Core Drama Therapy Classes
DT – 101 Principles of Drama Therapy (3 units, repeat as advanced)
Participants will explore drama therapy approaches of Role Theory, Narradrama, Integrative 5 Phase, Transpersonal, Psychoanalytic and DVT as well as projective and psychodramatic techniques applied to specific populations. Through experiential exercises, participants will discover ways to creatively utilize masks, puppets, life size dolls and objects and will also participate in practicing psychodramatic techniques of role reversal, doubling, interviewing and mirroring.
DT – 102 Creative Drama (3 units)
Participants will explore the theory and practice of creative drama in educational and therapeutic settings. They will discover creative methods of developing story dramatization, ongoing drama, pantomime and theatre games. They will explore linear and process approaches to creative drama as create projects centered around social action and performance art. Class projects and exercises will be applied to educational, community, and clinical settings.
DT – 103 Creative Arts Therapies (3 units)
Participants will explore the therapeutic uses of movement, art, music, poetry and drama in individual and group psychotherapy through experiential exercises and special assignments. Digital media, phototherapy, cinema therapy and video therapy will also be a part of the discovery. Participants will be invited to find different methods of integrating drama and creative arts therapies in their personal lives and with the clients they serve. Applications to various populations and treatment settings will be shown through personal case histories and videos.
DT – 104 Drama Therapy with Special Populations (3 units)
Participants will explore how to use drama therapy effectively with special populations, including adult psychiatric population, emotionally disturbed children and teens, and other populations of interest to course participants. Course will also examine culturally sensitive ways of utilizing drama therapy and creative arts with individuals of differing cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Taken as a single class or 6 one day electives
DT – 105 Sociodrama and Advanced Psychodramatic Techniques (3 units)
This course focuses on Sociodrama and advanced psychodramatic techniques, based
on the work of Jacob Moreno and contributions of international leaders in the field. In
Sociodrama, participants will explore empty chair sociodrama, pre-rehearsed dramaturgy,
dramatic multiplication, living newspaper, re-plotting and other specialized techniques for sociodrama. Participants will also explore psychodramatic techniques of living sculpture, psychodramatic interviewing,role reversal, mirrors, and other advanced psychodramatic techniques as well as sociometric techniques (i.e. spectrograms, etc.).Selected videos and targeted assignments will assist participants in planning and facilitating these processes in community, education, business, and in other settings.
DT – 106 Ethical and Legal Issues (3 units)
Participants will explore the relevant ethical and legal issues associated with practicing as a drama therapist and investigate disclosures, dual relationships/multiple roles, confidentiality, laws pertaining to minors and elders, risk management, child and elder abuse, HIPPA, malpractice, Tarasof, tele-health and more. Class will consider issues related specifically to drama therapy, diversity, and privilege and will enact hypothetical situations raising ethical and legal concerns. Participants will develop individualized disclosures, which relate to their specific scope of practice.
Taken for 1 unit (14 hours) if student qualifies for a Translational Project having completed Ethics in a counseling or psychology program.
DT – 107 Research, Assessment and Treatment in Drama (3 units)
Participants explore relevant drama therapy and creative arts assessments instruments such as the Role Playing Test, Six Piece Story Making, Tell a Story, Role Profiles, EPR, and 6 Keys Model. They also examine current research practices, both practice and evidenced based as well as identify an area of interest in research. A short research paper or proposed plan for a pilot study will conclude the course.
*Note: for each core class there will be approximately 5 to 10 arranged hours.
Advanced Practice Classes Relating to Performance
DT – 108 Restoried Script Performance: Advanced Practice Drama Therapy (3 units)
Participants will restory and restructure a relevant aspect of their lives in a restoried script, which develops into live performance with aesthetic and personal elements. The course draws from experimental theatre, creative drama, sociodrama, narrative therapy and performance art. In the process, participants explore life stories through song, poetry, dance, photography and art in a creative and supportive environment while becoming aware of their special gifts and strengths. The restorying process can be helpful in working with a variety of populations. Class will culminate in the performance of the restoried scripts with parameters of that performance agreed upon by the participants.
DT- 109 Narradrama as a Three-Act Play (3 units)
Participants, as authors of their three act plays, restory parts of their history, imagine new possibilities, experience unexpected outcomes and gain insights about their strengths. Each aspect of the development of their play is explored from a narradrama perspective, such as preferred roles, scenes, prologue, epilogue, play structure, stage design, staging, reflection and interpersonal connection to team members. Participants, through scaffolding techniques, reflect on previous work and integrate new parts that they prefer as well as witnessing and honoring others. Participants receive weekly workbook pages to complete with suggested exercises designed to generate a deeper exploration of the roles, themes and encounters in the play as well as opportunities to grow personally in understanding themselves and their preferred futures. Reflective, processes through the telling and retelling of stories as well as other forms of reflection are central to the participants. The process culminates in a performance honoring all participants.
