Program

Founding Symposium:
Trauma-Informed Futures

Geneva, Maison Internationale des Associations, Rue des Savoises 15, Ghandi Room
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9:30-9:50

Opening the Symposium

Opening remarks by the symposium organizers introducing the short- and long-term goals of advancing trauma-informed education and practice, while fostering a strong international community of practitioners, educators, and researchers.
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10:00 - 12:00 (with break)

Keynote Presentation

Expressive Therapies for Trauma-Informed-Practice

This 2-hour keynote workshop with Cathy Malchiodi introduces a trauma-informed, sensory-based approach to arts therapies grounded in current neuroscience and clinical practice. Drawing on her Restorative Embodiment framework, Malchiodi explores how trauma impacts sensory processing and disrupts the body’s capacity for regulation, presence, and connection.
Participants will be guided through key principles of working with the vestibular, proprioceptive, and interoceptive systems, understanding how these sensory pathways shape emotional experience and recovery. 
Through experiential insights, the workshop highlights how art-making, movement, sound, story-telling can support bottom-up regulation, restore a sense of safety, and re-establish mind–body integration. Rather than focusing on verbal processing alone, this approach emphasizes working with the body’s rhythms, sensations, and impulses as entry points for healing. The session offers practical, adaptable strategies for integrating trauma-informed, sensory-based interventions into clinical, educational, and community settings.
This keynote invites participants to reconsider the role of creative expression in trauma recovery, offering a grounded and accessible framework for supporting resilience, agency, and embodied awareness in their practice.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Describe how trauma impacts sensory processing and the nervous system
2. Identify the role of vestibular, proprioceptive, and interoceptive systems in regulation
3. Apply trauma-informed, sensory-based principles to creative arts therapy practice
4. Integrate art-making as a tool for supporting embodied regulation and mind–body connection
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Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPCC, LPAT, ATR-BC, REAT

Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPCC, LPAT, ATR-BC, REAT holds a doctorate in psychology and is an expressive arts therapist specializing in the treatment of traumatic stress.
Director of Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute and researcher with the US Departments of Defense and Education. Author of over 20 books on arts-based therapies such as Handbook of Expressive Arts Therapy, a standard in the field. 
Dr. Malchiodi has extensive experience in the areas of trauma, attachment, disaster relief, and adversity. She is recognized as one of the leaders in trauma-informed care and has assisted more than 500 agencies, organizations, and institutions in developing trauma-informed, expressive and responsive programming including the World Health Organization, United Nations, US Department of Defense, Kennedy Center, Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, and numerous universities, mental health, community, and healthcare agencies in the US and throughout the world.

For the last three decades Cathy has worked with traumatized children, adolescents, adults, and families, expanding the range of understanding of non-verbal, sensory-based concepts and methods. She is the executive director of the Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute [see www.trauma-informedpractice.com] that has provided online and live training in expressive and somatosensory approaches to over 25,000 practitioners around the world [see www.cathymalchiodi.com].
12:00 - 1:00 Lunch Break &

Poster Presentations

Poster presentations will happen in-person during lunch break and also recorded videos will be presented on the screen during the break. You will have time to meet the presenters and listen to their research and reflexive practices.
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1:00 - 1:50

Emotional Transformation: A Key Mechanism in Trauma Therapy

Following an overview of the history of psychotraumatology, emotional transformation will be presented as a key change mechanism in psychotherapy and as a bridge to art therapy. Basic principles of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) will be outlined to explain how emotional transformation can be promoted in therapy. To illustrate, videoclips of therapy sessions will be shown. Finally, a case example will be described where elements of art therapy (drawings) were integrated into an emotion-focused therapy. 

