Expressive Therapies Studies

Dr. Karen Estrella, LMHC, REAT, MT-BC, ATR-BC, is a professor in the Department of Graduate Expressive Therapies at Lesley University. As a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT), Karen's work focuses on developing expressive arts therapy theory and practice. Her work includes an integrated arts approach to counseling and psychotherapy, and she has spent much of the past 20 years developing competencies and integrating theory in Expressive Arts Therapy.

In addition to being a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist, Karen is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and an active music therapist and art therapist, practicing community-based mental health counseling.

In addition to Expressive Arts Therapy as a unique specialization and discipline, Karen's research interests include issues of professional development and cultural identity for Counselors and Expressive Therapists. Karen has an interest in training, clinical practice, and supervision of Expressive Therapies; multicultural approaches to Expressive Therapies; arts-based and narrative research; psychodynamic psychotherapy and supervision and its applications to Expressive Therapies; and social action and activism through the arts, particularly when integrated with therapeutic practice.

Dr. Mitchell Kossak, LMHC, REAT is a professor in the Department of Graduate Expressive Therapies at Lesley University. He served as Department Chair from 2006 to 2013. He was the President and Executive Co-Chair for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) 2010-2016. He has been a licensed mental health counselor, since 1994, and is a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT).

He is the Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Arts and Health and Co-Chair of the Institute for Arts and Health at Lesley University. His clinical work combines expressive arts therapies with body-centered approaches with a variety of populations addressing issues such as chronic pain, recovery from trauma, depression, anxiety, life transitions and relationships. In addition he has worked extensively with autistic children and adults.

Mitchell has trained in a variety of mind body modalities including Polarity Therapy, Craniosacral Therapy, Deep Tissue Massage and Bioenergetics. In Expressive Arts Therapies he has training in music therapy, experimental theater, psychodrama, and authentic movement. He studied Sound Healing with innovators in the field of sacred sound and transformation of consciousness, such as Dr. John Beaulieu author of Music and Sound in the Healing Arts and Silvia Nakkach director of the Vox Mundi Project. In addition to this training, he has studied and practiced energy based healing forms such as Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Vipassana meditation, and Iyengar yoga for over 30 years.

He earned his doctorate from the Union Institute and University in interdisciplinary studies with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy and transpersonal psychology. He has written about and presented his research on rhythmic attunement, improvisation, psychospiritual and community-based approaches to working with trauma and embodied states of consciousness at conferences nationally and internationally. He is the author of Attunement in Expressive Arts Therapy:  Toward an Understanding of Embodied Empathy. He is the Associate Editor of The Journal of Applied Arts and Health and Co-Chair of the Institute for Arts and Health at Lesley University. 

Mitchell Kossak is also a professional musician, performing for the past 30 years in the Boston area.

Dr. Kelvin Ramirez is a Board Certified Registered Art Therapist (ATR-BC) and core faculty member of the Department of Graduate Expressive Therapies. Kelvin is a Board Member of FNE International, a 501(c)3 organization that partners with communities in developing nations to identify opportunities to advance housing, health and education. With that international experience, Kelvin continues to collaborate and develops programs with educators, clinicians, and community leaders in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and India. He has developed academic curriculum that build and reinforce initiatives in Nicaragua, The Dominican Republic, Haiti and India.

Prior to joining Lesley, Kelvin was the vice principal of a high school in the South Bronx where he developed and incorporated art therapy within educational systems to enhance student’s personal and academic growth. During his 9-year tenure as vice principal, art therapy was infused throughout the academic and therapeutic approaches of the school, increasing retention and shifting behavioral approaches to enhance students' socio-emotional development.

Kelvin has taught for the Counseling Division at the College of New Rochelle and the Clinical Art Therapy Program at Long Island University C.W. Post.

His current areas of interest and research include:

• The development of international art therapy initiatives that conform to the specific needs of communities
• Contemporary social justice issues
• How art therapy addresses or ignores systemic oppression
• The underrepresentation of people of color within the field of art therapy and the implications of this on theory and practice
• The connections between horticultural therapy and art therapy to transform communities

Teaching is important to Kelvin, because it is through this act of service that people are prepared to direct their destinies and author their own stories. It is a profession that entrusts educators with the malleable minds of the future. Kelvin holds fast to the unwavering ideals that brought him to education, including that social injustices can only be remedied by an educated populous, that an educated mind is a mind called into action for the betterment of all human kind, and that through educating our future generations, our positive influence on the world will continue long after we expire.