Elective Drama Therapy Courses and Required Courses in Narradrama
DT – 110 Clinical Uses of Narradrama with Individuals and Groups ( 3 units- or 4 separate classes including: Introduction to Narradrama Steps, Transformational Stories, Pivotal Moments, and Narradrama and Neuroscience)
Participants will (1) explore narrative and drama therapy theories and practices based on current research and (2) learn and practice specific drama and creative arts interventions (based on narradrama) that open more expressive, and creative ways to work and to respect cultural differences. While practicing through experiential exercises the basic concepts and techniques of Narradrama, participants will find new action oriented ways to bring forth client strengths as well as encourage spontaneity and creativity. Well-established narrative concepts –such as externalization, scaffolding and landscapes of action and identity — will be expanded through narradrama. (for expanded description of this course go to APA CE courses)
Clinical Uses of Narradrama with Individuals and Groups as four separate shorter classes
DT- 110 (A) Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Narradrama and Neuroscience (7 hours, .5 unit)
Course will cover research on positive emotions, and the importance of social engagement from a neurological point of view. Siegel’s (2011) research of the four areas that contribute to synaptic growth (emotional arousal, repetition, novelty, and focused attention) will be explored in Narradrama research and through experiential exercises utilizing drama and the creative arts. Participants will discover through selected Narradrama interventions how Narradrama can be utilized to strengthen synaptic connections in each of the 4 areas.
DT- 110 (B)Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Transformational Stories (14 hours, 1 unit)
Course focuses on the use of story in Narradrama in a transformational way and looks at the following categories of stories: unique outcome, identity change, healing relationship, possibility and power. Participants explore through experiential exercises ways to expand and develop transformational stories and move from problem- saturated stories to more preferred ones through a restorying process
DT- 110 (C) Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Pivotal Moments (7 hours, .5 units)
Participants will explore the use of drama therapy and creative arts in uncovering aha experiences or pivotal moments which bring forth positive entry ways into personal stories for the client which show agency and hope. Through experiential exercises involving embodied art and transformational moments, participants will discover how to help clients reclaim and reconnect with preferred memories and experiences, values and relationships.
DT- 110 (D) Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Introduction to Narradrama Steps (14 hours, 1 unit)
Participants in an embodied way will experience the 9 narradrama steps and explore action methods of, using creative arts, to assist clients to externalize problems, explore personal agency, and make discoveries about their strengths and abilities.
TA – 111(A) Allies in Healing: Narradrama and Narrative Therapy (7 hours/CE’s)
Participants will discover foundational concepts in Narrative therapy such as
externalization, doubly listening, landscape of action and identity and explore ways to
integrate action action techniques inspired by Narradrama. An in depth understanding of
narrative questions and practice in developing questions will equip the participants to
expand the moment and move into embodiment. Narradrama and resilience will also be
explored in specific interventions. Applications will be made to educational, clinical and
community settings.
DT- 111(B) Allies in Healing: Narradrama and Narrative Therapy: (7 hours, .5 unit)
Participants will explore new, advanced concepts in narrative therapy translated into Narradrama and expressive arts methods with a focus on creating spaces of resilience from a trauma-informed approach.
DT – 112 A-Narradrama Innovative Techniques (14 hours/CE’s)
Participants will explore the newest techniques and innovative work through
Narradrama, applied for personal growth and to clinical and educational settings. These
techniques include multi-level stories, restorying, reauthoring, sensory rich development
and more. Through experiential practice, participants will understand both the benefits
and ways to use these techniques with different populations
DT – 113 Narradrama in Community, Education or Business (7 hours, .5 unit)
Participants explore new innovative and transformational Narradrama Techniques focused on action and creative arts methods of developing stories, themes, and roles to which can be applied to varies non-clinical settings.
DT – 114 Narradrama Supervision Group (ongoing)
DT – 115 Narradrama Witnessing Practices: Reflecting Teams and Creative Arts (7 hours, .5 unit)
Reflective practices invite an expansive, unobtrusive, deeply honoring way of being seen and appreciated. Participants will explore witnessing practices which help to enhance the therapeutic session including the use of a reflecting team, individual reflections and expansive ways to reflect through conversation, art, movement and phototherapy.
