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. I play an empathic witness/audience to your stories & transformations.

“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! May we all find peace in a life beyond binaries and harmful conditioning that keeps our inner child down.

You may hear me offer things like …

“ If that image could speak, what would it say?”

“It sounds like this is multifaceted! Lets take a look at each role coming forward within you and give them all a chance to speak”

“What if you traded roles with the other person in this situation, sit in the seat how they would…what do you imagine they’re feeling?”

“It seems this is hard to articulate, do you have a pen near by? Try taking 2 minutes to draw an image of this experience”

“Lets take that feeling and try to feel it backwards, inside out, upside down. What did you learn?”

“Who or what else in your life reminds you of this moment? Can you show me with a movement or say a phrase of their interpretation?”

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.

You may hear me ask things like..

“As you feel that emotion, what do you see in the landscape of your mind"?”

“Is there an ancestor, plant, person, place, or being we can call in to be with you to hold this feeling? Where can you notice their connection with you right now for support?”

“Does this experience feel only yours, shared, or connected to a greater community or identity?”

“Did anyone or group in your lineage grapple with this challenge before? What worked? What didn’t?”

“How might this sacred rage be funneled towards collective justice that ripples beyond us?”

“Can we let that inward experience move outside for a moment? If it were right in front of you, what are we looking at?”

“Who is a movement worker or artist that wrote about or created about this theme? What are lessons we can take into our body’s from their work?”

“If that tension in your fists could complete its sentence, what would they say and to who?”

“Im noticing some activation or energy in your shoulders, do you notice that? Can we see what your shoulders want or need right now?”

“Sometimes as we integrate a fresh insight, our body might shake or tense while we are settling into the newness. If its ok, can make some space to allow that process”

“Would it be ok to share a neuroscience perspective on what you may be experiencing?”

Areas of support I am passionate about

• Life/Career transitions

• Developmental Trauma & Post Traumatic Growth

• Creative Blocks

• Family Conflict & Attachment Wounds

• Supporting Caregivers

• Anxiety & Depression

• Spiritual Exploration

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

• LGBTQQIP2SAA experiences of joy and grief

• Genderful Being

• Sexual Trauma Recovery

• Body Liberation & Disordered Eating Support through Harm Reduction

• 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, strength-based, abolitionist informed, harm reduction informed, kink friendly/aware, and open to feedback!

  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 both! I definitely use my clinical training with a MA in Drama Therapy to support my capacities as a coach. My practice is coaching-focused as rather than specific treatment for “functioning”, diagnosis, or mental illness, my guidance is about intuitive healing, narrative processing, integration, and strength-based holistic care. As a Somatic Experiencing student, this falls under my coaching domain as this is not a licensed discipline. Creative Arts Therapists in CA, are not governed by the Board of Behavorial Sciences. If you are seeking diagnostic clarification, medication management, or other psychotherapy or psychiatric services, this is outside of my scope of practice and I would be happy to support a referral process.