Show Notes
Will Sherwin sat down with Shoshana Simons, PhD, RDT to discuss : How she got involved with narrative therapy and drama therapy. How she goes about teaching students in the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) Expressive Arts Therapy Program. Her work using the Tree of Life and her newly co-developed “Laundry of Life”. What keeps us inspired. Shoshana Simons PhD, RDT is Chair of CIIS’s Expressive Arts Therapy Program. Shoshana has a rich background in integrating performance and expressive arts structures into multiple contexts of work with children and adults in educational, therapeutic and larger systems. Over the last several years, Shoshana has focused on developing an expressive arts-centered approach to narrative therapy. In particular, she has co-developed an innovative narrative collective practice with EXA faculty member, Danielle Drake Burnette called “Laundry of Life” which they have been using locally and globally with groups and communities facing serious life issues and challenges. Shoshana’s current interests include: narrative expressive arts therapy practices, the use of expressive arts modalities for promoting and maintaining mental health for therapists and human service workers, the role of expressive arts in leadership & social change, and arts-based research methods, especially Cooperative Inquiry methodology. Her personal arts practices include improvisational theater, sacred chanting, creative writing and poetry. She’s currently learning to play the didgeridoo. She is particularly interested in creating opportunities for students in the Expressive Arts Therapy program to be of joyful, creative service to under-served populations in the San Francisco Bay Area.
More from BANTR: A Narrative Therapy Podcast
In this episode, Will Sherwin asked Navid Zamani, Mike Giancola, and Tom to each share two questions they've found helpful in their psychotherapy practice. We discussed each of them at a camping site in Cuyamaca State Park near San Diego during Will's bachelor camping trip weekend before he got married in August 2022.
On this episode Will Sherwin talks with Dr. Danielle Drake from the San Francisco Bay Area. Danielle performs two of her spoken word poems, we discuss African-centered psychologies, her journey to becoming a clinical psychologist, song lyrics evocative of therapeutic principles, teaching narrative and expressive arts practices at CIIS, sky-diving and more! Danielle is on the core faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Expressive Arts Program in San Francisco, CA. She is also a PhD. candidate at the Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara. Her dissertation is entitled, “Spirituality and Creativity Among Culturally Empowered African-Americans: A Legacy of Empowered Community Liberation.” Danielle Drake can be reached at [email protected] and she would love to hear your reflections. Show Notes: [35:19} “The challenge mindset” from the book: The Triumph of the Soul: Cultural and Psychological Aspects of African American Music by Ferdinand Jones, Arthur C. Jones, ed.
On this episode Will Sherwin and Scott Ralston talk with Art Fisher and Nancy MacDonald, co-founders of the Nova Scotia Trauma-Informed Network and Directors of the Family Service Agencies of Western and Eastern Nova Scotia respectively. We discuss honoring people’s response-skills to violence, thinking critically about the language of trauma-informed care, the social determinants of health, “going rogue” and more. Art Fisher can be reached at [email protected] Nancy MacDonald can be reached [email protected]
On this episode Will Sherwin talked with contributors of Painted Brain: Kazuki Takizawa, James Giaquinto, Tristan Scremin, Naomi Barrett, and Angela Tuckerman. Painted Brain is a Los Angeles-based organization that creates lasting community-based solutions to mental health challenges and the impact of social injustice through arts, advocacy, and enterprise.
Travis Heath and Will Sherwin sat down at ReauthoringTeaching.com’s 2017 Narrative Camp to discuss Travis’s work using hip hop and narrative therapy, subverting the systems of academia, police murder of young people of color in the United States, and more. Dr. Travis Heath is a psychologist in private practice, associate professor of psychology at MSU Denver and has served as a team consultant in the NBA. He can be reached at [email protected]