Faculty Members of the EXA Program

Program Chair

Shoshana Simons

Core Faculty

Denise Boston, PhD, is a core faculty member in the Expressive Arts Therapy Program. She received a BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts; a MA from Goddard College and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Walden University. Her work experience includes teaching indigenous psychology, performing, and ritual process and ceremonial design. Denise has devoted her career and research to understanding the impact of social injustice in the lives of people living in marginalized communities. 

Sherry Raley, PhD, received a doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology and an MA in Counseling Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, CA. She also holds an MS in Music Therapy from Radford University. Sherry has worked in mental health since 1989, including direct care work in group homes serving adults with developmental and mental health challenges, and as a Board Certified Music Therapist (MT-BC) in psychiatric hospitals. She has a private practice as a music therapy and expressive arts centered clinical psychologist.

Shoshana Simons, PhD, RDT, is Chair of CIIS's Expressive Arts Therapy Program and Associate Professor in CIIS's Transformative Inquiry Department. Shoshana has a rich background in integrating performance and expressive arts structures into multiple contexts of work with children and adults in educational, therapeutic and larger systems. She has a particular interest in the integration of the arts into spiritual practice and socio-emotional development. She is passionate about using the performance and expressive arts as catalysts for healing and social change and is deeply involved in developing an expressive arts-centered approaches to narrative therapy.

Adjunct Faculty

Lauren Cunningham, MSW, LCSW, is a child and adult analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She is a teaching member of the International Society for Sandplay Therapy, a founding member of Sandplay Therapists of America, and founding editor of Journal of Sandplay Therapy (1990–2000).  She has a private, analytic practice in San Francisco and sees children, adolescents, and adults. She writes, teaches, and consults on sandplay and on analytic work with children.

Shellee Davis, MA, REAT, is an artist, educator, and Registered Expressive Arts Therapist. Her teaching focuses on the transformative power of creativity for personal and political change.  She cocreated and taught the Person-Centered Expressive Arts for Healing and Social Change Certificate program at Saybrook Graduate School with Natalie Rogers for four years and was codirector and faculty at the Person-Centered Expressive Therapy Institute for eighteen years.

Kate T. Donohue, PhD, REAT, is a licensed psychologist and a registered expressive arts therapist. She holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and has maintained an active private practice for 32 years. She has also been teaching for 35 years. Kate was one of the original founding core faculty members of the Expressive Arts Therapy at CIIS. Her life work in teaching, supervision, consultation, training and her therapy practice has been to marry Jungian Psychology with expressive arts therapy. 

John Fox, BFA, a poet and certified poetry therapist, is author of Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making, Finding What You Didn’t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity Through Poem-Making, and numerous essays. He is a contributor to Whole Person Health Care, (Pager/Greenwood).  John is featured in the PBS documentary Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine, a film about introducing poetry into hospital settings. He works throughout the United States in therapeutic, medical, pastoral, geriatric, educational, holistic, public, and community-based settings.

Lois Friedlander, MA, MFT, CGP is a Board Certified Music Therapist, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and a Certified Group Psychotherapist with more than 30 years of experience specializing in the field of psychiatry. She is a nationally recognized music therapist, consultant, and author. Lois began her career in psychiatry in 1973 at Napa State Hospital. In 1993 she joined the UCSF faculty as assistant clinical professor, joined the Adult Psychiatry clinical treatment team, and began supervising psychiatry physicians in training.

Maria Gonzalez-Blue, MA, REAT, REACE, is in private practice as an Expressive Arts Therapist and Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator. She has worked extensively with diverse groups and individuals of all ages. She was a core faculty member of the Person-Centered Expressive Therapy Institute, Santa Rosa, CA, from 1991 to its closing in 2005. She is co-founder of the Person Centered Expressive Therapy Institute in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has also taught in Mexico and Guatemala. 

Linda Hammond, MFT, RDT, REAT is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a Registered Drama Therapist, and a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT) with private practice offices in San Francisco and Oakland/Berkeley since 1989.  She has developed treatment using the expressive arts with an emphasis on body-oriented psychotherapy, theater movement playtherapy, and sandplay in her work with children, adolescents, adults, and couples.

Deborah Koff-Chapin, BFA, holds a degree from The Cooper Union and is an artist, vocalist, author, and teacher. She has been developing the process of touch drawing since she discovered it in revelatory play in 1974. Deborah is creator of SoulCards 1&2 and author of Drawing Out Your Soul and The Touch Drawing Facilitator Workbook. She has produced a DVD, audio CD, slide shows, e-newsletters, and an online community to support the dissemination of touch drawing worldwide.