DT – 116 Special Narradrama Topic (7 hours, .5 unit)
DT-117 Exploring Trauma Through Metaphor: Narradrama Tools and Techniques in Working with Trauma Survivors (7 hours, .5 unit)
During this workshop participants will explore trauma as metaphor within the theoretical framework of narradrama. They will identify narradrama tools that assist in the healing journey from fear to freedom. “ Trauma is like a straightjacket that binds the mind and body in frozen fear. Paradoxically, it is also a portal that can lead us to awakening and freedom.”
DT-118 Narradrama and other Drama Therapy Approaches with Women’s Issues(7 hours, .5 units)
Women are faced with many challenges in their lifetime that can lead to feelings of isolation, shame, and lowered self-worth. This workshop will explore the use of narradrama, transpersonal, ritual and role approaches to help women create a safe space to explore issues such as infertility, perinatal mood disorders in new and expectant mothers, miscarriage, body image, and empty nesting.
DT-119- Intersectional Identities in the Therapeutic Encounter (7 hours, .5 units)
In this course participants will address the following questions: How is our ethical practice in therapeutic, clinical, and educational settings informed by the way identities intersect and influence human experience? What is intersectionality as a theoretical paradigm and as a practice in drama therapy? How are gendered, racialized, neurodiverse, and queer bodies and perspectives quieted in our field? What can we do to help amplify — not quiet—intersectional identities? Participants will engage in exploring enactments of the 10 Multicultural Guidelines (APA 2017) to reconsider diversity and multicultural practice. ( For expanded description of this course go to CE courses sponsored by APA)
Taken for 1 unit (14 hours) if student qualifies for a Translational Project having completed Ethics in a counseling or psychology program.
DT-120- Navigating the Journey through Trauma and Loss with Narradrama ( hours, .5 unit)
Change is a constant in our lives and takes on various rhythms throughout our lifespan. The change of the seasons, growing through developmental stages, the transition from night to day and birth and death. There are losses experienced along the way as well as positive growth and the emerging of strengths. Trauma is experienced when we are strained beyond our capacity to adapt and to regulate our states of arousal. Trauma inhibits our ability to play, imagine, and have hope. During this course we will explore the natural rhythms of loss and the impact of trauma including biological, relational, social and emotional. Using drama and creative arts, participants will explore interventions centered in action techniques, which have been helpful in working with groups and individuals who have experienced loss and trauma.
DT- 121 (A, B, C, D, E, or F) – Narradrama with Special Populations (7 hours, .5 unit)
Participants will explore specific narradrama methods of working with the population studied. Each time the course is offered, the population will change. Populations include: Families, Prisoners, Indigenous, Children and Teens and ADHD
DT-121 A Drama therapy for Indigenous populations (7 hours, .5 units)
Participants will learn and practice specific drama and creative arts interventions (based on narradrama) to deepen understanding of the intergenerational impact of history, colonization, and oppression on Indigenous communities, health, and well-being, apply embodied mindfulness-based compassion practices that can be used by providers to work with obstacles to care such as internalized oppression and compassion fatigue, and develop an understanding of the relationship of cultural practices such as storytelling and arts to activism and healing. By practicing these approaches, participants will increase the possible methods of therapeutic intervention and communication.
DT- 121 B Introduction to drama Therapy work with imprisoned persons
Qualifies for hours toward the completion of CHED requirements for NADTA
DT- 121 C Drama Therapy and Narradrama: Justice Impacted Persons ( 7/ CE hours)
*Required for Narradrama Training
This workshop will cover more advanced case studies and techniques from both the
U.S. and abroad in working with justice impacted persons, including imprisoned
persons, transitional periods after prison, and support for families of impacted persons.
The workshop covers both educational and therapeutic settings.
DT- 122 Narradrama Advanced Techniques: (14 hours, 1 unit)
Participants explore and practice advanced techniques of Narradrama including: deconstruction and reconstruction, multi layered narratives, sensory rich environments, narradrama questions, narradrama interviewing and more.
DT – 123 (A) Narradrama and Mindfulness (7 hours, .5 unit)
Participants will explore the fundamentals of mindfulness practices integrated with
Narradrama through a series of exercises and applied to a variety of educational and
therapeutic settings. Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where
we are and what we are doing and Narradrama offers an opportunity to experience that kind of
presence through authentic stories and actions invited by that awareness.
DT – 123 (B) Narradrama and Mindfulness; Advanced (7 hours, .5 unit)
Participants will apply mindfulness and Narradrama practice to working with specific populations and settings.
DT – 124 A Healing-Centered Approach to Trauma Integrating Narradrama (7 hours, .5 unit)
There is a wealth of strength and resources to be uncovered through using our imagination to explore ancient symbolic knowledge, connecting with our ancient roots. This workshop aims to shed light on trauma from an indigenous perspective to provide a framework for participants to bring forward strengths from their own wisdom traditions and heritage to manage present day trauma and/or difficulties. It aims to move from a deficit base model of trauma informed care to an asset driven strengths model. A healing centered approach views trauma not simply as an individual isolated experience, but rather highlights the ways in which trauma and healing are experienced collectively
DT-125 (A). Narradrama Internship and Field Work (Facilitator Level) ( 2 units), May be repeated.
