The Certificate Program in the Arts and Trauma Treatment offers two sequential levels of training. This intensive training is ideal for therapists working with traumatized patients who wish to deepen their knowledge of using the arts in trauma treatment, including:
- Creative arts therapists wanting to sharpen their skills in working with trauma
- Clinicians of all modalities who would like to learn to incorporate the arts into their work
- Experienced trauma practitioners seeking a supportive community to help counter isolation and burnout
- New clinicians who desire additional direction, consultation, and clinical training
Level I
Learning Objective: Students will be exposed to an integrated approach to implementing the arts in trauma treatment.
Topics covered include:
- Trauma Theory: including psychobiology and neuroscience
- Trauma Processing through the Arts: including phase-oriented treatment, case conceptualization, assessment, and practices for fostering both expression and containment
- Decolonizing Arts-Based Trauma Treatment: including understanding and responding to the impact of marginalization and systemic racism, addressing shame and weathering, and holding an anti-racist, liberation-focused clinical stance
- Self Care: including mitigating secondary trauma and burnout, considering the positioning of the therapist and boundary setting, and working within oppressive systems
- Working with the Body
- Working with the Voice
- Working with Image & Symbol
- Working with Metaphor & the Imagination
Location: New York City, New York, USA
Format: Experiential and didactic instruction, intimate consultation groups, and assigned readings
Schedule: Four intensive training weekends (Friday evening – Sunday evening), September-June.
Hours: 15 hours of on-site instruction per weekend, for a total of 60 hours
Level II
Learning Objective: Building on the foundations of Level I, Level II offers advanced training in arts modalities that deepens clinical skill, engages current developments in trauma treatment, and strengthens a sustaining community of practice. Areas of focus include:
- Complex relational dynamics, including dissociation and enactment
- Integration of arts-based practices with other psychotherapeutic frameworks
- Attending to identity, power, and positionality in clinical encounters
- Applications of arts modalities across cultural, international, and geopolitical contexts
- Cultivating embodied presence, resilience, and co-regulation
- Expanding therapeutic possibilities through multimodal creative engagement
- Developing strategies to metabolize intensity and tolerate ambiguity
Location: New York City, New York, USA
Format: Experiential and didactic instruction, intimate consultation groups, and assigned readings
Schedule: Three intensive training weekends (Saturday morning – Sunday evening), November-June.
Hours: 12 hours of on-site instruction per weekend plus 5 sessions of virtual, small-group consultation with an expert faculty member, for a total of 43.5 hours.