive Arts Therapy are natural partners, there are very few creative arts therapy training programs explicitly teaching this approach.

This workshop is a rare opportunity for you to develop knowledge and skills in this powerful orientation!

Using experiential learning methods you will:

  • Learn how to work collaboratively with clients to deconstruct "problem saturated" self-narratives
  • Discover ways to co-produce empowering, multidimensional strenths-based alternative stories through written, visual, poetic, musical, and embodied forms
  • Learn how to integrate playful ways to make meaning out of life's challanges
  • Be introduced to simple, yet powerful arts-based witnessing and joining practices to incorporate with your clients

About the Facilitators:

Shoshana Simons, PhD, RDT is Chair of CIIS's Expressive Arts Therapy Program and Associate Professor in the graduate programs in Transformative Inquiry and Transformative Leadership.  She has been training counseling psychology and social work students in Narrative Therapy as well as other approaches since the early 1990s and has been teaching "multimodal" narrative expressive arts therapies at CIIS since 2008.  A graduate of the Omega Theater Transpersonal Dramatherapy program in Boston, MA, Shoshana has a rich background in integrating drama and expressive arts approaches into multiple contexts with children and adults in therapeutic, educational, and larger systems.  She was Training Director and Director of Special Projects at the Open Circle Program, Stone Center, Wellesley College, MA for several years where she contributed to the development of innovative, culturally-sensitive arts and and mindfulness-based approaches to enhancing children's social and emotional well-being through a group and whole systems based "it takes a village" philosophy.

http://www.ciis.edu/Academics/Faculty/Shoshana_Simons_Bio.html

 

Danielle Burnette, MA, MFT Intern is a graduate of the Expressive Arts Therapy program at California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and co-teaches Narrative Expressive Arts Therapy with Shoshana Simons.  She has eight years' experience working in the nonprofit arena as the Program Director for Pivotal Point Youth Services and Founder and Executive Director of Creative Cocoon for Girls.  She will begin work toward a PhD in Clinical Psychology in the Spring with her research studies focused on work with African American individuals and families around healing the inter-generational trauma of slavery using Expressive Arts Therapy.  As a spoken word artist she was the 2003 Oakland Poetry Slam Champion, is author of a book titled Cast Iron Life: a collection of poems and recipes, and has performed throughout the nation, most recently performing in a spoken word tribute to Dr. Cornel West.

http://www.ciis.edu/Academics/Graduate_Programs/Expressive_Arts_Therapy/Students_and_Alumni/Danielle_Burnette_Alum.html

For More Information and Registration Contact:

Shoshana Simons

(617) 571-1542

fridapaz@mac.com

Related Links and Readings:

What is Narrative Therapy?

http://www.dulwichcentre.com.au/what-is-narrative-therapy.html

Narrative Expressive Arts Therapy with Children

http://www.narrativeapproaches.com/narrative%20papers%20folder

/art_therapy.htm

Transforming Narratives through Song

Denborough, D. (2002). Community song writing and narrative practice. Clinical Psychology, 17, 17-24. (can be accessed through the Dulwich Centre website - http://www.dulwichcentre.com.au)

Songs as a Response to Hardship

http://www.dulwichcentre.com.au/songs.html

Transforming Narratives through Visual Art

Tree of Life

http://www.dulwichcentre.com.au/tree-of-life.html

Join Our Email List
Email:  

Featured Events