Embodiment, Theater and Using Shakespeare to Organize Traumatized Minds and Bodies

Licia Sky is a somatic educator, artist, singer-songwriter, and bodyworker who works with traumatized individuals and trains mental health professionals to use mindful meditation in movement, theater exercises, writing, and voice as tools for attunement, healing, and connection. She is a regular instructor in trauma healing workshops at Cape Cod Institute, Kripalu, and Esalen. For the past decade, she has been teaching expanded awareness in workshops to clinicians and laypeople around the world. Licia is the co-founder of the Trauma Research Foundation.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Licia Sky receives compensation as an Intuitive Energy Bodyworker and a peer counselor. She is the co-founder and CEO of Trauma Research Foundation. Licia Sky receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Licia Sky has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Kevin G. Coleman, founding member, Shakespeare & Company, where he serves as the director of the Education Program. Shakespeare & Young Company, Shakespeare in the Courts, (a collaboration with Berkshire County Juvenile Court), where juvenile offenders work with actors to perform Shakespeare as an obligation to the Court and the all Festival of Shakespeare. Theater Director at the Austen Riggs Center.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Kevin Coleman is the founding member of Shakespeare & Company and is the theatre director at the Austen Riggs Center. He receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations. Non-financial: Kevin Coleman has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Dr. James Gilligan, MD, is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine. Adjunct Professor in the School of Law and Collegiate Professor in the School of Arts and Science at New York University. He is a former president of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy. He is the author of Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, Preventing Violence: Prospects for Tomorrow, Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others As a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School for many years, he headed the Institute of a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School for many years, he headed the Institute of Law and Psychiatry, and directed mental health services for the Massachusetts prisons and prison mental hospital. He served as an expert witness in the litigation that was the subject of the Supreme Court decision in Plata V. Brown.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. James Gilligan has an employment relationship with New York University. He receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Gilligan receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. James Gilligan is a member of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and the American Public Health Association. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies.

Dawn Stern is a New York City-based AEA/SAG-AFTRA actor, member of the off-Broadway theatre collective The Coop, and COO of the non-profit DE-CRUIT. Her father was a Korean and Vietnam veteran and she was born on a military base outside of Tokyo, Japan. She obtained her B.S. in Theatre Performance from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIU-E) and earned her AFTRA, AEA, and SAG union cards in St. Louis and Chicago. Dawn moved to Los Angeles in 1996 where she built a seventeen-year television career, which includes six pilots, three series regular gigs and over twenty-five guest star appearances. Her highlights include: series regular on Viper, 413 Hope Street, Starhunter and Nobody; a recurring role on the Young and the Restless; and notable guest star appearances including Star Trek: Enterprise, Ally McBeal, Profiler, Beverly Hills 90210, and True Blood. Dawn fell in love with Shakespeare at age 12 and has professionally played Kate, Lady Macbeth, Olivia, Paulina, Goneril, Elizabeth and Margaret. She currently is co-chair of the Inclusion Diversity Equity Accessibility (IDEA) committee for the Shakespeare Theater Association (STA).
 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dawn Stern is the COO of DE-CRUIT® and a project specialist Collectively Rooted. . She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dawn Stern has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD, is a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of post-traumatic stress. His work integrates developmental, neurobiological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment.

Dr. van der Kolk and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development, memory, and the psychobiology of trauma. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles on such diverse topics as neuroimaging, self-injury, memory, neurofeedback, Developmental Trauma, yoga, theater, and EMDR. 

He is founder of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts and President of the Trauma Research Foundation, which promotes clinical, scientific, and educational projects. 

His 2014 #1 New York Times best seller, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Treatment of Trauma, transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring – specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, somatically based therapies, EMDR, psychodrama, play, yoga, and other therapies.

Dr. van der Kolk is the past president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and professor of psychiatry at Boston University Medical School. He regularly teaches at conferences, universities, and hospitals around the world.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is a professor at Boston University School of Medicine, the Director of the Trauma Center, and the National Complex Trauma Network. He receives royalties as a published author. Dr. van der Kolk receives a speaking honorarium, recording royalties, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has no relevant non-financial relationships with ineligible organizations.

Leslie Salmon-Jones
A Toronto native, Leslie received her BA in Dance and Health Studies at the State University of New York, and her Fitness Instructors Certification at New York University. She was a scholarship recipient at the esteemed Alvin Alley Dance Theatre in New York City as well as the London Contemporary Dance School. As a professional dancer, Leslie worked with known greats such as Judith Jameson, Bill T. Jones and Wynton Marsalis. She is a certified wellness coach, through the Wellcoaches Corporation.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Leslie Salmon Jones is the CEO and co-founder of Afro Flow Yoga®. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Leslie Salmon Jones has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Jack Saul, PhD, is the founding director of the International Trauma Studies Program (ITSP). As a psychologist and family therapist, he has created numerous programs for populations that have endured war, torture, and political violence, including the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, the FEMA funded Post 9/11 Downtown Community Resource Center in Lower Manhattan, REFRGE: Refugee Resource Center, and Theater Arts Against Political Violence. He has written about this work in his book, Collective Trauma, Collective Healing: Promoting Community Resilience in the Aftermath of Disaster (Routledge, 2013).

Dr. Saul is the recipient of the American Family Therapy Academy Award for Distinguished Contribution to Social Justice, and the Marion Langer Award for Human Rights and Social Change of the American Association for Orthopsychiatry. He has a private practice in Manhattan and consults to humanitarian, human rights, and media organizations on staff stress management and trauma-informed care.
 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Jack Saul is the founding Director of the International Trauma Studies Program and the founding director of REFUGE. He maintains a private practice and has employment relations with Columbia University and the Norwegian Institute for Expressive Arts Therapies. He receives royalties as a published author. Jack Saul receives a speaking honorarium from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Jack Saul has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Jeff Jones, COO and Founder of Afro Flow Yoga®, a multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, musical director, composer and co-creator with his wife and founder, Leslie Salmon Jones. His mastery of African-inspired rhythms, and his use of the Djembe (from Ghana), congas, bongos, Sudanese Acholi lyre, Indian bells, tambourine creates a healing musical journey. He has performed for the inaugurations of President Barack Obama and Governor Deval Patrick.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Jeffrey Jones is the founder and musical director of Afro Flow Yoga®. He receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Jeffrey Jones has no relevant non-financial relationships.