Using a trauma-informed lens that incorporates both “bottom-up” and “top-down” approaches, this training offers tools from Expressive Arts Therapy to soothe the nervous system; promote self-awareness; and support agency, empowerment, and well-being through a variety of multi-modal arts practices. Simple bottom-up and top-down exercises from creative writing, visual arts, visualization, movement, music, and theater will be introduced as embodied alternatives to talk therapy, all of which are rooted in attuning to each person's unique constitution and needs. Activities introduced in the training can be used for self-care and/or adapted for work with clients.
Learning Objectives
About the Presenter
Suraya Keating, MFT, REAT, RDT is a master trainer in Expressive Arts and Drama Therapy as well as adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies. For 25 years, she has facilitated Expressive Arts and Drama Therapy processes with individuals and groups in schools, prisons, and hospitals, with a focus on populations who are marginalized and oppressed, and has also guided others in the creation and performance of therapeutic life-story theater. For 10 years, Suraya co-supervised Contra Costa County’s Expressive Arts Therapy Department, where she trained and supervised MFT associates in the cultivation of a wide variety of tools from Expressive Arts Therapy to support the wellbeing of individuals on the inpatient medical and psychiatric units of a county hospital, in addiction recovery programs at outpatient clinics, and in a variety of other settings. Since 2005, she has worked as Shakespeare for Social Justice Director for Marin Shakespeare’s prison programs, where she has trained hundreds of teaching artists, drama therapy students, and others interested in bringing the arts to carceral settings. Suraya works with therapeutic clients in-person and online, and also offers individual Expressive Arts consultation sessions as well as one-to-one solo performance coaching.