DT- 125 (B). Narradrama Professional Work and Teaching (Trainer Level) ( 3 units), May be repeated.
DT-126A Clinical Uses of Embodied Narradrama for Trauma in Childhood and Adolescence (7 hours, .5 units)
Participants will learn and practice trauma specific drama and creative arts interventions (based on narradrama, somatic experiencing, and mindfulness). This perspective brings a trauma informed care approach based on current research and best practices models. Participants will learn interventions to help guide children and adolescents through 1) the shock experienced in the aftermath of a wide range of overwhelming life events, and 2) focusing on the story of trauma in the body, which is where the trauma resides, and restorying the trauma. Narrative and somatic processes such as externalization, pendulation, resourcing, and preferred identities/futures will be expanded through narradrama. These techniques will increase the possible methods of therapeutic intervention.
DT- 126B
DT- 127 Introduction to Drama Therapy work with in-prison persons.
TA-128 Drama Therapy and Narradrama: Justice Impacted Persons ( 7/ CE hours)
Required for Narradrama Training
This workshop will cover more advanced case studies and techniques from both the
U.S. and abroad in working with justice impacted persons, including imprisoned
persons, transitional periods after prison, and support for families of impacted persons.
The workshop covers both educational and therapeutic settings.
DT -129 (7 hours/CE’s)
Drama Therapy for Transformative Justice. This class will cover performance and creative expressions as forms of healing and their effects on resilience, gender norms, intersectionality, race, equity, diversity and rehabilitation in carceral settings. Recent creative work by drama therapists such as Zeina Daccache’s Blue Inmate Video Documentary and other works in the US and Canada will be explored.
Qualifies for hours toward the completion of CHED requirements for NADTA
DT Numbers 126- 132 (Reserved for new Narradrama Classes)
Other Elective Classes
DT-133-Therapeutic Improvisation: Knowing What to Play to Enhance the Therapeutic Process (7 hours, .5 unit)
Participants will experientially learn to adapt the intentional use of improve games and scenes to support clients across multiple settings such as acute inpatient hospitalization, residential treatment, and community mental health. Games will also be applied to educational settings.
DT – 134 Drama Therapy with Special Populations: Substance Abuse/Dual Diagnoses (7 hours, .5 unit)
Demonstrates how to apply and use drama therapy with substance abuse and dually diagnosed populations. Emphasizes a 12-step context and how drama therapy can be applied within this format.
DT – 135 Drama Therapy with Physically and Developmentally Disabled Clients (7 hours, .5 unit)
Studies drama therapy techniques for reaching mentally and physically challenged clients in group and individual settings.
DT – 136 Poetry, Music, Video and Drama Therapy with Adolescents (7 hours, .5 unit)
Explores creative ways of utilizing poetry, music, video and drama with adolescents in educational and mental health settings, including special work with masks and rituals.
DT – 137 Acting for Evolution (14 hours) *An acting group, not a CE class.
Acting for Evolution is a method of acting that focuses on different stages of personal
and social evolution. Participants will engage in traditional acting methods alongside
applied theatre processes, in order to break through barriers to confident self-
expression. This method also supports the cultivation between performers and the
community by embracing the foundations of the relationship between the actor and
audience in creating social change through performance.
DT – 138 Video in Drama Therapy (7 hours, .5 unit)
Course covers theoretical models and foundations of the use of video in therapy, indications and contra-indications, and effective techniques and exercises. Applications to a variety of populations and treatment settings will be explored.
DT – 139 Ecopoetry (3 hours/ CE ‘s)
In this workshop, participants embark on an exploration through the natural world while
examining our human impact on it —using the language of Ecopoetry. Reading the
works of ecopoets and engaging in mindfulness exercises, participants write from the
nature we embody: we open ourselves to recognizing our own responsibility through
taking on other perspectives and listening to what is needed. By doing this we may
better understand how to expand our reach to anyone who will listen. In this workshop,
we create poetry pieces intended for digital and traditional spaces in order to raise
awareness, define action, and inspire change.
You do not need to be a seasoned poet for this workshop, just have an appreciation for
poetry and in raising environmental awareness, while engaging in mindfulness and
playful discovery.
DT – 140 Photography and Drama Therapy Techniques (7 hours, .5 units)
Explores ways to utilize creative photography, collage, life size imagery, and photo cartoons in educational and therapeutic settings.
