Healing the
Wounds of History
A 15-Week (45 hour) Experiential Training
Live Online
Healing Generational Trauma, Conflict Transformation and Peace Building through Drama Therapy & the Arts
36 Continuing Education Credits Available for Licensed Psychologists,
Social Workers, LPCC and MFTs
Facilitated by
Armand Volkas, LMFT, RDT/BCT
For Psychotherapists, Drama and Expressive Arts Therapists, Social Workers, Interns, Trainees, Coaches, Peacebuilders, Social Entrepreneurs, and Activists
• Learn peacebuilding and conflict transformation approaches to heal generational, historical and ancestral trauma through drama therapy and other action methods.
• Apply the Healing the Wounds of History approach as a powerful tool in unearthing and transforming wounding narratives of individuals, groups, and societies.
• 36 Continuing Education (CE) Credits available for Psychologists, MFTs, LPCCs and LCSWs. Approved by the American Psychological Association.
• Fulfills core educational requirements in Registered Drama Therapist Alternate Training Program with the North American Drama Therapy Association.
WHEN:
September 13 – December 13, 2023
Wednesday Mornings
9am – 12pm PST
One-Day Intensive working with members of the Vietnamese Community
and the legacy of the War in Vietnam
Saturday, December 9th
WHERE:
Live Online via Zoom
COST
$1,050
($70 per 3 hour session)
15 weeks
Payment plans available
(Contact Armand Volkas for more information: [email protected])
No previous theatre experience required
Shy clinicians welcome!
Healing the Wounds of History through Drama Therapy
• In this course, participants will learn a unique approach to healing collective trauma and transforming intercultural conflict using techniques drawn from drama therapy, expressive arts therapy, Psychodrama, Sociodrama and Playback Theatre.
• Through experiential exercises integrated with didactic explanations of the model, Armand Volkas will guide participants through an embodied exploration of the following questions: How do cultures emotionally integrate a legacy of perpetration or victimization? How do we prevent the rage, guilt and shame of one generation from haunting a people for generations to come. The experiential portion of the training will focus on the application of Healing the Wounds of History as a tool in working with individuals, groups and transforming societies.
• The didactic portion of the training will offer readings and a theoretical basis and rationale for the use of Healing the Wounds of History in working through personal and collective trauma in multiple cultural and clinical contexts. Drama Therapy and the expressive arts can provide a bridge between personal and collective experience, help people digest complex feelings, heal deep wounds and put ghosts of history to rest.
• Healing generational, historical, and ancestral trauma involves an uncovering of the dysfunctional narrative or “life script” that we carry beyond your conscious awareness as a member of the collective. Hurtful spoken and unspoken messages about life, love, and our self-worth, as well as positive messages that have been handed down from our culture or ancestors, can impact our feeling of well-being, self-esteem, and our very identities.
• The Healing the Wounds of History training will culminate with participants assisting in a one-day intensive workshop on Saturday, December 9th with one group or culture who share a legacy of generational and historical trauma, where the tools they have learned will be applied and integrated.
• In past trainings we have worked with Armenians on the legacy of Genocide, Brazilians on colonialism and the legacy of enslavement, and the Tibetan community on their historical legacy of the modern occupation of their land. In this cycle of the course, we will be immersing ourselves in Vietnamese history and working with members of the Vietnamese community. In addition, we will explore how the War in Vietnam has impacted American culture and identity.
ARMAND VOLKAS, MFA, MA, MFT, RDT/BCT
Armand is a psychotherapist, drama therapist and theatre director. He is Clinical Director of The Living Arts Counseling Center, Associate Professor in the Drama and Expressive Arts Therapy Programs at California Institute of Integral Studies, He is Artistic Director of The Living Arts Playback Theatre Ensemble, Founder and Director, Healing the Wounds of History: Center for Peacebuilding and the Arts. He works internationally. Driven by his legacy as the son of resistance fighters and survivors of Auschwitz concentration camp, Armand has developed innovative programs using drama therapy and the arts for social change, intercultural conflict transformation and healing generational and collective trauma.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Armand Volkas, MFT, RDT/BCT
[email protected]
510.595.5500, ext. 11
THE HEALING THE WOUNDS OF HISTORY PROCESS
Healing the Wounds of History is a process in which psychotherapy, drama and expressive arts therapy techniques are used to work with a group of participants who share a common legacy of historical trauma. The process was developed by Armand Volkas, a psychotherapist and drama therapist from Berkeley, California. Volkas is the son of Auschwitz survivors and resistance fighters from World War II. He was moved by his personal struggle with this legacy to address the issues that arose from it: issues around identity, victimization and perpetration, meaning and grief. Healing the Wounds of History helps participants work through the burden of such legacies by transforming their pain into constructive action through acts of creation and acts of service.
