Pre-Conference
Thursday
NOV 6th

Saturday
NOV 8TH

Sunday
NOV 9TH

California State approved CEUs will be available for California LMFTs and LCSWs.

29TH ANNUAL NADT CONFERENCE

November 6-9, 2008
Crowne Plaza Hotel SFO
1177 Airport Blvd.
Burlingame, CA 94010

CONFERENCE - DAY 1
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7th

Registration
7:30 am – 11:00am
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

W1: Morning Yoga Warm Up  
Sarah Ratliff, MA

As drama therapists, we believe in using the body as a tool. This method of yoga focuses on breathing, listening to the body, accepting where your body is at the moment, letting go of competition, letting go of judgment, letting go of expectation, and staying present in the moment.
 

CM1: Opening Ceremony

Jess Miller, MA, RDT/BCT
Janna Mitchell, LMFT, RDT
Chris Kammler, MA, RDT

A1: You Can Create and Run Successful Experiential Workshops!
Daniel Wiener, Ph.D., RDT/BCT

Want to present a professional workshop or improve your presentation skills? In this highly interactive and experiential workshop, you’ll first experience what works/doesn’t work on a variety of practical topics concerning presentation, then get consultation with role-play on material you bring that you do, or might wish to, present.

A2: Clinical Supervision That is Alive: Drama Therapy in the Consulting Hour
Sheila Rubin, LMFT, RDT/BCT
 

Bring clinical supervision alive with drama therapy, expressive arts, and somatic techniques that invite the psychotherapist or drama therapist to enter the imaginal world of the client and the therapy session. The presenter uses these exercises in supervision to help therapists and interns explore transference, counter-transference and somatic counter transference. They are also helpful in self-supervision.

A3: From Baadla to Burquas: Working with a Women’s Rights
Organization in Afghanistan
Christa Kirby, MA, RDT, LCAT
Suzana Paklar

In a country where violence against women is endemic to society, a women’s rights organization is bound to face its share of challenges. Join Suzana Paklar (Head of Mission, medica mondiale Afghanistan) and Christa Kirby (drama therapist consultant to mmA) in this workshop and explore the stories of hope, despair and triumph that are the extraordinary lives of Afghan women.

A4: A Complete Neuropsych/Experiential Treatment Program for Adolescents who Sexually Abuse: What/How     
John Bergman MA, RDT/MT

This is a fully functioning Australian based neuropsych/experiential treatment program for 46 developmentally delayed and high functioning adolescents who sexually abuse. All facets of drama therapy are combined with neurobiofeedback, biofeedback, and integrative midline exercises converted to drama therapy. Of interest is that all the clinical components are created by a drama therapist.

A5: Playing with Fire:
Diversity, Power, Conflict, and Transformation in Drama Therapy
Emily Burkes-Nossiter, MA
Carlos Rodriguez-Perez, MA, RDT/BCT, LCAT
Nisha Sajnani, ABD, RDT
Meg Van Buren, MA

An embodied conversation about and strategic session of the NADT's Diversity Committee.  We will use games, movement, improvisation, and sociodramatic techniques to brainstorm and experiment with ideas for action towards institutional change, addressing themes of power, privilege, oppression, liberation, empowerment, social justice and transformation.

A6: Feeling Soup: a Drama Therapy Approach to Playful Parenting
Becca Greene-Van Horn, MA, RDT, LCAT

Come learn playful and practical techniques to help parents and kids get through the “tough stuff”. Sibling rivalry, emotional outbursts, parental agendas, “button pushing” and power struggles are fertile ground for playful parenting. Drama therapy can help to navigate this “Feeling Soup”; while building empathy, teaching emotional intelligence and fostering closeness.

A7: Mirror Neurons: The Root of Empathy and Learning 
Sally Bailey, MFA, MSW, RDT/BCT

Mirror neurons are thought to be the root of empathy and imitative learning in the brain. Drama therapists stimulate and employ mirror neurons in most of our work. Learn more about what mirror neurons are, how they function in drama therapy, and why this makes drama therapy a brain-based intervention.

A8: Healing Our Souls: A Dialogue with Therapists about Self-Care
Bradford Bancroft, MA, RDT

We, as therapists, take care of a lot of people. We hold their pain, their anguish, their anxiety, as well as their hopes and dreams. We take care of them as best as humanly possible- but who takes care of us? How do we take care of each other? How do we take care of ourselves?

M1: NADT Community Meeting followed by Regional Meetings

A9: Exploring the Shadow through Relational Drama Therapy  
Robert Landy, Ph.D., RDT/BCT, LCAT
Emily Nash, MA, LCAT

In this workshop we invite participants to explore the complex search into their shadow roles, a disowned part of our beings that remain unconscious, through relational drama therapy, a process developed by Robert Landy and Emily Nash combining the metaphoric worlds of art, storymaking and dramatic enactment with therapeutic group process.

