"Tree of Life" Narrative Salon January 9th

Narrative Therapy Salon

Come to a fun evening with other narrative practitioners and learn about an expressive arts narrative practice, the Tree of Life.

Tree of Life is a collaborative narrative therapy practice, originating in Southern Africa. It has been adapted by CIIS’s Expressive Arts Therapy Program (EXA) to incorporate multimodal arts connections (visual arts, drama, song, poetry etc.). Its original focus was on enabling traumatized children to identify individual and collective strengths to draw from in facing life’s overwhelming challenges. It has since been used internationally with peoples struggling with trauma, poverty and oppression.  We will detail the approach, offering illustrations from our work with children, families & workers serving homeless and disenfranchised children & families in The Tenderloin, San Francisco as well as offering participants a “taste” of the methodology in practice.

Bios:

Shoshana Simons PhD, RDT is Chair of CIIS’s Expressive Arts Therapy Program <http://www.ciis.edu/academics/faculty/Academics/Graduate_Programs/Expressive_Arts_Therapy.html> where she teaches Narrative Expressive Arts Therapy. Shoshana has a background in narrative and constructionist therapies and their application in work with individuals, couples, families, groups and organizations.  Shoshana’s current interests include 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.

Danielle Burnette MA/MFTI, is a recent graduate of the Expressive Art Therapy program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).  She has eight years’ experience working in the nonprofit arena as the Program Director for Pivotal Point Youth Services and Founder and Executive Director of Creation Cocoon for Girls.  Danielle has used narrative expressive arts techniques in her individual and group work with marginalized communities at Bay Area Community Resources in her role of School-Based Counselor at DeAnza High School in Richmond, CA.  She additionally uses narrative expressive arts while working with at-risk youth at Pivotal Point in Oakland, CA.  Through training other trainers the techniques are currently being used at Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County with youth offenders re-entering the community. Danielle focuses her therapeutic work with adolescents, young adults, and young families from marginalized communities and typically uses visual art, poetry, and music as the primary art modalities. Currently Danielle holds an adjunct faculty at CIIS teaching Narrative Therapy.  She will begin work toward a PhD in Clinical Psychology in the Spring, with her research studies focused on work with African American individuals and families around healing the inter-generational trauma of slavery using Expressive Art Therapy. As a spoken word artist she was the 2003 Oakland Poetry Slam Champion, is author of a book titled, Cast Iron Life:  a collection of poems and recipes, and has performed throughout the nation most recently performing in a spoken word tribute to Dr. Cornel West.

RSVP to Will Sherwin at mftsfbay@gmail.com

We are going to cap this event at 25 participants so RSVP soon if you'd like to be assured of a spot.  CIIS has a strict policy about getting into the building in the evenings so we'll put your name on a list for entry.

  

Where: California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA

When: Monday January 9th, 6-8:30pm

What to bring: yourself! If easy for you, bring a snack to share

Contact: mftsfbay@gmail.com