DT – 141- Phototherapy and Video: Advanced Techniques (3 units- required to take DT 140 prior to this course). Explores advanced practice of creative uses of photography and video in therapeutic and educational settings).
DT – 142 Drama Therapy Independent Study (7 hours, .5 unit)
DT – 143 Special Topic Drama Therapy ( 7-45 hours, .5 to 3 units)
DT – 144 Drama Therapy with Mood Disordered Clients (7 hours, .5 unit)
A study of mood disorders and ways of utilizing drama therapy in group and individual settings
DT – 145 Ritual, Ceremony and Theatre with Traditional Stories, Myths and Fairy Tales (16 CE’s)
This course will explore the healing value of ritual, story and ceremony in therapy. Participants will be interacting deeply with traditional stories, myth or fairy tales which they feel drawn to and embark on a journey of discovery about how to connect with something larger than themselves, as they venture into the unknown. They will return with greater awareness about themselves and how they want to belong to the world. In this voyage, participants will immerse themselves in the creative arts through mask making, photo journaling, dialogues and monologues and creating worlds and environments in an embodied way which is visceral and long lasting.
DT – 146 Social Theatre and Drama Therapy (7 hours, .5 unit)
Drama Therapy and Social Theatre explores the relationship between drama therapy and social theatre movements. Study the works of scholars such as Jan Cohen Cruz and Johnny Soldana, among others, on engaged performances that set out to heal communities and ethnographic practices that provide space for exploring alternatives in the face of social and economic crises.
DT – 147 Boal and Drama Therapy(7 hours, .5 unit)
Day Intensive: Techniques of Augusto Boal applied to drama therapy.
DT -148 Performance Studies and Drama Therapy(7 hours, .5 unit)
Explore the many benefits of relating performance studies to drama therapy by studying the contributions of several key theorists and practitioners in both performance ethnography and drama therapy. See how these two fields intersect and can support each other. Some concepts that will be covered include: the narrative turn in the humanities, the post-modern turn in critical cultural studies, key concepts in the discourses of both performance studies and drama therapy.
DT-149 Artful Grief: Adults (7 hours, .5 unit)
Using art, music, dialogue, reenactment, guided imagery, & other therapeutic techniques, this workshop offers remembering & healing rituals to help clients who are coping with loss and trying to move forward with life.
DT-150- Playing Out Anxiety: Using Drama Therapy to Work with Fear, Worry and Control. (7 hours, .5 unit).
From excessive worry to panic attacks to eating disorders, anxiety manifests itself in many different ways. Participants will explore new ways to play with anxiety that integrates drama therapy with different psychological theories.
DT-151- Artful Dying (7 hours, .5 unit)
Compare and contract current theories of grief and loss. Explore how drama therapy and creative arts work within these constructs.
DT- 152- Artful Aging (7 hours, .5 unit)
Looking at the end of life issues and how drama therapy can be adapted to use with the dying and their loved ones.
DT- 153 – Drama Therapy and Creative Arts with Special Populations: ADHD.(7 hours, .5 unit)
Practice the skills of storytelling, projective play, and purposeful improvisation, to help clients diagnosed with ADHD rehearse desired behaviors, practice being in relationship, expand and find flexibility between life roles, while strengthening executive functioning and emotional regulation. Course will cover selected theories and approaches to ADHD, focusing on the use of masks, photos, movement, drama, and art and include fundamental concepts of embodiment, distancing, and dramatic projection. Action tools, including monologues, story dramatization, dialogues, drama games, storytelling and creative media will be explored. (For an expanded description of this course go to APA CE courses)
DT-154- Drama Therapy and Performance in Conflict Resolution. (7 hours, .5 unit)
Participants will learn cutting-edge multimodal drama therapy and creative arts methods for conflict resolution based on current research, explore themes of conflict and power, and identify a variety of problem solving strategies. Through games, short scripts, and embodied dialogue, participants will discover how to help their clients clarify how and what they think, understand the dynamics of conflicts, and make informed decisions. Participants will gain physical and social awareness of how power & conflict functions within a specific setting, relationship, or story.
DT-155 Drama Therapy and Creative Arts with Special Populations(7 hours, .5 unit)
The purpose of this course is to provide a learning laboratory to study special populations, concentrating on a specific population and focus each time the course is offered. The course offers an opportunity to engage in an active, experiential approach to facilitating change. The course offers an opportunity to engage in an active, experiential approach to facilitating change in individual and group therapy settings. Mental health professionals learn the skills to of storytelling, projective play, and purposeful improvisation, to help clients in rehearsing desired behaviors, practicing being in relationship, expanding and finding flexibility between life roles, and performing the change they wish to be and see in the world. Special populations include, but are not limited to emotionally disturbed children, teens and adults with eating disorders, addictive adults and other populations.