Learning Objectives
At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Describe key historical developments and foundational findings in psychotraumatology
2. Identify evidence-based trauma therapies and explain the role of somatic processes in trauma recovery
3. Explain how principles of emotion-focused therapy can inform expressive and arts-based therapeutic interventions
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Ralph Erich Schmidt, PhD

Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Geneva and psychotherapist at the Psychiatric University Hospital of Zurich. After completing a basic training in Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy (CBT), he specialized in the third-wave approaches of CBT (CBASP, ACT, and Schema Therapy) and in psychotraumatology. He was trained in different evidence-based forms of trauma therapy, including Prolonged Exposure Therapy, Narrative Exposure Therapy, and Emotion-Focused Therapy for Complex Trauma. One of his research foci concerns interpersonal violence against athletes.
2:00 - 2:50

Adapting Trauma Treatment through Art Therapy  Protocol (TT-AT) Across Contexts

This presentation introduces the TT-AT (Trauma Treatment through Art Therapy) protocol as a structured, culturally responsive approach to working with trauma through creative processes. Grounded in trauma-informed principles and arts-based interventions, the protocol emphasizes safety, sensory regulation, and the restoration of agency through non-verbal expression.
The session will begin with an overview of the theoretical foundations of TT-AT, followed by the presentation of two clinical cases from its initial implementation in Tanzania—one addressing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and one complex PTSD (C-PTSD). These cases illustrate how the protocol supports emotional processing, stabilization, and resilience in contexts of high vulnerability.
Building on this foundation, the presentation will then explore the adaptation of the TT-AT protocol within European contexts. This includes its integration into professional training through masterclasses, as well as ongoing Sharing and Support meetings designed to accompany art therapists in their clinical application of trauma-informed practices. Early observations from this pilot phase highlight both the transferability and the need for contextual sensitivity when implementing trauma-informed approaches across cultural settings.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Use TT-AT as a tool that can be applied “as it is” across different cultural and clinical contexts
2. Describe the core principles and components of the TT-AT trauma-informed art therapy protocol
3. Differentiate the application of TT-AT across diverse educational and clinical contexts
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Paola Luzzatto

Paola Luzzatto is a pioneer art therapist in Italy. She has a first degree in Philosophy (Italy), a Master in Education (USA) and a Ph.D. in Comparative Religions (Nigeria). She then trained in Art Psychotherapy at Goldsmith College, London, and she had further training in Psychoanalytic Studies (Tavistock Institute). Paola Luzzatto worked with psychiatric patients (including Alcohol, Drug and Eating Disorders) in London for eight years.
She then worked at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, NY for ten years, developing The Creative Journey for cancer patients (Clinical Award 2004 from AATA). More recently she spent ten years as Honorary Lecturer in Tanzania (2015-2022) where she developed the Autobiographic Protocol for Substance Use Disorders, and the Trauma Treatment protocol (TT-AT), which are now applied also in Europe.
Paola Luzzatto has written several articles in professional journals, the biography of the Austrian artist Susanne Wenger; a book on the Art Therapy Method and some Fairy Tales and Myths for children.
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Alessandra Agnese, MA

Artist (Fine Arts Academy) and Art Therapist (ATI, Italy), recognized as Art Psychotherapist from Goldsmith College, London, Certified Expressive Therapist FAC (norma UNI), Bach Flower Registered Practitioners (UK), Facilitator of Holotropic Breathwork in Transpersonal Psychotherapy (GTT). She has been working for more than twenty five years focusing on the treatment of trauma with different types of patients and in various fields: educational, medical, rehabilitation, social and school context: in Medical Art Therapy, with children and adolescents in Pediatrics and Child Neuropsychiatry and with adults in Oncology, Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplant; also, with teenagers with physical and learning difficulties and with women in prison.
She teaches in Art Therapy training schools. She is APIArT Board member (Italian Association of Professional Art Therapists), within APIArT the following roles: evaluation for the admission of oversea students; thesis external examiner. EFAT full member, part of the Professional Development Committee and AT online SIGs.
Currently she collaborates with Morgagni Institute of Integrated Medicine and in Hospice Gigi Ghirotti with ALS and terminal patients, their relatives and the medical staff, in projects with Alzheimer’s caregivers and with Parkinson and neurodegenerative diseases (Italy). The studies and in-depth analyses that she follows focus on the relationship between body, mind, and spirituality.  
3:00 - 3:50


