Living Arts Counseling Center

An Expressive Arts Therapy Training Group

• Are you looking for ways to bring the arts into your psychotherapy work with individuals, couples and groups?

• Are you curious about how the arts can assist you and your clients in revealing and holding insight and emotion?

• Do you want to learn to use the arts for self-care and support in carrying and understanding client material?

• Do you want to participate in an arts-based group where you can experience and learn to use a variety of expressive arts tools and techniques for healing and growth including:

Each week of this 12-week series, we will focus on one or more specific creative techniques and their applications for particular symptoms, therapeutic goals or clients. After a short didactic, we will dive into our own creative expression individually or in small groups and then come together to share in a safe, non-judgmental environment and harvest what we have learned while considering how we can use these new tools in our personal or clinical work. No art experience necessary; all materials provided. This training series is appropriate for psychotherapists, interns and trainees.
 

Merideth Bowen Shamszad, Physical Therapist, registered MFT Intern (supervised by Merry Ross, MFT 37401) is an expressive arts therapist at the Living Arts Counseling Center. She completed a Master’s in Counseling (specializing in Expressive Arts) at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and a Certificate in Complementary Medicine at the Institute for Health and Healing. A cancer survivor herself, she is an experienced clinician with many years in clinic, hospital and hospice settings, where she has provided expressive arts and guided imagery to a wide variety of patients and groups with chronic and acute medical and psychological conditions including cancer, trauma, depression, anxiety and end-of-life transition. She is currently seeing clients at the Living Arts Counseling Center and leading an expressive arts group at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center.

Armand Volkas, MFT, RDT is the Clinical Director of the Living Arts Counseling Center where he directs a training program for students, interns and therapists who want to integrate drama and expressive arts therapy into their practice. Drama Therapy uses acting improvisation and Psychodrama as therapeutic tools. He is a Board Certified Trainer with The National Association for Drama Therapy. In addition, Armand is Associate Professor in the Counseling Psychology Program at California Institute of Integral Studies and Adjunct Professor at John F. Kennedy University. He has developed innovative, multi-modal programs using drama and expressive arts therapies for social change, intercultural conflict resolution, reconciliation and intercultural communication.