Dr. Deb Spragg, Associate Professor in the Department of Graduate Expressive Therapies, has been teaching at Lesley since 2005 when she began as a clinical instructor in supervision. A core faculty member since 2009, Deb has long had a keen interest in the teaching and supervision of Lesley students.

Deb's clinical focus was working with people with psychotic disorders. She championed the use of non-verbal and artistic means for facilitating contact with self and connection to others for hospitalized clients. She worked full-time for 15 years in clinical settings with individuals and groups in hospitals, residential treatment, and private practice.

Deb was also involved in hospice and attending the bereaved. Since joining the Lesley Community on a full-time basis in 2012, Deb has been a mentor to the clinical instructor community in her role as Director of Field Training in the Graduate Expressive Therapies Department.

Her focus is on the role of mindfulness and arts-based inquiry in reducing implicit bias, and she has been heavily involved in cross-university social justice initiatives, including the Lesley University Diversity Council. In her teaching and in her clinical work, Deb has drawn inspiration from her meditation practice. The role of difference in relationships and a relational view of health wellness are her life-long interests.

Dr. Raquel Stephenson is a board-certified, registered art therapist (ATR-BC) and a licensed creative arts therapist (LCAT). She joined Lesley in 2013 as a core faculty member of the Department of Graduate Expressive Therapies, in the Art Therapy Program. 
 
Prior to joining Lesley, Raquel was a 2010/2011 Fulbright Scholar to Estonia, where she taught in the Department of Applied Creativity at Tallinn University and continues to teach as a visiting guest lecturer. Raquel was on the faculty of the graduate art therapy programs New York University and the School of Visual Arts, and frequently is a visiting instructor at other institutions worldwide.   
 
Committed to improving the lives of older adults through the arts, Dr. Stephenson’s work has focused on a wide spectrum of older populations. She was co-founder and teaching artist for the Teaching Artist, Creative Approaches to Healthy Aging program, funded by two National Endowment for the Arts ArtWorks Grants, and founder, clinical supervisor, and program director of New York University’s Creative Aging Therapeutic Services. Raquel consults with emerging clinical art therapy programs worldwide and designed and implemented the first creative arts therapy program for older adults with dementia in Estonia.  

Raquel serves on the National Advisory Council and Program Advisory Committee of Arts for the Aging in Rockville, MD, and the Advisory Council of the Art Therapy Project in New York City. She also serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Creativity and Human Development.  

She is a Faculty Fellow of the Institute for Arts and Health here at Lesley University, and a member of the UNESCO-UNITWIN Chair on Life Design, Decent Work, and Sustainable Development. 

Raquel loves to be outdoors in any way possible, especially sailing, skiing, whitewater kayaking, hiking, and spending time with her family. While she loves New England, Raquel is an enthusiastic explorer and thrives on a journey anywhere. 

Valerie Blanc, PhD, LMHC, BC-DMT, CMA, has been a part of the Lesley dance/movement therapy specialization faculty since 2011 and as a core faculty since 2018. She is currently the Coordinator of the Dance/Movement Therapy specialization working with a vibrant team of innovative educators. She teaches in both the on campus and hybrid low residency distance learning programs and was a part of the design team to create the low residency curriculum. Her teaching work includes the DMT Theories courses, Clinical Applications and Supervision, and the span of Body Movement Observation courses. She has been an integral part of curricular redesign in these courses, with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion within the dance/movement therapy pedagogy both at Lesley and nationally.  

Currently, Valerie is a dance/movement therapist in private practice specializing in work with young children and their families as well as and clinical supervision. Her clinical experience has centered around work with children with a focus on work with attachment patterns and sensory integration work- especially with the deaf population. She has extensive experience in inpatient psychiatric work with children and adolescents as well as community mental health support. She worked for 13 years with the Boston Children’s Foundation implementing the Rainbowdance and CBI programs in acute trauma response and resiliency building utilizing the expressive therapies. She acted as a lead trainer in the Rainbowdance and CBI programs, traveling to Taiwan, Mississippi, and New Jersey in response to acute natural disasters in these areas.  

