Centering Connection and Creativity for Health and Wellbeing

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Around the world, practitioners are rediscovering what artists, cultural workers, and community healers have long understood: that creativity and human connection are powerful forces for wellbeing.

Join CIIS faculty Dr. Christine Brooks and Dr. Elizabeth Markle for a rich conversation exploring how arts-based practices, dynamic community experiences, and connection-centered programming are reshaping the landscape of health.

Together they discuss emerging innovations such as social prescribing, a model that reimagines healthcare by formally “prescribing” experiences like movement, art, social connection, and service—elevating these everyday resources as legitimate pathways to wellbeing alongside medical care. They explore the integration of arts into community mental health, personal and collective growth and transformation, and the broader movement to center belonging and creativity in care. Their conversation also highlights Community As Medicine®, an evidence-based model that brings these ideas to life through joyful movement, stress-reduction, and human connection.

Dr. Brooks and Dr. Markle invite you to explore what healing can look like when medical care integrates arts and community practices to nurture whole-person wellbeing.

Meet the Hosts

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Christine Brooks, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of the M.A. in Expressive Arts Coaching & Community Building (EXCC) at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She holds a BFA in Acting from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and completed graduate work in Gender Studies and Religious Studies before earning an M.A. in Psychology and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. She previously served in the Expressive Arts Therapy program at CIIS for a decade and prior to that Chaired M.A. and Ph.D. programs in transpersonal psychology.

Dr. Brooks brings an integrative artist-scholar-practitioner orientation to her work, grounded in over two decades of experience across higher education, creative industries, and applied coaching contexts. Prior to her academic leadership roles, she worked as a book editor, in film industry, and helped lead an early artificial intelligence start-up focused on replicating expert advisory processes. These experiences continue to inform her active coaching practice, where she works with individuals and groups navigating leadership development, professional transitions, identity formation, and purpose-driven work through arts-based and relational approaches.

Her scholarly and professional interests include arts-based, spiritual, feminist, and queer frameworks in coaching and psychology; postmodern and participatory worldviews; cultural responsiveness and power-aware practice; qualitative and arts-based research methodologies; adult developmental theory; and the Enneagram as a developmental and reflective model. She has published articles and book chapters on transpersonal psychology, qualitative inquiry,  and arts-based coaching including an upcoming chapter, Narrative EXA Coaching: Approaches to Transformation & Change in “I don’t know but together we do!” Narrative expressive arts in counseling, coaching and community vibrance to be published in Summer 2026. Dr. Brooks also engages in arts-based community practice and “artivism,” including participation in V-Day performances of The Vagina Monologues and recently reinvigorating her love of improvisational theater as a member of the Living Mirror Playback Theater in Tampa, FL. She is dedicated to ongoing support of local performance artists through creative collaboration and advocacy.
 

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Elizabeth Markle, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist, speaker, writer, researcher, and Associate Professor of Community Mental Health at California Institute of Integral Studies. Dedicated to multi-theoretical and multi-level approaches to individual and community health and healing, Elizabeth's current area of study and innovation is around combining clinical expertise with social entrepreneurship to create sustainable, thriving cultures of health and wellness. She is the co-founder of Open Source Wellness, a nonprofit initiative offering experiential behavioral health and wellness via a "Community As Medicine" approach in collaboration with healthcare providers and insurers. Liz's current quest is around creating intimacy at scale, creating solutions for authentic and nourishing human connection facilitated by technology. In her TEDx talk, Dr. Elizabeth Markle explores the transformative impact of "Community As Medicine" in revolutionizing healthcare experiences.

Important Event Information

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Recording Policy 

Ticket holders will have access to an ad-free replay of the event for one month after the live event, after which unlimited viewing with ads will be available. Portions of the audio will also be released on our podcast. Only registered ticket holders who choose to watch live can participate in the chat and Q&A.

Refund Policy 

All tickets and add-ons purchased for this event are nonrefundable.