Ellen G. Levine, MSW, PhD, is a graduate of the Toronto Art Therapy Institute, a Registered Art Therapist, a Licensed Social Worker, and a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist. She is a graduate of the Toronto Child Psychotherapy Programme and a registered psychoanalyst. Although her primary medium is visual art, she has also studied clown and mask with Richard Pochinko, Philippe Gaulier and others.   

Stephen K. Levine, PhD, DSSc, REAT, is professor emeritus of York University (Toronto), vice-rector and dean of the Doctoral Program in Expressive Arts at the European Graduate School (Switzerland), and co-director of ISIS-Canada, a three-year training program in expressive arts therapy.  He is the editor of POIESIS: A Journal of the Arts and Communication and was one of the cofounders of IEATA. His artistic interests include poetry, voice, and theater (especially clown).

Syntha Lorenz, MA, MFT, REAT, is a licensed MFT and Registered Expressive Arts Therapist. She has a full-time private practice in San Francisco, is the program director at the Marina Counseling Center, and executive cochair for IEATA. She is practicum site coordinator for the EXA program in addition to being adjunct faculty.  Visual arts, somatic awareness, sandplay, authentic movement, and dreamwork are some of the ways she integrates the arts into her practice. She is a graduate of CIIS, with an MA in Expressive Arts Therapy.

Jaime Nisenbaum, PhD, REAT  holds a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and is a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist. He is an adjunct faculty member and former co-director of Tamalpa Institute.  His background includes extensive training in movement-based expressive arts therapy, body-oriented psychotherapeutic approaches, Gestalt therapy and a wide array of psychological orientations. His areas of interest involve the development of further clinical applications of expressive arts therapy and men's studies.

Delfina Piretti, MA MFT is a seasoned body mind healing practitioner who is an all time believer in the power of the arts. In her role as visual artist she creates oil painting and interactive installations directly relating to her work as an expressive arts therapist, her interest in shamanism, Zen Buddhism and her Italian cultural roots. Delfina has pioneered programs to serve battered women and women traumatized from prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation.  She has also created and implemented expressive arts therapy groups in jails for seven years. 

Gwen Sanders, MFT, ATR-BC, is an Assistant Adjunct Professor and Senior Lecturer in the Art Therapy Psychology program at Notre Dame de Namur University where she is the Practicum Coordinator. She is past president of the Northern California Art Therapy Association, and developed the Art Therapy program for Seneca Center. She has extensive clinical experience and has served emotionally disturbed children, chronic mentally ill adults, the bereaved, and the elderly.

Gloria Simoneaux, MA, REAT, is founding director of Harambee Arts, an expressive arts organization based in sub-Saharan Africa, designed to serve children globally who have been traumatized by illness, poverty, autistic spectrum disorder and other crises. Gloria taught Expressive Arts to counselors in Nairobi as a Fulbright scholar, affiliated with the Kenya Association of Professional Counselors.

Jo Sopko, MFT, RDT, a professional actress, has her own weaving business, and an extensive background in the arts, as well as yoga and Buddhist meditation. She works with at-risk children/youth, as well as families, individual adults, and graduate students. She is a graduate of CIIS (Drama Therapy), with a special interest in expressive arts. Drawn to the image and symbol, she feels deeply connected to a Jungian approach (including sand tray) to access the depth and wisdom of the unconscious.

Tina Stromsted, PhD, MFT, ADTR (Registered Dance Therapist), was cofounder and faculty at the Authentic Movement Institute in Berkeley, is on the faculty of the Somatics Doctoral program at Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, and is a trainer in the Leadership program for the Marion Woodman Foundation.  With a background in dance and theater, her clinical experience includes over three decades of work in hospitals, in community mental health clinics, and in private practice. 

Armand Volkas, MFA, MA, MFT, RDT/BCT, is the founder and director of the Healing the Wounds of History and Acts of Reconciliation projects, and of the Living Arts Counseling Center and Playback Theater Company. He has developed innovative programs using drama therapy for social change, conflict resolution, reconciliation, and intercultural communication.

Jack S. Weller, MA, Rudolph Schaeffer Professor of Arts and Creativity and founding director of the Expressive Arts program at the Institute, received his BA in Psychology and MA in Philosophy from the University of California (1968), specializing in aesthetics and East-West studies.  His post graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, and the San Francisco Zen Center focused on Buddhist art and Buddhist studies; he has also been trained in the healing, therapeutic aspects of the arts.