Valerie’s research interests center around the pedagogical practices of dance/movement therapy and building pedagogical theory in the field. Her recent research studies have explored the dance/movement therapy hybrid low residency student’s sense of embodied presence in their core courses as well as pedagogical practices of dance/movement therapy educators in ADTA approved programs. She was also part of the planning committee for the 2020 international Pathways to Practice: Conversations in Arts Therapies Education conference, as well as co-leading ongoing departmental workshops exploring pedagogical themes in the expressive therapies at Lesley. In collaboration with music therapy colleague she has also explored a critical perspective of the histories of dance/movement therapy and music therapy through a duo-ethnographic and arts based lens.  

With national and local leadership in professional organizations, she has acted on the American Dance Therapy Association’s Committee on Approval, collaborating with educators across the United States to assure educational standards for DMT education. She is also an active member of the ADTA Education Committee where she currently asks on several task forces addressing educational standards revision, critical examination of movement observation lenses in DMT, and revision of the application process for board certification in the field.  

Valerie grew up in Massachusetts where she now lives with her husband, two children, and pug. She is active in the arts community in Cambridge and dances with the Guardians of Isadora dance group who perform the repertoire of Isadora Duncan.   

Dr. Jason D. Butler is a Registered Drama Therapist, Board Certified Trainer, and New York State Licensed Creative Arts Therapist. Jason is a former President of the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA) and previously served on the NADTA Board of Directors as President-Elect and Communications Chair. He is the editor-in-chief for The Arts in Psychotherapy and the former training director for DvT Montreal, a satellite of the Institute for Developmental Transformations.

Prior to joining Lesley University, Jason was a professor in Creative Arts Therapy at Montreal's Concordia University, serving for a portion of that time as the graduate program director for drama therapy and a member of the Arts in Health Research Collective.  

Jason is an internationally known drama therapist, having presented on drama therapy in many countries, including the Czech Republic, China, Hong Kong, South Africa, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University and at New York University and was one of the first recipients of the NADTA Teaching Excellence Award in 2012. 

Prior to being a full-time professor, Jason was the director of Goddard Riverside Community Center’s The Other Place, a psycho-social program and drop-in center for homelessness and mental illness in New York City. Prior to finding drama therapy, he was a high school theatre teacher.

His publications include articles and book chapters on drama therapy education, arts therapies pedagogy, schizophrenia, developmental transformations, and role theory. His current research includes an exploration of the drama therapy student experience as well as the application of drama therapy theory to experiential learning.

Dr. Laura L. Wood is a Registered Drama Therapist, Board Certified Trainer, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor, Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, and a Certified Child Life Specialist. Dr. Wood is a Past President of the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA). Previously, Dr. Wood served as an Assistant Professor and the Clinical Coordinator at Molloy University, where she spent four years collaborating and launching an accredited program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and supported the start of a community wellness clinic. Prior to being a full-time professor, Dr. Wood was the Lead Therapist at an eating disorder and trauma treatment center in the Midwest where she facilitated individual, group, and family therapy. She also spent time working in pediatric hospitals with critically and seriously ill children and in assisted living with older adults. Her focus and research areas include the treatment of trauma and dissociation, eating disorders, attachment, recovery, and grief/loss. More specifically, Dr. Wood is interested in how therapeutic theater can support individuals in various forms of recovery. She created the CoActive Therapeutic Theater (CoATT) Model with her colleague Dave Mowers. CoATT is the first manualized model of therapeutic theater and Dr. Wood is engaged in on-going research and collaboration with various recovery communities including persons with eating disorders, substance use, and aphasia. Most currently, Dr. Wood is a co-collaborator with the UMASS Mind Team and received a National Endowment for the Arts grant using the CoATT Model with individuals in mental health recovery. Dr. Wood presents, publishes, supervises, and consults nationally and internationally. She sees clients in private practice and facilitates intensive healing retreats using drama therapy. In the classroom, Dr. Wood is passionate about teaching and supervising students to develop into present, attuned, and embodied clinicians that listen deeply. Dr. Wood works to inspire each student to think critically about the material presented and examine the role of power, privilege, and intersecting identities in the clinical encounter. Dr. Wood prioritizes mirroring and reflecting to each student their unique capacities and supporting students in unfolding into the practitioner and scholar they want to embody.