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Suzanne Haeyen, PhD

Dr. Suzanne Haeyen is Professor of the research group ‘Arts & Psychomotor Therapies in Health Care’ and coordinator of content of the Master for Arts and Psychomotor Therapies of the University of Applied Science of Arnhem & Nijmegen (HAN). 
She also works as an art therapist and researcher at `Scelta, Expert Centre for Personality Problems’ and chair of the arts and psychomotor therapies, at mental health institution `GGNet, Centre for Mental Health’. She is also member of KenVaK, national cooperative research group for knowledge development of arts therapies.  

Dr. Haeyen has authored numerous publications and books on arts therapies, including work integrating schema-focused therapy, positive psychology, and creative therapies. Her research and clinical work focus on the effectiveness of arts and body-based therapies in supporting emotional regulation, resilience, self-expression, and psychological well-being. 
She has contributed to Dutch multidisciplinary guidelines for the treatment of personality disorders and collaborates internationally in advancing research, education, and professional development within the creative arts therapies field.
4:00 - 4:15

Time Out of Time

The diagnosis of cancer and subsequent hospitalization can be deeply traumatic for children and their families, disrupting their sense of time, agency, and emotional stability. Within pediatric onco-hematology units, prolonged treatments and uncertainty often generate states of passivity, hyperactivity, and pervasive anxiety—creating what can be experienced as a “time out of time.”
This vignette presentation introduces a clinical approach to dance/movement therapy (DMT) in this context, grounded in movement analysis frameworks including Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), Bartenieff Fundamentals, and the Kestenberg Movement Profile (KMP). Informed by psychoanalytic and developmental perspectives (Winnicott, Bollas, Stern), the work emphasizes the therapist’s embodied presence—conceptualized as Corpo Ambiente—as a relational and therapeutic medium.
Through a brief clinical illustration of a nine-year old boy case, the vignette highlights how movement, play, and attuned presence can support emotional expression, regulation, and connection within highly medicalized environments.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Describe the psychological and emotional impact of pediatric cancer hospitalization on children and families
2. Apply principles of dance/movement therapy, including movement analysis frameworks and embodied presence (Corpo Ambiente)
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Marcia Plevin, MA

Marcia Plevin is an Italian psychologist, dance movement therapist, and internationally recognized educator whose work integrates movement, psychotherapy, and creative process. Trained as a professional dancer and choreographer, she later developed a clinical practice grounded in dance movement therapy and expressive approaches. She is a Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT) and a National Certified Counselor (NCC), and has contributed extensively to training and supervision across Europe and internationally.

4:20-4:30 

Trauma-Informed Death/Grief Education Through Creative  Arts Therapies and Techniques (CATTs)

Contemporary societies increasingly remove death, dying, and grief from everyday life, delegating them mainly to healthcare institutions. As highlighted by The Lancet Commission on the Value of Death, this cultural censorship leaves individuals, caregivers, and healthcare professionals emotionally and existentially unprepared to face illness, suffering, dependency, and mortality. Yet every encounter with death implicitly involves some degree of trauma, ranging from acute traumatic experiences to forms of chronic traumatic stress linked to repeated exposure to loss, vulnerability, and mortality salience.

