What is Drama Therapy?

‍ ‍Drama therapy is a modality that centers your intuition, the imaginal realm, and the wisdom of creativity. We transform the limiting idea of “I only have one role to play in life” towards “I have MANY roles I can play, and I have agency on when/where/how I do this!”.

We examine what roles we have adapted to in resilience, the roles lost and forgotten, and the roles we dream to become in life. This can include discussion of family systems/trauma, expressive arts (writing, music, imagery), embodied somatic process, and more! We will utilize the foundations and therapeutic aspects of theater based practices including metaphor, story telling, role theory, movement of the body, imaginative visualization, ritual, and humor. A lot of the time we will dialogue about the many experiences of your life and build our own relationship.

“BUT IM NOT AN ACTOR OR AN ARTIST” (we are all creators)

Many folks hear “drama therapy” and think it will be performative or loud. Sure, sometimes! It can also come in the form of working with subtle metaphors, the body’s language, imagery, color, and imaginative prompts from the comfort of your seat. This will depend on your personality, preferences, & needs that will vary from week to week. All offerings from a drama therapy lens will be in the form of suggestions and invitations. Most of the time, we will talk, connect, and build relationship.

Who is Drama Therapy for?

Folx of all identities and experiences can benefit from the creative arts, which offer a variety of “ways in”, channels, to our pain and joy. Humans are innately creative through distress to foster resilience. Evoking expressive arts as a conduit can open up many connections and resources we never knew were here for us. Myths of capitalism, racism, abelism, etc. attempt to hold us captive from imagination and play. Creativity is alchemizing and offers us ways of seeing our truth and finding one another. I especially enjoy supporting queer folx and non-conformists to heal through inner child guidance, the wisest artist of them all!

Somatics & Social Justice

As a student of somatics, I will often offer a blending of embodiment practices, movement, gesture, and language of the nervous system through our explorations towards healing. This is to amplify what may be transpiring and integrating in your body through our work, and to offer alternative vocabulary for the experiences of human distress, change, and healing. This includes study of and inspirations from Generative Somatics, IFS, Somatic Experiencing, Healing Justice, dance, Theater of the Oppressed, ancestral & spiritual traditions (this would be many links, always happy to share more!). I want to stress that under racial capital and through colonization, the “field” of somatics has been built on co-opting many ancient ancestral healing ways through de-contextualizing and appropriating these tools from black, brown, indigenous, women, queer, trans, people of the global majority. I am doing my best in somatics learning spaces and communities to attribute lineage and honor the gifts of these teachings as well as to fight the violence of erasure of cultural context.

Areas of support I am passionate about

• Life/Career transitions

• Post Traumatic Growth

• Creative Blocks

• Family Conflict & Attachment Wounds

• Supporting Caregivers

• Spiritual Exploration

• Adults who were parentified children or had to “grow up too quickly”

• LGBTQQIP2SAA experiences of joy, grief, and genderful being

• Body Liberation

• Neurodivergent and Disability Justice Affirming Wellness

I work well with healers, teachers, empaths, organizers, artists of all kinds, and anyone queering the path to belonging!

WHAT I DONT DO

• Diagnose/treatment plan

• Psychotherapy

• Manualized sessions or regular homework assignments

• Explicit protocol like you would experience in EMDR, CBT, or DBT ( though I am DBT/CBT/ACT informed)

  You should know this space is aspiring to be…

  queer, playful, un-colonizing itself, strength-based, abolitionist informed, harm reduction informed, poly affirming, and kink friendly/aware. Mostly importantly open to feedback/adaptation!

  In our work together we will get curious about binaries, how the mental and relational sorting of good/bad harms us all. This healing space is politicized. We will build endurance towards nuance and ambiguity to cope with the impermanence that constitutes our lives. The world may be chaotic and uncontrollable, however we can use practices to find more joy, ease, and loving justice.

• I am deeply influenced and in awe of the courage in the recovery and peer communities, that more often do not hide behind white supremacist professionalism and title hierarchies. I am not an expert and I am not the only person you’ll need on in your web. I do my best to show up with all parts of me in our work together, seeking to co-create boundaries around your care needs and mine. Together I hope to disrupt the inherent power dynamic that can be loaded onto the title “healer” or “therapist” by practicing negociations of care and earnest movement through any rupture. May we be anchored to clear and kind boundaries.

  It looks like you’re a Drama Therapist and a Coach… What does that mean, and what are you really?

  I am a Registered Drama Therapist (RDT) in a coaching practice. The services described on this website are for coaching services and are not psychotherapy, psychological counseling, or medical treatment. My RDT credential reflects my professional training in drama therapy and creative arts-based approaches; it is not a California psychotherapy license. My approach to coaching is creative-arts and somatically informed. We may explore talk, expressive arts, embodiment, reflection, values, and other creative practices to support self-understanding, wellbeing, and movement toward what matters to you.

  As a coach, I work to learn about what matters to you, who and what you want to be in the world, and how wellbeing is defined on your terms. The language we use to describe and affirm your experiences will be taken from your lead. I will support you in exploring and embodying your values through expressive arts, somatic practices, reflection, and our coaching relationship. Coaching may include exploration of goals, values, relationships, life transitions, self-understanding, creativity, embodiment, decision-making, and other areas that you identify as meaningful to your wellbeing and growth.

• Coaching does not include diagnosis or treatment of mental health conditions, psychotherapy, psychological assessment, medical care, prescribing medication, or other services that require a California professional license. Coaching is not a substitute for psychotherapy, medical care, psychiatric care, or other professional services.