DT-156 Introduction to Drama Therapy and Addiction (7 hours, .5 unit)
This course focuses on providing a theoretical understanding of how drama therapy and other creative arts therapies can be integrated into addiction treatment. Participants will actively participate in a practical forum for trying out different creative experiential exercises to use with clients dealing with substance abuse and/or process addictions. In particular, participants will learn how to help clients differentiate between the “addict self” and the descriptors used to identify one’s core self. Cognitive restructuring, identifying triggering behaviors, and identifying future life choices in comparison to current life choices will be explored. (for an expanded description of this course go to APA CE courses)
DT-157 Clinical Uses of Drama Therapy and The Creative Arts with Trauma (7 hours, .5 unit)
This workshop will show the utilization of drama therapy as a treatment for violence, chronic trauma, and PTSD. Traumatized clients are often frozen in a heightened state of arousal with limited relief from conventional interventions. Bessel Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score (2014) argues for the utilization of theater as a healing process for traumatized clients. Drama therapy provides an en-vivo experience for the client and assists in the development of enhanced focus and emotional self- regulation through dramatic play and artistic expression. The therapist will develop skills to effectively guide clients through drama therapy projective artistic experiences, with the goal of increasing insight and emotional tolerance in the client. (for an expanded description of this course go to APA CE courses)
DT-158 Healing and Rebuilding: Grief work with Children and Teens (7 hours, .5 unit)
Using art, music, dialogue, reenactment, guided imagery, & other therapeutic techniques, this workshop offers remembering and healing rituals to help clients who are coping with loss and trying to move forward with life. Specific experiential exercises will augment traditional talk therapy and help the active development of knowledge and skills. (for expanded description of this course go to CE courses sponsored by APA.)
DT – 159 Body Awareness and Movement in Personal Growth, Psychotherapy and Education (7 hours, .5 unit)
This course will provide theory and an active experiential approach to learn about the mind and body connection, body awareness, and observation and assessment of movement through Laban Movement method which provides a common language to observe, assess, and provide interventions and experience self- growth. The experiential exercises are linked directly to the active development of professional knowledge and skills as well as personal growth. Art, intermodal exercises and expressive arts will be used for processing.
DT – 160 Drama Therapy for Addiction: Healing the effects of Trauma (7 hours, .5 unit)
Clients dealing with addiction may also have a history of unaddressed trauma accompanied by feelings of shame and regret. This discussion and experiential-based elective aim to provide drama therapy-based tools for individuals and groups that can be used to address the impact of addiction. Using the lens of Landy’s drama therapeutic Role Theory participants will explore how these “roles” can facilitate a trauma-informed approach in understanding addiction. Participants will have the opportunity to use projective techniques and embodiment to enhance their clinical skills and will also discuss the unique challenges of working in systems with resistant, traumatized, and/or institutionalized clients.
DT – 161 Poetry, Monologues & Play: Healing Clients and Communities (7 hours, .5 unit)
This workshop explores self-generated material as a means of clients and communal healing both in a clinical setting and in the classroom.
TA- 162 Introduction to Drama Therapy for Educators, Mental Health Facilitators, and
Caregivers (7 hours/CE’s)
As mental health facilitators, educators and caregivers, the more techniques and tools
that we have in our toolbelt, the more we can meet the needs of the people we serve.
Using techniques such as role play, improvisation, and kinetic exercises can transform a
talk meeting, into one full of meaningful play. In this introduction to drama therapy,
participants will learn fundamentals from a role theory perspective. In addition,
participants will be introduced to a handful of drama therapy creative activities to work
with clients/students, and others. Exercises will be expanded to deepen the experience
as well as showing how to develop drama therapy for self-care.
DT- 163 Dance Movement for Trauma (7 hours, .5 units)This course will provide theory and an active experiential approach on the psychophysical effects of trauma and dance/movement therapy interventions that establish safety and reconnection. Interventions using rhythm, a safety dance, transformation of movement qualities, and finding resiliency will be explored through experiential exercises
DT-164 Clinical Uses of Embodied Narradrama for Trauma in Childhood and Adolescence – (7 hours, .5 units)
Participants will learn and practice trauma specific drama and creative arts interventions based on Narradrama, somatic experiencing, and mindfulness. This perspective brings in a trauma informed care approach based on current research and best practices models. Participants will learn interventions to help guide children and adolescent through 1) the shock experienced in the aftermath of a wide range of overwhelming life events, and 2) focusing on the story of trauma in the body and restorying the trauma. Narrative and somatic processes such as externalization, pendulation, resourcing, and preferred identities/futures will be expanded.
