CAMFT Workshops/Classes: 

Allies in Healing: Narradrama and Narrative Therapy

(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

Participants will discover foundational concepts in Narrative Therapy and explore creative and innovative ways of developing action techniques which relate to these practices and apply these to educational, clinical and community setting.

 

Clinical Uses of Drama Therapy and the Creative Arts with Trauma

(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

This workshop will show the utilization of drama therapy as a treatment for developing resilience skills in facing 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.

 

Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Advanced Techniques 
(7-14 hours and 7-14 CE)

Course Description

Participants explore and practice advanced techniques of Narradrama including: double listening, deconstruction and reconstruction, multi layered narratives, sensory rich environments, re-membering, re-authoring, narradrama questions and narradrama interviewing.

 

Clinical Uses of Narradrama in Community and Educational Settings 

(7-14 hours and 7-14 CE)

Course Description

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 varied clinical and non-clinical settings

 

Clinical Uses of Narradrama with Individual and Groups

(7-14 hours and 7-14 CE)

Course Description

In the workshop, 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). 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 CE Courses Sponsored by APA)

 

Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Narradrama and Neuroscience
(7-14 hours and 7-14 CE)

Course Description

Course will cover research on positive emotions, and the importance of social engagement from a neurological point of view. Course will also cover Siegel’s (2011) 5 areas that contribute to synaptic growth (emotional arousal, repetition, novelty, repetition and focused attention) and relate these to Narradrama. Participants will through experiential exercises explore ways to use Narradrama in each of the 5 areas.

 

Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Narradrama Steps

Course Description

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.

 

Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Pivotal Stories

Course Description

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.

 

Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Transformational Stories

(7-14 hours and 7-14 CE)

Course Description

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.

 

Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Witnessing Practices, Reflecting Teams and the Creative Arts (7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

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.

 

Dance Movement for Personal Growth
(7-14 hours and 7-14 CE)

Course Description

Focuses on how movement can be integrated into current drama and creative arts-based therapeutic and/or educational work for insight and individual growth. Course offers experiential training in specific movement methods. Of particular focus is authentic movement “a subtle yet powerful therapeutic practice that allows individuals to explore the relationship between the creative, psychological and sacred dimensions of their experience through bodily expression” Tina Stromsted, co-founder of the Authentic Movement Institute.

 

Dance Movement for Trauma

(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

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.

 

Drama Therapy and Creative Arts with Special Populations: ADHD

(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

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.

 

Drama Therapy and Performance in Conflict Resolution
(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

Participants will learn cutting-edge multimodal drama therapy & 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.

 

Exploring Trauma through Metaphor: Narradrama Tools and Techniques in Working with Trauma Survivors

(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

During this workshop participants will explore trauma as metaphor within the theoretical framework of Narradrama and identify and practice Narradrama tools that assist in the healing journey from fear to freedom. “ Trauma is like a straight-jacket that binds the mind and body in frozen fear. Paradoxically, it is also a portal that can lead us to awakening and freedom.”

 

Intersectional Identities in the Therapeutic Encounter
(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

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)

 

Narradrama and other Drama Therapy Approaches with Women's Issues:
(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

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.

 

Navigating the Matrix of Trauma through the Narradrama Lens

(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

This workshop will explore the obvious and subtle impact of trauma and explore creative ways to honor, create meaning and integrate trauma into our individual and community story.

 

Poetry, Monologues and Plays: Healing Clients and Communities
(5-7 hours and 5-7 CE)

Course Description:

This workshop explores self-generated material as a means of clients and communal healing both in a clinical setting and in the classroom.

 

Therapeutic Improvisation: Knowing What to Play to Enhance the Therapeutic Process

(7 hours and 7 CE)

Course Description

Participants will experientially learn to adapt the intentional use of improvisation 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.