On Family Constellations Therapy

Family Constellations begins with this premise—it did not start with me. Many of us become “entangled” with the unhappiness of those who came before us, unconsciously adopting destructive familial patterns of anxiety, depression, failure, and even illness and addiction.

Family Constellations can help us all recognize and disrupt family system patterns in order to heal the inner child, and parent the adult self, release limiting beliefs and behaviors, and dissolve trauma bonds to the past. Family Constellations therapist Marine Sélénée has been using her unique approach to this philosophy to help her clients get to the root of their pain. Through working with Family Constellations, we can learn to reconcile the past and the present for a whole and integrated self, arrive at a place of personal peace within the family system, and craft future-facing narratives that empower us to live authentically.

Join Marine and CIIS faculty in Expressive Arts Therapy Mimi Savage for an inspiring and empowering introduction to Family Constellations and how we can all harness this philosophy to take ownership of our lives.

Marine Sélenée is a New York/Miami based Family Constellations therapist, author, and speaker. She offers in-person and virtual private sessions and workshops. She also speaks on panel discussions and at conferences delivering motivational speeches. In 2020 she joined Hay House Family where her book, Connected Fates, Separate Destinies | Using Family Constellations Therapy to Recover from Inherited Stories and Trauma, will be published in the fall of 2021. Her unique approach to Family Constellations helps people heal from family wounds and find individual blocks rooted in the family system. Her clients are able to get to the root of their pain, in order to not only heal themselves, but the generations before and after them. Her greatest passion is sharing the transformative power of Family Constellations.

Dr. Mimi Savage is an associate professor, half core faculty in the MCP/EXA department. Her doctorate is in Expressive Art Therapies from Lesley University. She is a registered drama therapist (RDT), a board certified trainer of drama therapy and the Education Chair on the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA) board.  

Mimi's clinical background is in developing and leading drama and expressive therapy programs in inpatient units for children and adults as well as in milieus for neuro-diverse populations. She is founding faculty at UCLArts and Healing SEA program, a professional development forum where she instructs on the use of the arts for social emotional benefit.  

Mimi's research and publications center on the intersections of self-identity and complex trauma for young women adopted from foster care through the unique use of digital art app interventions and narrative drama therapy methods in arts-based, narrative inquiry. She facilitated homeless women's groups in Skidrow, Los Angeles weekly for several years as part of the documentary film project called Game Girls, which was recognized with several honors. The filmmaker and she continue to publish on the novel experiences of the project. 

A recipient of a Drama Therapy Fund professional research grant, Mimi is also founder of the SoCal Drama Therapy Center in Los Angeles, an international training ground for therapists, social workers, educators and artists. As a drama therapy supervisor and facilitator for the residential treatment program, Discovery Mood and Anxiety, she inaugurated a drama/expressive therapy program for adolescents that is now national and virtual.  

Dr. Savage is founding chair of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Initiative, the first NADTA outreach whose purpose is to increase diversity in the profession by inviting and supporting interested Black identifying folx. 

She teaches Human Development and Family for MCP/EXA, inviting students to explore their own family dynamics by designing creative psycho dramatic social atoms! 

We are grateful to our Bookstore Partner:  
 

Marcus Books is the nation’s oldest Black-owned independent bookstore celebrating its 60th year. Marcus Books’ mission is to provide opportunities for Black folks and their allies to celebrate and learn about Black people everywhere.