A10:  Psychological Issues and Drama Therapy in Current Japan
Rie Negishi, MA, RDT
Masako Iguchi, MA, RDT, CCLS

This presentation will focus on the cultural and psychological issues prominent within current Japan. We will show a video, and report some of the work we have established so far, ending with a discussion of possible future work to help further mental health in this country through drama therapy.

A11: The Art of Mess
Heidi Landis, MFA, RDT, LCAT
Liz Davis, MA

This experiential workshop will explore how we handle mess in our own lives as well as the mess that our clients often present in group and individual work. Explore the idea that messiness can affect as us clinicians. Learn to play and work within the mess in order to achieve spontaneity and creativity.

A18:  Narradrama: Celebrating the Possibilities of the Present Moment
Pam Dunne, PhD, RDT/BCT

Participants will explore possibilities in their lives combining drama, mapping, imagery, photography, analogy and techniques specific to narradrama. The "Tree of Life" narrative (Zcuzelo Ncube, Africa) will also be explored. The group will be invited to reflect on their stories/narratives through mutual letter writing, living collage and a reflecting team.

Note: This workshop was originally scheduled on Sunday, but has moved to this slot.

A12: The Art of Play: A Method for Revitalizing Adulthood
Adam Blatner, MD, TEP
Allee Blatner

The Art of Play is a method for helping adults and older teens to rediscover their innate capacity for imaginative play. The workshop integrates methods from psychodrama and creative drama.

A13: Moving in the Moment: Embodying Empathy
Lora Wilson, MA DTR

Attuning to others’ nonverbal communication offers the possibility of experiencing empathy for them on an immediate and embodied level. Rather than imagining "walking a mile in another’s shoes" this workshop offers participants the possibility of "moving" in another’s footsteps and, so doing, profoundly connect in the present moment.

A14: Mentoring: The Future is Purchased by the Present
Sally Bailey, MFA, MSW, RDT/BCT
Norman Fedder, PhD, RDT/BCT
Linda Gregoric Cook, MA, RDT/BCT
Marilyn Richman, MEd, RDT/BCT
Naida Weisberg,RDT/BCT
Darby Moore, MA, RDT/BCT

Mentorship now is key to the growth of our profession. This panel will discuss how they have been mentored, how they have mentored others, the skills of mentoring, and how to develop them. Learn how to mentor students and young professionals into their roles as future drama therapists.

A15: Creative Arts Rituals to Address Bereavement, Loss, and Death in Diverse Populations
Lindsay Chipman, MA, CCC, RDT
Karine Chalifour, BSW, BSC

This presentation will focus on providing professionals with creative rituals when addressing issues of loss, death and bereavement in group and individual interventions. Participants will be able to try out various action techniques that transcend culturally specific death rituals, and provide patients with creative ways to express their grief.

A16: This Just In: Drama Therapy Deconstructs the National Election
Gary Raucher, LMFT, RDT

Our conference begins two days after the US presidential election, an event likely to mark major shifts in national mood and direction. How have we been affected? Come, and debrief through dramatic action! Be prepared for a playful deconstruction of our collective sensitivities around the difficulties of national governance.

A17: Performance: Relationally Challenged
David Lovis, MA, RDT/MT
with Theatre Unlimited

Theatre Unlimited will explore the challenges of being in relationship through drama, dance and poetry. Featured will be a dramatic adaptation of Stephen Mitchell’s version of this classic fairytale. Discussion will follow. Thought to be pondered throughout: “A spell is nothing more than a congealed mind-set. If you think you’re a frog, you are a frog."

M2: BCT Meeting
Sally Bailey, MFA, MSW, RDT/BCT, Facilitator

Business meeting for Board Certified Trainers.

DINNER On-Your-Own

M4: NADT Diversity Forum
Nisha Sajnani, ABD, RDT, Facilitator
 

Join us for the first annual NADT Diversity Forum. The contexts in which we live, work and play are sites of converging and overlapping interests, ideas and identities. In this community gathering, we will reflect on how our differences are experienced and expressed in our professional community and in our daily practice.

PM2: The Drama Therapy Fund Board Meeting

P2: Just Another Gay Mormon
Jason Butler, MA, RDT, LCAT

This performance explores one man’s journey toward being fully alive -- from a conservative upbringing in the heart of Utah to a liberal transformation in the big city. Through anecdotes, song, and a brief Sunday School lesson, the audience will participate in a celebration of love, freedom and presence.

P3: Bone Talk: Stories from the Core
Chris Kammler, MA, RDT

A self revelatory performance improvisation which looks at the Big Stuff –aging, survival & love- as it shows up in every day life.

P4: Jill: Our Adventures and My Deep Appreciation of Life Through Her Death
Janna Mitchell, LMFT, RDT
 

We all have friends who have died from cancer. This performance piece celebrates the ups and downs of a twenty-five year friendship, the ultimate love, forgiveness and the meaning through the great transformation of death, and the deepening appreciation of each beautiful minute of life.

P5: Merrow
Joan Cullinane, MA

Merrrow is a mermaid. She has no license; she has no desire to publish. Must she perish because she knows more about mental illness than you can learn at school?