This presentation explores the role of trauma-informed death and grief education programmes based on Creative Arts Therapies and Techniques (CATTs) as forms of primary and secondary prevention. Drawing on Terror Management Theory and contemporary grief studies, the presentation discusses how mortality salience may activate defensive mechanisms, emotional distress, compassion fatigue, vicarious grief, burnout, and trauma-related suffering, especially among healthcare professionals and informal caregivers. Particular attention will be devoted to the role of symbolic action, which often precedes verbal interpretation and cognitive elaboration in the processing of traumatic experiences. Through artistic, expressive, and psychodramatic approaches, CATTs may help individuals remain emotionally present without becoming overwhelmed by trauma-related distress. In this perspective, death and grief education are understood not only as tools for symptom reduction, but also as educational processes capable of fostering emotional literacy, resilience, compassion, existential awareness, and relational competence. The presentation will also briefly introduce the TRACE (Trauma-Informed Creative Arts Therapy) training experience recently developed at the University of Padua. 
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Ines Testoni, PhD

Ines Testoni is Full Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology (FISPPA) at the University of Padua. She directs two postgraduate programs: Death Studies & The End of Life and Creative Arts Therapies for Resilience Support, contributing to the advancement of interdisciplinary approaches to care, loss, and wellbeing. Her work bridges social psychology, thanatology, and creative arts therapies, with a strong focus on resilience, end-of-life processes, and trauma-informed practices. She is a Research Fellow at the Emili Sagol Creative Arts Therapies Research Center (University of Haifa) and a member of APA Division 36. Since 2025, she serves on the External Advisory Board of ciTechCare, supporting innovation in healthcare and technology.
4:30 - 5:45

Round Table: Trauma-Informed Education in Creative Therapies

This round table brings together leading voices in the field of creative arts therapies to explore the evolving landscape of trauma-informed education across graduate training, academic programs, and continuing professional development. Moderated by Camilla Mele and Carmen Oprea, and featuring invited panelists Jacques Stitelmann and Cathy Malchiodi, the discussion will examine how trauma-informed theory and practice can be meaningfully integrated into educational frameworks.

The panel will address key questions related to curriculum design, pedagogical approaches, and the role of embodied and experiential learning in preparing students and  practitioners to work with trauma. 
Through dialogue and shared perspectives, this round table aims to highlight current challenges and future directions for trauma-informed education in the creative therapies. 

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this round table, the participants will be able to:
1. Describe key principles of trauma-informed education 
2. Identify effective pedagogical approaches for integrating trauma-informed theory and practice into educational and training settings
3. Discuss current challenges and emerging directions in preparing trauma-informed creative arts therapists across diverse contexts
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Jacques Stitelmann, PhD

Jacques Stitelmann PhD, is a artist, psychologist, psychotherapist and art-therapist. Founder and director of l’Atelier, Geneva, institute for research and education in the art-therapy field. He published many articles about art-therapy, some books like “Le concept de cadre en art-thérapie” ou “Formes et modalités, des concepts pour l’art-thérapie”, and some poetry books. Some of his paintings are in several private and public collections in Switzerland.
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Cathy Malchiodi, PhD

Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPCC, LPAT, ATR-BC, REAT holds a doctorate in psychology and is an expressive arts therapist specializing in the treatment of traumatic stress.

Dr. Malchiodi has extensive experience in the areas of trauma, attachment, disaster relief, and adversity. She is recognized as one of the leaders in trauma-informed care and has assisted more than 500 agencies, organizations, and institutions in developing trauma-informed, expressive and responsive programming including the World Health Organization, United Nations, US Department of Defense, Kennedy Center, Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, and numerous universities, mental health, community, and healthcare agencies in the US and throughout the world.
For the last three decades Cathy has worked with traumatized children, adolescents, adults, and families, expanding the range of understanding of non-verbal, sensory-based concepts and methods. She is the executive director of the Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute [see www.trauma-informedpractice.com] that has provided online and live training in expressive and somatosensory approaches to over 25,000 practitioners around the world [see www.cathymalchiodi.com].
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Camilla Mele, PhD