REGISTERED DRAMA THERAPIST ALTERNATE TRAINING
This course fulfills the core drama therapy (3 unit, 45 hour) educational requirement for Drama Therapy with Specific Populations or Advanced Elective in Drama Therapy for the Alternative Training Program with the North American Drama Therapy Association when combined with additional required coursework. An additional $50 administrative fee will be added to the total course fee. Contact Armand Volkas for more information, contact: [email protected], (510) 220-5186
SECTION BELOW IS INFORMATION
FOR HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS SEEKING CEs
Information on Continuing Education Credit for Health Professionals
• 36 Continuing Education (CE) Credits are available for Psychologists, MFTs, LPCCs and LCSWs for an additional $75 fee.
• CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
• The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• SCA is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. RNs must retain their certificate of attendance for 4 years after the course concludes.
• For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact Center for the Living Arts at (510) 595-5500, Ext 11, [email protected].
For questions about CE, contact Spiritual Competency Academy at [email protected].
CONTINUING EDUCATION LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of the program, participants will be better able to…
• Discuss the differences between collective trauma, historical trauma, ancestral trauma and generational trauma using the psychodramatic technique of the locogram
• Describe how historical trauma impacts cultural and national identity and self-esteem in traumatized cultures at a personal level
• Explain the social, psychological and biological mechanisms through which historical trauma is passed from generation to generation
• Demonstrate how dysfunctional cultural narratives are formed through the use of the Healing the Wounds of History Map of Messages exercise
• Apply the basic principles of intercultural communication though psychodramatic soliloquy and interpersonal dialogue
• Analyze how personal and cultural messages get translated into “life scripts” through the Map of Messages exercise and through the Therapeutic Spiral Model
• Design a drama therapy progression in service of trauma transformation goals
• Compare the differences between therapy and activism
• List the 6 phases of the Healing the Wounds of History approach
• Apply and teach the principles of intercultural communication through psychodramatic doubling, sculpting and soliloquy
• Design a social change project, of your own choosing, which reflects a passion, belief, or value that you hold deeply
• Utilize skills of drama therapy, sociodrama, psychodrama, expressive arts therapy and creative ritual with a social change and therapeutic intention
• Demonstrate and use at least 3 drama therapy spontaneity exercises to form group cohesion.
• Demonstrate a beginning competence in how to use drama therapy in working with social justice and peacebuilding issues.
• Explain the steps involved in personal and collective apology and repair
• Utilize beginning psychodramatic and drama therapy techniques with individuals and groups in service of healing generational trauma
• Demonstrate how to uncover historical wounding in individuals and groups, develop a hypothesis about the collective trauma and empower the client to transform their traumatic inheritance by creating a new narrative
• Analyze and discuss the terms social change, peacebuilding & conflict transformation
• Assess the psychosocial consequences of political denial or minimization of collective and historical traumas like the Holocaust, Slavery and the Genocide of Armenians and Native Americans in individuals and groups who carry these legacies
• Discuss epistemological similarities and differences between collective and transgenerational trauma theories
• Describe the psychobiological components of historical trauma by explaining the basics of Epigenetics
• Discuss and compare the differences and similarities in the approaches to healing historical trauma outlined by Eduardo Duran Healing the Soul Wound of Native Americans, Joy DeGruy’s Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome and Armand Volkas’s Healing the Wounds of History model
• Explain Yael Danieli’s theory of differing responses to transgenerational trauma through the observation of adaptational styles in families from traumatized cultures: victim, numb and fighter in trauma survivors children
• List and explain the principles of Transactional Analysis and explain Eric Berne’s theory that dysfunctional behavior is the result of self-limiting decisions made in childhood in the interest of survival that culminate in life scripts
