IACAET Global Care for Caregivers in and through the Arts #1 

Creating a Restorative Space for Care-Givers in India

Time: May 21, 2021 Friday 9.30-11 am EST, 7-8.30 pm India Standard Time, 3.30 -5 pm SAST

Presented by: IACAET​; Supported by: Inspirees Institute​, CAET journal

Faced with a global catastrophe in healthcare and mental health, IACAET has launched a peer support group for Arts Therapists, Arts Educators and Applied Arts Facilitators. The IACAET Global Care for Caregivers in and through the Arts sessions intend to provide a professional, collegial space of support for arts-based professionals working in healthcare, mental healthcare, education and development. The devastating impact of Covid-19 upon a large majority of countries, particularly in the developing world, and the lack of access to the vaccine has presented healthcare, education and development professionals with insurmountable challenges. While there is a wealth of knowledge and practices to address crisis and trauma, IACAET acknowledges that we live in historical times where there is no template for managing the severity of this pandemic and its consequences upon individuals, communities and nations. The IACAET Global Care for Caregivers in and through the Arts groups therefore present without formula or assumption. We are all in this, together.

Our first group provides a space, in particular, for our Indian colleagues. The title of the group is A Restorative Space for the Global Indian Community through Arts.

Presenters:

Amber Elizabeth Gray
Dr. Amber Elizabeth Gray is a licensed human rights psychotherapist, innovative movement artist, board certified dance/movement therapist, master trainer and educator, Continuum teacher, and public health professional.

Amber has originated a resiliency-based framework, The Poto Mitan Trauma & Resiliency Framework, a Restorative Movement Psychotherapy for mind-heart-body-spirit integration. Restorative Movement Psychotherapy integrates somatic, movement, dance, mindfulness and arts-based therapies. Poto Mitan is literally “center post” in Kreyol, meaning the center of all things. Working with survivors of trauma in cross cultural, low resource contexts, the Poto Mitan Framework synthesizes the wisdom of whole-body, moving intelligence of Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory with Haitian traditional medicine and spiritual practice. She is a Sevito Fran Ginee in the Haitian tradition, and has studied with mystics and medicine people in Samiland, Australia, Nepal, Guatemala, and the United States.

Devika Mehta
Devika Mehta is a practicing Dance Movement Psychotherapist (R-DMP) registered with Association of Dance Movement Psychotherapy, UK (ADMP(UK)) and Indian Association of Dance Movement Therapy (IADMT). She is the Program Head for the Post Graduate Diploma Program in Expressive Arts Therapy at St.Xavier’s College, Mumbai and faculty for Diploma courses in Dance Movement Therapy and Regional Director for South Asia (IACAET).

Vivien Marcow Speiser
Vivien Marcow Speiser is the Director and Professor of the Institute for Arts and Health in The Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University. She is a licensed mental health counselor, a dance therapist and an expressive arts therapist and educator. Her work has allowed her unparalleled access to working with groups across the United States, Israel and internationally.

Warren Nebe
Warren Nebe is an academic, theatre director, arts therapist and activist in the fields of applied arts, arts therapies and arts research. He is the founding Head and Director of Drama for Life, University of the Witwatersrand and is a Senior Lecturer. He is a registered member of International Association of Group Psychotherapy (IAGP), American Association of Psychodrama and Group Psychotherapy (ASGPP), North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA), Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)

Michael Siegell
PhD, Core Faculty Program Chair, BA in Psychology, Cambridge College

Across the U.S. and abroad, Dr. Siegell has worked as an educator, teacher, clinician, consultant and performer in a wide variety of different educational, cultural and organizational settings and institutions. He combines scholarly, clinical and artistic interests in a broad range of interdisciplinary topics especially connected to: human development, the cross-cultural experience, the psychological and therapeutic dimensions of the arts and the spiritual impulse.

Michael Siegell , Ph.D. is an accomplished and versatile sitarist and one of the few westerners to train seriously in North India classical music.He has been studying the sitar since the 1970s both in the U.S. and in India. Michael was awarded a Senior Fellowship by the American Institute of Indian Studies-Smithsonian Institution to complete his Doctorate and continue his research and music training in India.

Phillip Speiser
PhD, REAT, RDT/BC. Phillip Speiser is an expressive arts educator/therapist, drama therapist, and psychodramatist who has developed integrated arts therapy and educational programs for over three decades. He is currently Director of Parkside Arts and Health Associates in Boston Massachusetts. After 9/11 he developed the ‘Healing Arts Program’, a trauma recovery/prevention program in Boston and New York City.

Tony Yu Zhou
Dr. Zhou holds a doctoral degree in biomedicine and has been working and living in China and Europe for many years. Though trained as a scientist, he has been greatly intrigued by modern dance and dance therapy since 2002 and has played an important role in driving the development of creative arts therapy and somatic education in China.

Registration is FREE.

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