Dr Camilla Mele is an art therapist, architect, and urban designer whose work bridges trauma-informed practice, social innovation, and participatory approaches to wellbeing in public and community settings. She is an Adjunct Professor and serves on the faculty of the CAT Master at the University of Padua, as well as at the Catholic University of Milan, where she contributes to training initiatives at the intersection of health, culture, and design.
Camilla is a specialist in EU-funded projects and program development, with expertise in environmental and community participation, sustainability, and collaborative models of care. She designs and coordinates arts-based, trauma-informed programs that support individual and collective resilience, with a focus on ethical engagement and long-term impact. She is Scientific Committee member and Coordinator for TRACE, where she helps shape evidence-informed, interdisciplinary directions for practice and research.
In addition to her academic and project work, Camilla is Corporate Partnership Manager and a credentialed art therapist with The Red Pencil International, supporting creative arts therapy initiatives globally. She is also President of Il Telaio in Milan and co-founder of the Center for Art Therapy, advancing accessible, culturally responsive arts therapy services through professional collaboration and community partnerships.
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Carmen Oprea, MA, MFA, ATR-BC, RCAT

 Carmen is a registered art therapist with post-graduate training in sandplay therapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy. Holding master's degrees in art therapy and fine arts, she is currently a doctoral candidate in psychology.
Her professional career includes art therapy services for individuals and groups of all ages with various life challenges, at her clinic, Accès Art, in Montreal. She deeply resonates with Indigenous wisdom and strives to provide culturally sensitive art therapy to Inuit and First Nations adolescents. She also provides supervision to creative art therapists in person and online.
Carmen is co-investigator in a research projects related to art therapy and depression at Concordia University.
She is the co-founder of Creative Arts Therapies Events and organizer of World Art Therapy Conferences.

Poster Abstracts

S-TRAP-PARE. Rhythmic Biographies of Young Adults

Background
Young adults experiencing psychological distress, psychopathology, deviant behaviors, and traumatic experiences represent a particularly complex population to engage in traditional care pathways. Classical therapeutic approaches often fail to address their needs; innovation in methods and languages is required to facilitate engagement, self-expression, and active participation in therapeutic pathways.
Methodology / Approach
The trauma-informed approach adopted integrates different techniques using the informal languages of young adults. The project involves 15 young adults (aged 18–25) with psychiatric diagnoses and traumatic experiences, comorbid with substance use disorders. The intervention is implemented at Villa di Salute Care Home through workshops co-led by healthcare professionals and artists, structured as weekly two-hour sessions in non-medicalized settings. The cycle concludes with the creation of an urban mural in collaboration with the Municipality of Turin. The program integrates four expressive languages: sound-writing rap, creative movement, dramatherapy, and a collective mural created on city walls.
Key Insight and Findings
The project structure is innovative because it values young people’s spontaneous expressive channels, without judging form or content; it engages them through artists without explicitly focusing on treatment and authorizes them to reclaim public spaces. Findings highlight a creative re-narration of personal experiences in more integrated and less distressing ways, with increased bodily and emotional awareness and the development of self-regulation skills; greater therapeutic compliance; fewer conflictual and dependent dynamics within the group; and more articulated future planning regarding life and/or care contexts. Enhanced agency and self-efficacy were also
observed.
Relevance for Trauma-Informed and Creative Arts Practices
The project addresses a methodological gap  concerning effective diagnostic and treatment approaches for young adults experiencing distress, deviance, psychopathology, and addictions. The intervention demonstrates the effectiveness of trauma-informed Creative Arts approaches in supporting emotional regulation, therapeutic compliance, and transformative goals among young adults, while promoting individual empowerment and processes of mirroring, reinforcement, and reshaping. Furthermore, it lays the foundation for partnerships with institutions and organizations to promote youth mental health, ensuring it becomes not merely a personal issue but a matter of
collective concern.

Barbara Alessio · Sonia Campeggi · Sara Martinelli

Servizio di Psicologia Psicodiagnosi e Riabilitazione Casa di Cura “Villa di Salute” - Emeis, Trofarello (TO)
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Migration as a Catalyst for Conscious Becoming

Migration as a Catalyst for Conscious Becoming is a qualitative phenomenological study that explores how immigrant women experience migration through embodied processes within a Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT) group context. 

