The Drama Therapy Institute of Los Angeles
All classes are held on Zoom and count as CE credits for NADTA. Instructors may offer a hybrid in-person option for local students, depending on enrollment. In order to ensure we receive the correct contact information, you must officially register through the form button below. (Information can be lost/mistakenly altered if passed through email communication.) Thank you so much, and we look forward to seeing you in class!
Core Classes (3 Units)
Principles of Drama Therapy
Dates: Sept. 27, Oct. 4, October 11, 25, Nov. 1, 8, 15, & one TBA date in November
Times: 9:30 to 2:30pm, PDT (After Nov. 2nd it is PST)
TBA 5 Class Film hours
Cost: $899
Instructors: Pam Dunne, Ph.D, RDT,BCT, NT; Kamran Afary (PHD, RDT, BCT, NT); Alicia Stephen (MA, RDT)
Ready to play and transform? Join us for an exploration of drama therapy’s most powerful approaches! This course focuses on experiential learning, guiding you through methods like Narradrama, Ethnodramatherapy, Role Theory, and DvT. You will learn to use creative materials and dynamic psychodramatic techniques, including interviewing and doubling, to put theory into practice. Find out how to apply these skills in real-world settings and with the populations you care about. Sign up now to begin your journey.
Group Psychotherapy
Dates: September 14, 21, 28; October 12, 19, 26; November 2, 9, 16; Dec 7, 14
Time: 9 am to 12:30 pm PDT. After Nov. 2nd, it is PST.
Additional Hours: 8 -11 TBA film hours
Instructor: Terhi Korkiakangas, Ph.D, CI. Hyp
Cost: $899
This course provides a thorough introduction to the theory and practice of group psychotherapy. With a strong emphasis on Yalom’s interpersonal and integrative approach, students will explore the core principles, therapeutic factors, and stages of group development. The course presents various theoretical models and approaches, and explains how to leverage the latest insights from a biophysiological perspective on social engagement, while emphasizing the here-and-now interactions and group cohesion. Through a combination of readings, experiential activities, video observations, and films, participants will learn to recognize and work with group dynamics, the reenactment of roles and relationship patterns within the group, leadership and facilitation styles, and the power of the group as an agent of change. Special attention is given to ethical issues and diversity awareness in group therapy, the application of creative interventions in groups, and how group psychotherapy can be adapted for different populations. By the end of the course, students will be able to apply key concepts to the design, leadership, and evaluation of therapeutic groups in a variety of settings.
15 Hour Classes (1 Unit)
Clinical Uses of Narradrama: Narradrama Steps*
Dates: September 7, October 5, November 23
Time: 9 am to 1:45 pm (PDT) – After Nov. 2nd it is PST
Cost: $338
TBA: 2 hours Film/Article
Facilitator: Ksenia Ilinskaya, MA, NF, NT
TBA: 1 hour
Required for Narradrama Concentration
Participants in an embodied way will experience the 9 Narradrama steps and explore action methods of, using creative arts, to assist clients to externalize problems, explore personal agency, and make discoveries about their strengths and abilities. Employing specialized Narradrama techniques such as multi- level narratives, doubly listening, and sensory rich environments, participants will practice exploring and utilizing the steps in working with different clinical populations and settings.
Independent Studies (1 Unit)
NOTE: Independent Studies is more student-led, often with the goal of completing a research project/paper. Meetings will be scheduled on days/times when the facilitator’s and the (most) students’ schedules match. Meetings are not mandatory like classes. Rather they are designed for the facilitator to help the students in their research projects, and for students to learn from other students.
Gangs, Riots: Verbatim Enacted Roles Inspired by Anna Deavere Smith
Facilitator: Kamran Afary
Time: ( TBA)
Cost: $ 338
(possibility of extra hours)
Incarceration, Youth and Therapeutic Intervention
Facilitator: Kamran Afary
Time: (TBA)
Cost: $ 338
(possibility of extra hours)
Ethics and the Law
Facilitator: Pam Dunne
Time: ( TBA)
Cost: $ 338
Independent Study: Drama Therapy Practice with LGBTQ+
Facilitator: Pam Dunne
Time: (TBA)
Cost: $ 338
8 Hour Classes (.5 Unit)
Therapeutic Improvisation: Knowing What to Play to Enhance the Therapeutic Process
Date: August 24 & 31
Time: 9 am to 12:30 pm ( PDT)
Cost: $ 169
Facilitator: Rachel Brousseau, LMFT, RDT, BCT, NT
1 hour arranged
Participants will experientially learn to adapt the intentional use of improv games and scenes to support clients across multiple settings such as acute inpatient hospitalization, residential treatment, and community mental health. Games will also be applied to educational settings.
Narradrama Approaches to Addiction, Accountability, and the Protector Within*
Date: September 19th
Time: 10:30 am to 6 pm (PDT)
Cost: $169
Instructors: Kamran Afary (PhD, RDT/BCT, NT) and Cassandra Ambe (MA, NF)
TBA 1 hour (video/article)
This experiential workshop explores how Narradrama can open space for clients struggling with addiction to move beyond pathology, into dialogue, creativity, and transformation. Participants will engage in role interviews with addiction, map parallel identities, and explore poetic testimony through sociometry, embodiment, and improvisation. The Transtheoretical Stages of Change will be explored which increase motivation between stages. Using the Window of Tolerance, participants will learn how to use creativity and art making can widening the window. The constraints of managed care will also be considered.
Embodying Ethics: Navigating Uncertainty Through Drama Therapy
Date: December 6 & 13
Time: 12 pm to 3:30 pm ( PST)
Cost: $ 169
Facilitator: Kamran Afary, PhD, RDT/BCT, NT, Lynn Baker-Nauman, MA, LMFT, RDT
1 class hour arranged
How do we hold steady when the ground shifts—when clients fear leaving home, loved ones are taken, markets crash, or old certainties collapse? In this workshop, we approach uncertainty not as paralysis, but as a generative ethical space. Drawing on drama therapy’s embodied tools and narrative imagination, we’ll explore how ethics are lived—not prescribed—especially amidst loss, migration, systemic injustice, and fear.
Participants will engage in experiential practices to externalize moral dilemmas, explore power and privilege, and rehearse grounded responses to real-world rupture. Rather than offering fixed answers, this workshop invites presence, play, and collective reflection as we navigate the tensions between responsibility and survival, care and complexity.
Open to drama therapists, students, and helping professionals seeking creative, embodied ways to stay ethically alive in uncertain times.
*Class counts Toward Special Population Requirement