DT-165 Clinical Uses of Embodied Narradrama for Trauma in Childhood and Adolescence: Expanding Treatment and Techniques (B) (7 hours, .5 units)
Participants will expand on interventions to help guide children and adolescents through the second phase of trauma informed care: telling the story focusing on the use of Narradrama, mindfulness, and somatic experiencing. This training will include the Broken Story from Narradrama. These techniques will increase the possible methods of therapeutic intervention.
DT-166 The Use of Drama Therapy in Treatment of Children & Adolescents (7 hours, .5 unit)
Imaginative, symbolic, or pretend play is an essential part of child development, and it can provide the child and adolescent a safe and meaningful way of expressing and processing their feelings. This course explores how drama therapy and other expressive arts therapy techniques can be utilized in treatment of children and adolescents. Participants will be introduced to drama and expressive arts interventions for some of the common presenting issues among children and adolescents such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, and behavioral challenges. Relevant research findings, theoretical orientations, case examples will be discussed. Through experiential exercises using projective tools and embodied expressions, participants will explore practical and potential applications of drama and other expressive arts in assisting child and adolescent clients in developing emotion regulation skills, adaptive coping and social skills, and positive self-image.
DT-167 Music Therapy for Drama and Creative Arts Therapists (7 hours, .5 unit)
This course will define music therapy, and review its basic tenets and affirm the power of music as therapeutic tool. Discussion will address similarities to and distinctions from other creative modalities, as well as different types of music therapy approaches and the theoretical orientations in which those approaches are grounded. Examples of music therapy with several clinical populations (e.g. trauma survivors, older adults, clients on the autism spectrum, those with terminal illness) will be provided, and illuminated by discussion of relevant articles.
The class will also entail experiential learning through some of the following clinical approaches: group improvisation, songwriting/song completion, music and imagery. Participants will gain an appreciation of music therapy techniques that can be incorporated by drama and creative arts therapists to enhance their work, as well as those that may less “portable”.
TA- 168 Drama Therapy with Addicts and Their Families (7 hours/CE’s)
Clients dealing with addiction disorders rarely go through their addiction journey truly alone. They often have friends/family members who have been a part of both their active use/behaviors and their recovery. This experiential workshop helps therapists understand the use of drama therapy tools to address the impact of addiction on clients and their core and chosen families. Using Robert Landy’s drama therapeutic Role Theory with projective techniques and embodiment, participants will explore how family “roles” can work towards recovery and reparation of relationships, as well as helping to take ownership of their part in the addiction process.
TA-169 Introduction to Playback Theatre (7 hours/CEs)
Explore the fundamentals of playback theatre through the discovering the role of the conductor, player, and the teller and the unique collaboration which occurs between them. Experience Playback embodied exercises and methods for warming up the audience and creating a safe space for a teller to emerge. Discover the challenge of playback from the point of view of the players who act the story. Explore ways to witness the playback of that story and reflection processes. Whether in classroom, hospital, conference or in a theatre, tellers of stories witness the profound experience of being seen, heard and honored.
TA- 170 Exploring Dance Movement with Special Groups (7 hours/CEs)
Explore ways to experience movement to enrich your personal growth, identity and future while discovering how to assist clients toward health and healing. Creative movement exercises will be experienced first on a personal level, and then applied to working with different special groups such as older adults, differently abled populations and individuals experiencing transitional life events in educational and clinical settings.
TA- 171 Introduction to Poetry in Personal Growth, Psychotherapy and Education ( 7 hours/CE’s)
Participants will explore in dynamic ways how poetry taps into the subconscious mind to
gain clarity in the present moment, tend to past wounds, and provide perspective into
the future. Themes involving our past, present, and future; health and body image;
connection to nature and the world; love and relationships; grief and loss; imagination,
and the calling of our innermost selves will provide rich material for exploration.
Participants will read and respond to poetry and write their own poems in response to
the creative multimodal exercises. They will also explore ways to introduce poetry
interventions in clinical, educational and community settings. While a segment is
dedicated to writing poems and sharing them in preferred ways, the focus is always on
participants’ own experiences and emotions, not on any poem as a literary product.
