EXPRESSIVE THERAPIES HAS NEW DIRECTOR

An overall feeling of newness" is how Julia Byers, the new director of the Expressive Therapies program, describes the department she joined this year. Not only is there the addition of bright, modern music, dance, and art studios in Porter Exchange, but many of the faculty are new too. And several long-standing faculty members in the program are turning to new interests.

Byers came to Lesley from Concordia University in Montreal, where she was the program director in art therapy. She also had her own private clinical practice, which focused on crisis intervention, particularly with with adolescents. Last year, she participated in a project that, she says, "changed my life." With a grant from the Canadian government, Byers traveled with a team of mental health workers to the West Bank in Gaza to assist children, their families, and mental health workers . "It was a tremendously humbling experience," she says. "The people were receptive to expressive therapy because I was offering a very gentle modality, not at all confrontational. It gave them another way of resolving trauma -- a voice and a place to share and externalize their experiences."

Based on her experiences there, Byers hopes to work with immigrants in Cambridge and Boston, who also have had trauma and have difficulty talking about it.

Here at Lesley, Byers' goals are to expand the Expressive Therapies program with new concepts in the field and explore potential interdisciplinary approaches.

"I also want to empower the faculty to work in areas of expertise that they are passionate about," Byers says. "Our new faculty includes Michele Forinash, a music/expressive therapist who has an extensive clinical history in hospices; Karen Estrella, who is interested in the role of imagination in psychotherapy; and Terry Halperin-Eaton, a dance therapist exploring the relationship between art, movement, and chronic pain."

Rounding out the faculty roster is psychodramatist Peter Rowan; art therapist Susan Spaniol, who is researching artists with mental illness and disabilities; and last year's acting director Mariagnese Cattaneo, whose focus is on privilege and oppression and understanding cultural diversity.

"Society in general is looking for other ways of resolving things, and I think the expressive arts have a lot to offer the average person," says Byers, who is seeking to broaden her scope. "You do not have to be mentally ill to benefit from the growth-oriented approaches in expressive therapies."

The Expressive Therapies program was established at Lesley approximately 25 years ago, and was one of the first graduate programs in the United States to train professionals in this field. The program now enrolls more than 200 students each year, and its alumni work throughout the country and internationally as expressive arts therapists, psychotherapists, university faculty members, and other positions related to the arts in human services.