The study focuses on how themes of home, identity, belonging, safety, and interpersonal closeness are lived, sensed, and negotiated through the body in a community-based setting in southern Germany. The research was conducted within a short-term, culturally sensitive, and trauma-informed DMT program integrated into an ongoing Circle Dances group. Shared movement practices created an embodied awareness allowing migration experiences to emerge not only as personal narratives, but as relational and somatic processes shaped by cultural histories and lived transitions.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with three immigrant women and analyzed using an interpretative phenomenological approach. 

Findings highlight migration not as a linear or uniform experience, but as a dynamic and embodied process that activates different forms of conscious becoming. Participants described movement as a medium for cultivating safety, relational attunement, and a sense of belonging, while also engaging with complex emotions and memories related to displacement and identity.

By centering immigrant women’s embodied perspectives, this study contributes to dance/movement therapy and embodied migration research by foregrounding DMT as a meaningful space for connection, identity negotiation, and community-building within intercultural contexts.
Deniz Beren Akural

I am a contemporary artist, evolving Dance/Movement therapist, and a researcher with an interdisciplinary background in somatics, circus, street theatre, and community-based movement practices (circle dances). Originally from Turkey and currently based in Germany, I hold a bachelor’s degree in Art and a master’s degree in Dance and Movement Therapy.
My work is grounded in inclusive perspectives and focuses on embodied experience, cultural identity, and therapeutic relationships. I am currently leading a social project called “Unsere Tänze, Unser Tanz” (Our Dances, Our Dance) and work in the field of communal grounds in complex socio-cultural setups. By using movement, and non-verbal communication I share movement exercises in circles to improve safety, belonging, and connection within group settings.
I completed my master thesis in a movement-based group from a local social project, and offered therapeutic context to women from immigrant and multiethnic backgrounds. Through qualitative and phenomenological research, I aimed to bridge artistic practice and psychotherapy, contributing to embodied and culturally sensitive approaches within dance/movement therapy and related fields.
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The Holding Space Reflective Practice Model

The Holding Space is a reflective practice model emerging from creative arts therapies principles of attunement, embodied awareness, and relational presence. Developed within health, social care, and educational contexts, the model integrates psychodynamic thinking, systemic perspectives, and trauma-informed approaches to create a facilitated environment where practitioners can engage with the emotional textures of their work. It positions reflective practice not simply as a cognitive exercise, but as a creative, meaning-making process that supports practitioners in reconnecting with their internal resources, their teams, and the communities they serve.

Grounded in the creative arts therapies ethos of holding, symbolic exploration, and shared witnessing, the model offers a psychologically safe space in which staff can slow down, notice, and articulate the often-unspoken emotional material that accumulates in frontline practice. Through guided reflection, practitioners are supported in exploring relational dynamics, surfacing embodied responses, and making sense of complex interpersonal and organizational experiences. This process strengthens emotional resilience, deepens reflective capacity, and contributes to more compassionate, culturally responsive, and sustainable care.
Coreen Jayshree Bernard 
is a Creative Arts Therapist and facilitator whose work integrates psychodynamic, systemic, and art‑therapy‑informed approaches to reflective practice. She has delivered school‑based art psychotherapy within NHS services formerly connected to the Tavistock and Portman, supporting children and young people through creative, relational, and culturally responsive methods.

Coreen facilitates reflective practice spaces across health, social care, and educational settings, with a focus on cultural humility, trauma‑informed care, and anti‑oppressive practice. She is currently developing The Holding Space, a reflective practice model grounded in art psychotherapy principles, and preparing for upcoming clinical work in Ghana to deepen her cross‑cultural therapeutic practice and community‑rooted learning
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Philosophical Dimensions in Trauma-Sensitive Yoga: A Neurophenomenological Framework

The clinical integration of yoga into trauma-informed care has been primarily shaped by neurobiological research, producing somatic approaches such as Emerson’s TSY that, even when process-oriented, have been implemented in ways that systematically bracket yoga’s philosophical foundations.