TA – 172 Using Poetry for Specific Therapeutic Purposes in Mental Health and
Educational Settings ( 7 hours/CE’s)
Discover how to incorporate poetry and multimodal methods in therapeutic contexts with groups
or individual clients. Learn about leading approaches in the field: Hynes and Hynes-
Berry’s bibliotherapeutic process (Hynes &Hynes-Berry,1994), Mazza’s RES
(receptive/prescriptive,/expressive/creative, symbolic/ceremonial) model of poetry therapy
(Mazza, 2003), and Fox’s practice of poetic medicine (Fox, 1997). Discover ways to select
poetry for specific therapeutic purposes (e.g. recovering from addiction, coping with fear and
anger, validating self-worth) and for selected populations (e.g. anxious adults, children and
adolescents with trauma, elders with dementia). Actively participate in creative exercises to
experience how poetry can be used for therapeutic purposes to help clients to unearth
something unexpected or buried within themselves, which can open a deeper dialogue, and
lead to clients’ increased self-awareness and self-understanding. Resources will be provided for
literature selection.
TA- 173 Utilization of Drama Therapy Techniques with People with Down
Syndrome (D.S.) (7 hours, .5 unit)
Working with adults with D.S. is a rewarding and joyful experience and therapists and educators
can learn about their lives and how they wish to be supported in the world. Through guided
improvisation exercises and adopting roles from pop culture and classic stories, the D.S.
students learn many things about themselves and how they wish to live and celebrate their
lives. Using specific case examples from an ongoing drama therapy class over the past 10 years,
participants of this class will learn directly from the D.S. population what was most exciting and
helpful in moving their lives forward in the way they want to be in/experience the world.
TA 174 – Poetry Therapy and Multi Modal Methods with Grief and Loss ( 7 hours/CEs)
Poetry and Expressive Art Multimodal Methods to Cope with Grief and Loss:
Discover how poetry and expressive art therapeutic methods help to explore grief and loss in a range of contexts, such as the death of a loved one, critical illness, miscarriage or loss of a child, divorce or end of a relationship, and other significant losses. Learn about the five stages of grief (Kubler-Ross, 1970), and the more recent paradigm of continuing bonds (Klass, Silverman, & Nickman, 1996), and how the poetic exploration can facilitate coping in the grieving process. Actively participate in creative, multimodal exercises to experience the therapeutic, strength-based benefits of poetry and arts focused on making meaning out of and transforming grief while adapting to loss.
TA 175 – Exploring Birth and Motherhood through Poetry and Drama Therapeutic Methods (7 hours/CE’s)
Life in utero and the experience of birth shape us, leaving subconscious and somatic imprints in our lives. Participants will learn about exciting research on prenatal parenting and how the earliest attachment bond begins in the womb, and explore the stories of their own births, the births of their babies, and the ancestral narratives of birth in their families, including birth trauma, loss, and the cultural silencing around grief in motherhood. Through a range of published poems about birth and motherhood, and using creative exercises from drama therapy and meditation, participants may awaken dormant memories, uncover stories beneath stories, shift perspective, affirm intuition and inner wisdom, and rewrite an empowered version of birth focusing on acceptance, healing, and appreciation. Participants will take away creative approaches to support other moms and babies in pregnancy and beyond.
TA 176 – Introduction to Poetry and Multimodal Methods in Therapeutic Settings including Neurodivergent Populations
Participants will explore poetry and multi modal methods as a force for healing through
research in mental health and medicine, and discover how the poetry therapeutic process and
poetic devices tap into the subconscious mind in charge of our emotions and beliefs.
Participants gain insight and understanding into creative personal growth through responding
to poems and writing their own, while weaving in drama therapy creative processes.
This class will also focus on neurodivergent populations and how to introduce poetry and multi
modal methods in clinical, educational and community settings, with a focus on offering
individuals with autism a doorway to self- expression despite language and communication
challenges.
Supervisory Classes
DT – 180 Drama Therapy Internship (1 to 12 units)
DT – 181 Drama Therapy Case Study (1 to 12 units)
*Required to be in supervision when acquiring drama therapy hours (Ratio- 10 hours of clinical work to 1 hour supervision). 6 unit minimum if supervision onsite available in drama therapy.
Psychology Core Classes for Alternative Training Students
PSY – 101 Developmental Psychology (3 units, 45 hours)
This course will explore critical developmental theories with hands on experience in understanding the relevance of the theories through film viewing, creative exercises, and projects.
PSY – 102 Abnormal Psychology or Psychopathology (3 units, 45 hours)
Through creative, hands-on learning, involving role play and other creative methods, students in this course will gain an understanding of how to recognize and understand the wide range of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive patterns from the DSM-5.
PSY – 103 Personality Theory (3 units, 45 hours)
The goal of this course is to introduce the major theories of personality and how these theories are relevant to the practice of drama therapy. Through creative exercises and films participants will make discoveries about the theories and apply their learning to hypothetical cases.
PSY 104- Group Dynamics
Participants will explore group dynamics, social systems and sociometry through selected readings, creative exercises and film viewing as well as practice creating drama therapy interventions to improve the functioning of groups.