Workshop on Expressive Arts Approaches to Working with Trauma – 19/01/2018

Seminar / Workshop on Expressive Arts Approaches to Working with Trauma on Friday the 19th January 2018 from 3 pm to 6 pm at Renuka City Hotel, Colombo-03

The IMH is pleased and excited to announce and organize a very special public Seminar / Workshop program that will be conducted on Friday the 19th of January 2018 from 3 pm to 6 pm at the Renuka City Hotel in Colombo-03 on “Expressive Arts Approaches to Working with Trauma” by two world renowned experts in this field, Professor Vivien Marcow Speiser, Ph.D., LMHC, REAT, BC-DMT, Professor and Director of the Institute for Arts and Health in The Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (MA), USA., and Dr. Phillip Speiser, PhD, REAT, RDT/BC who is an expressive arts educator/therapist, drama & music therapist, and psychodramatist who has developed and implemented integrated arts therapy and educational programs for over three decades. He is currently Director of Arbour Counseling Partial Hospitalization Program in Norwell, MA, USA.

The discounted participation fee for IMH Students is Rs. 2,500/- and for non-IMH participants its Rs. 3,500/-. A valuable IMH Certificate of Participation signed by the seminar presenters will be awarded at the end of the program. Refreshments will be provided to all participants as well.

Due to limited seating capacity you are kindly advised to register yourself early on or before the 13th of January 2018 by visiting the IMH office at No. 36A, Shrubbery Gardens, Colombo-04. Payments can be made by cash or with VISA or MasterCard credit / debit cards.

Seminar / Workshop Details on Expressive Arts Approaches to Working with Trauma

This presentation will discuss and demonstrate the application of the expressive arts as an integrated sensory-based and embodied intervention, integrating contemporary principles of dance, drama and expressive therapy, focusing, somatic psychology, mindfulness, trauma-informed practice, and creative process within psychotherapy. Trauma is housed in the body. Trauma often involves feelings of “stuckness” and “numbness” and with children can be manifested in an inability to play, therefore therapeutic approaches involving the arts, creativity, imagination and body oriented therapies can be helpful. Expressive arts approaches to working with trauma focus on creative means for containing, discharging and rechanneling. They can strengthen individual and community resilience and connections and decrease compassion fatigue and caregiver burnout.

Artistic expressions and expressive arts interventions can lead to a wide variety of creative outcomes that can support people as they address traumatic experiences and a complex array of feelings. Engaging the Creative Process allows for a mobilization of resources (emotional, social, spiritual, physical, cognitive) The arts and expressive expressions and enactments are ways of “ telling the story” in symbolic ways that are able to” hold and contain” that is, to have coexisting within them complex and at times contradictory elements. The telling of stories and the expression of personal narratives through a wide variety of art forms to a community of witnesses can be a powerful tool for individuals to work through difficult experiences.

About the Instructors / Presenters

Prof. Vivien Marcow Speiser, Ph.D., LMHC, REAT, BC-DMT, is a Professor and Director of the Institute for Arts and Health in The Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University. Prof. Speiser is a licensed mental health counselor, a dance therapist and an expressive arts therapist and educator. She has developed and implemented numerous arts based programs throughout the U.S and Israel. As former founder and director of the Arts Institute Project in Israel, she has been influential in the development of Expressive Arts Therapy in that country. She has taught and lectured extensively throughout Scandinavia, Israel, South Africa and the United States. She is a former chair of the New England Dance Therapy Association (NEADTA), and former co-chair of the credentials committee of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA). In addition she was the chair of the Massachusetts Coalition of Creative Arts Therapists (MCCAT) which was influential in the licensure of Creative Arts Therapists as Licensed Mental Health Counselor’s (LMHC). Prof. Speiser has taught throughout the world and believes in the use of the arts as a way of communicating across borders and across cultures. She believes in the power of the arts to create the conditions for personal and social change and transformation. Her interests and expertise lie in the areas of working with communities under duress through an integrated arts approach. Many of her publications are grounded in her work with trauma and cross-cultural conflict resolution through the arts. In addition, she is an expert in the creation and performance of ‘rites of passage rituals’ and in the use of performance in expressive therapy practice.

Her contributions to the field have made her an international leader in dance and expressive therapy, and most recently earned her the 2014 Distinguished Fellows Award from the Global Alliance for Arts and Health and a 2015 Honorary Fellow Lifetime Achievement award from the Israeli Expressive and Creative Arts Therapy Association (ICET). Her current interests are in generating community training and research partnerships and cross-cultural conflict resolution through the arts.

https://lesley.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/vivien-marcow-speiser

Dr. Phillip Speiser, PhD, REAT, RDT/BC is an expressive arts educator/therapist, drama & music therapist, and psychodramatist who has developed and implemented integrated arts therapy and educational programs for over three decades. He is currently Director of Arbour Counseling Partial Hospitalization Program in Norwell, MA. He has worked and developed programs with individuals and groups in conflict around the globe, including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and the Middle East. He is well known in the Boston area for his ongoing commitment and work with violence prevention through the use of the arts. After 9/11 he developed and implemented arts based ‘trauma recovery / prevention’ programs in Boston and New York City.

During the 1980’s he lived in Sweden and developed the field of Expressive Arts Therapy in Scandinavia. He is adjunct Professor at Cambridge College, Cambridge MA and has taught at numerous colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. He is the former chairperson of Very Special Arts Sweden and has worked extensively within the fields of mental health, education, arts and medicine/health/disabilities and conflict resolution.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-speiser-ph-d-lmhc-93a12159/