Jennie Kristel

Temporary Core Faculty, Expressive Therapies

Jennie Kristel is a Registered Expressive Arts therapist and Accredited Playback Theatre trainer. She joined Lesley as an adjunct faculty member in 2016 and is a temporary core faculty member in the Expressive Arts Therapy Department. Jennie has a deep interest in teaching and training in the intersection of multicultural arts-based clinical work with social activism, narrative practices, and performance.

Prior to joining Lesley, she was an adjunct professor at Burlington College at the undergraduate and graduate levels, teaching multidisciplinary courses including survey courses in expressive arts therapies. She has had a clinical private practice since 1998 and uses expressive arts therapies to support individuals, couples, and families with issues of intergenerational trauma.

In 2005, she co-founded JourneyWorks with Dr. Michael Watson, a holistic mind-body psychotherapy counseling and training center.

Playback Theatre

Jennie is a Playback Theatre trainer. She has directed 2 Playback Theatre companies and uses Playback Theatre and applied theatre tools to support community building and conflict resolution in corporate organizations as well as mental health agencies.

Since 2003, Jennie has offered trauma-informed Playback Theatre and expressive arts therapy training in Bangladesh, India, Egypt, Kenya, and Hong Kong, working with non-government organizations and counseling centers that offer Training-the-Trainer programs, as well as training in expressive arts therapies in university clinical psychology departments. She also mentors and supervises Playback Theatre groups in India and Bangladesh.

She served on the board of Directors of the Centre for Playback Theatre and continues to work on the curriculum and leadership course committees.

Symposiums

Jennie helped develop, plan, and implement a daylong symposium on using the arts in therapies at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. This team also presented a two-day symposium, Create & Connect: Expressive Arts Therapy, at the University of Delhi and then in Auroville in South India. Jennie also collaborated with a team of Indian practitioners for a daylong business meeting to support Indian arts-based therapists in developing the Indian Association for Art Therapy.

Other Achievements

Along with her clinical work, Jennie co-founded an elementary school and has applied all she has learned in her clinical practice in integrating the arts in the curriculum, supporting homeschooling families with arts-based curricula, including whole language learning.

Jennie supervises expressive arts therapy students who are working toward their Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) credential and is on the REAT review committee for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association.

Scholarship

Conference presentations and Lectures

2020
American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama: Emotional Support group. Co-led with Dr. Michael Watson, On using Toy and Object Theatre and Playback Theatre to explore the role of "Othering" 4-week group.

2020
American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama: Emotional Support group. Co-led with Joshua Lee. Integrating “The Game Plan and Playback Theatre for emotional support”. 4 weeks.

2019
International Playback Theatre Network Conference, Christ University, Bangalore, India: Presented an introduction to Playback Theatre to Christ University students. Presented Puppets and Objects in Playback Theatre and ran a 3-day “Home Group” using the expressive arts to support conference synthesis.

2019
Expressive Arts Summit, NYC: Mask Making and Dramatic Action in Clinical Populations. Master class including lecture and making masks and drama-based exploration.

2019
Presenter with Dr. Michael Watson: International Expressive Arts Therapy Conference, Berkeley, CA. Honoring Our Complex Identities: Building Resiliency in the Face of Adversity: Using dramatic action, visual art, and narrative approaches.

2019
Presenter with Joshua Lee, MSW: American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama: Manchester, New Hampshire. Diversity Forum. Created and led opening forum to conference to look at issues of diversity within the ASGPP community using Sociometry, Sociodrama, and Playback Theatre. Closing Ceremony. Co-presented with Joshua Lee the closing of the ASGPP conference using sociometry, and Playback Theatre.

2019
Presenter with Dr. Michael Watson: Using Playback Theatre to explore stories of being “Othered”. Used Playback Theatre and related dramatic action to teach and share stories of “othering” using structured witnessing and Playback Theatre.

2018
Presenter with Maria Mellano, LCSW, Expressive Arts Summit, New York. Masks for Clinical Populations. Created masks and used psychodrama to explore alternative roles. 3-hour session.

2017
Expressive Arts Summit: Using Masks in Clinical Populations: Participants made and then dramatized using masks of their own creation.

2016
Expressive Arts Summit: With Dr. Michael Watson. Using Toy Theatre to explore the Forces that Bind Us. Explored the use of paper puppets and toy objects to create collaborative theatre pieces.

2015
Expressive Arts Summit: Using Masks in Clinical Populations. With Sangeeta Prasad, ATR-BC. Participants created and then employed masks using drama therapy techniques.

2015
Expressive Arts Summit, New York City: With Pamela Freeman, LCSW. Stories that Heal Us. Using Playback Theatre in Clinical populations.

2013
International Expressive Arts Therapy Association-Hong Kong. Presented on Toy Theatre and looking at the topic of “Othering.” Using Object Theatre to understand the forces that Bind Us.

News and Videos

2020
Spotlight on CBS News Boston. Interviewed along with colleague Dr. Ara Parker by Co-Anchor Lisa Hughes about Expressive Arts-based emotional support groups called “Arts for Our Times” to support people during the pandemic.

Publications and Scholarship

Using the Creative Therapies in Grief and Loss (2015). Chapter: Stories that need to be told. Edited by Maraglia, D. and Brooke, S. Charles Thomas Press, USA

Using Art Therapy in Diverse Populations: Crossing Cultures and Abilities (2013). Co-Edited and authored with Paula Howie and Sangeeta Prasad. Jessica Kingsley Press, London, UK.

Articles and Periodicals

2012
Interplay, December 2012, Playback Theatre in Bangladesh.

2010
Playback Theatre work in Bangladesh is included in Healing Collective Trauma, by Eva Leveton.

2004
“Playback Theatre in Bangladesh”- Published in “Interplay’ the Journal of the International Playback Theatre Network.

2003
Vermont Recreation Magazine, January/February 2003. The Creative Arts and Healing.

1997
Seven Days Magazine 1997, After the baby arrives… What’s next? Article about postpartum care.

1990
Holistic Education Review, spring, 1990. Violence in the Family, Co-authored with Nina S.L. Martin.

Education

Northeast Triangle School of Psychodrama, New Paltz, NY

New England Institute of Psychodrama, Arlington, MA

Master of Arts in Expressive Arts Therapy, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA
Studied different arts and their applications in therapeutic models. Focused on Psychodrama and Art Therapies.

BS Emerson College, Boston, MA. Major: Psychology (Interpersonal communications); Minor: Theatre Arts (emphasizing theatre education)

Clinical Certifications

REAT Credentialed as a registered expressive arts therapist through the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, San Francisco, CA

Non-Clinical Certifications

Centre for Playback Theatre, New Paltz, NY
Accredited as a Playback Theatre Trainer

Centre of Playback Theatre, New Paltz, NY
Completed Playback Leadership Training. Emphasis on personal story, improvisation, and social implications. Two summer intensives, research paper, creative project and practicum included. I continue to go to the school each summer to take courses. Currently serving as President of the Board of the Centre.

The Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality, Oakland, CA
Certificate in Spiritual Guidance and Social Ecology. Studied western mystical traditions and their relationship to other spiritual traditions, as well as their personal, social-ecological, and political relevance.