Launch Party for the New M.A. in Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building

Join the faculty in launching the new, first-of-its-kind in the U.S. Master of Arts in Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building! We’re excited to introduce this innovative online expressive arts coaching program for those interested in developing their own career pathway in offering arts-based, transformative practices with individuals, groups, communities, and organizations. 

What to Expect

Program faculty and supporting community members will be present to:

• Introduce the new program
• Unveil the curriculum
• Offer a real-time taste of coursework with brief experiential expressive arts processes
• Share opportunities for post-graduation coaching and arts-based professional credentialing
• Introduce the growing global arts-in-health movement that deepens conversations about the transformative potentials of living through the arts in everyday life

Reserve your Spot

Our Hosts

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Christine Brooks, Ph.D., is the chair of the new M.A. in Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building and a core faculty member in the M.A. in Counseling Psychology concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy. She received her BFA in acting from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Along with masters's work in gender studies and religious studies, Christine received a M.A. in Psychology and a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Christine went on to serve as professor and chair of the M.A. and Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology programs for seven years.

Prior to her teaching life, Christine worked as a book editor and in the film industry and also helped to run an early start-up company utilizing artificial intelligence to replicate expert advice. These experiences afforded her rich opportunities to work with artists, authors, and entrepreneurs and these relationships continue to influence her current private practice as a professional and personal development coach. Areas of scholarly and professional interest include the intersections of transpersonal psychology with feminist and queer theories and psychologies, postmodern and post-structural theories such as: social constructionism and advocacy/participatory worldviews; diversity and multiculturalism in psychology; queer spirituality; qualitative research methods, and adult identity development. Her interests also include the use of the Enneagram as a developmental model. She has published several articles and book chapters on transpersonal psychology and qualitative research methods and coaching including "Narrative EXA Coaching: Approaches to Transformation & Change," and the upcoming "I Don't Know But Together We Do! Narrative Expressive Arts in Coaching, Consulting & Community Vibrance." She enjoys participating in "artivism" events such as V-Day performances of The Vagina Monologues and supporting the work of local performance artists through participation or production support.

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Myriam Savage (Mimi), Ph.D., RDT/BCT is a registered drama therapist and board-certified trainer. Her alma maters include Lesley University, Cal State University Los Angeles, Princeton University, and The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, NYC. She resides in L.A. where she was a working stage, television, and film actress. In response to the L.A. Riots, she delved into teaching artistry through several social activist groups and later developed drama and expressive therapy programs in acute inpatient units for children and adults for several years. In private practice, Mimi has facilitated neurodiverse populations, unhoused women in skid row, adolescents in residential rehabilitation, children in educational settings, and young adults.

Mimi is an associate professor and core faculty member in the M.A. in Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building and M.A. in Counseling Psychology concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy. A founding faculty member of Arts and Healing Initiative Social Emotional Arts, (formerly UCLArts and Healing/Integrative Medicine UCLA), Mimi was part of a team manualizing two professional development programs centered on integrating expressive arts into counseling, educational settings, and the medical model. She is founder/director of SoCal Drama Therapy Center, mentoring, supervising, and instructing an international student body of professionals and students earning drama therapy credentials.

She serves on three nonprofit boards focused on disenfranchised youth and was education chair for the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA), devising the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Educational Outreach program through another nonprofit, the Drama Therapy Fund (DTF), coordinating Black diaspora inclusion and education within drama/expressive therapies fields.

A recipient of a DTF Professional Research grant and Lesley University Research grant, her research has been recognized for its novel arts-based and participatory-action approach. Her published work and some of her numerous conference presentations focus on adoption from foster care and intersections of identity for marginalized young women, using narrative inquiry and novel narrative arts-based digital media interventions. She is interested in the connection between narrative therapy, narrative transportation, and inquiry with plant-based medicines for healing invisible illnesses.

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Shoshana Simons, Ph.D., RDT is a professor in and former program chair of CIIS’ M.A. in Counseling Psychology concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy. She is a voice actor and arts-based coach and consultant with Key of Life Academy. She is also adjunct faculty at the Northwest Creative and Expressive Arts Institute in Seattle, where she offers a Certificate in NarrARTive Expressive Arts Coaching. Shoshana has 35-plus years of experience in community building with peoples across dimensions of difference and similarity in many settings including with children and adults in the fields of play, education, antiracism, counseling psychology, organizational development, and community work.

Originally from London, U.K., Shoshana originally came to the U.S. to complete a clinical traineeship at The Stone Center, Wellesley College. She returned to the Stone Center in 1998 as Training Director for The Open Circle Program, training elementary school teachers and leaders to implement a ground-breaking SEL curriculum using peer-based and whole systems approaches.

Shoshana has worked as a therapist in the U.K. and U.S. and has taught in the fields of counseling psychology and intercultural relations at Goddard College, University of Vermont, and Lesley University. She was formerly core faculty in CIIS’ Ph.D. in Transformative Studies and M.A. in Transformative Leadership.

Shoshana’s scholar-artist-practitioner interests include narrative and systemic expressive arts practices, indigenous healing traditions, expressive arts in coaching and leadership, expressive arts in medicine, participatory action inquiry, and arts-based research methods.