The proposed framework is structured around an original eight-element circular model: Safety (Sattva), Connection, Choice, Āsana, Interoception, Dual Awareness, Mental Posture (Bhāvanā), and Integration (Pūrṇam). Each element is simultaneously inspired by classical yogic sources and grounded in convergent neuroscientific literature.

The methodological foundation is Varela’s neurophenomenology, brought into dialogue with von Ostrowski’s descriptive analysis of Contemporary Yoga Philosophy and with Frazier’s reading of contemplative practice as phenomenological inquiry, the translational step between yogic categories and clinical parameters being an original contribution of this research.

The model’s circular logic follows Herman’s phases of trauma processing, challenging the linear structure of standardized interventions. Neuroscientific grounding is anchored in interoceptive predictive processing and embodied self-regulation literature.

This work offers a replicable methodology for philosophically informed, culturally grounded approaches to yoga in trauma recovery, contributing to both Yoga Studies and contemplative neuroscience a framework that treats philosophical depth not as artifact to be preserved, but as clinical resource to be activated.
Claudia Buzzetti

Claudia Buzzetti is a Trauma-Sensitive and Therapeutic Yoga facilitator, lecturer at IED Milan, and researcher whose work sits at the intersection of yoga philosophy, contemplative neuroscience, and trauma-informed pedagogy. She has over 25 years of yoga practice and holds a master’s degree in Meditation and Neurosciences from the University of Udine, where her thesis developed an original neurophenomenological framework for integrating the philosophical dimensions of yoga as active clinical variables.

She runs Yoga Anticapitalista, a critical wellness community that engages with questions of power, cultural appropriation, and embodied practice. Her research interests include interoceptive predictive processing, embodied self-regulation, and the epistemological challenges of translating contemplative knowledge into clinical contexts. She is currently working on the international dissemination of her thesis and developing a research agenda at the intersection of Yoga Studies and contemplative neuroscience.
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LOM® Solution-Focused Art Therapy

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Rahel Brugger and Cora Egger

Rahel Brügger (born in Switzerland) is a licensed art therapist in Switzerland specializing in Solution-Focused Art Therapy LOM® and Psychotherapist MPF in Denmark.
She has gained diverse professional experience in the fields of art therapy and has published the art therapy workbook for trauma-healing and PTSD-Recovery with Solution-Focused Art Therapy in 2024.

Cora Egger (born in Switzerland) is an art therapist based in Barcelona. Trained in Solution Focused Arttherapy (LOM®) and Person-Centered Art Therapy, she works in private practice and teaches at the FARBE Institute, where she also develops further training programs.
Cora regularly offers workshops and lectures internationally, focusing on trauma and artherapy methods. Her work bridges personal process, professional application, and innovative approaches to integrating traumatic experiences through painting. 
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Dance Movement Therapy and Wise Motion to Relieve Long-term Caregivers of Older People from Emotional Strain and Cumulative Stress: The Case of DanceCARE Project.

Background / Context:
Given the unprecedented increase of long-term care and home care demand, informal caregivers are exposed to higher levels of stress with negative repercussions on their physical and mental health (caregiver’s BURDEN) and additional human and economic costs for the National Health Systems. 
In this context, the DanceCARE program has offered an innovative and blended intervention based on a body-mind approaches, that was co-designed by dance-movement therapists, psychologist, body-mind experts, neuroscientists and aging care researchers to alleviate the burden on informal caregivers of older people. 
Methodology/approach:
The purpose of this poster is to describe the research methods, the structure of the intervention, and the initial results obtained from the field trial, which was conducted for the first time in Italy, Greece, and Spain in late 2025. 
Findings: 
The intervention consisted of seven face-to-face group sessions, supplemented by short videos available online. Although the number of participants was small (37 caregivers in total), overall the DanceCARE program demonstrates that a relatively short-term mind-body psychoeducational intervention can significantly reduce depressive symptoms in long-term informal caregivers and promote body awareness, social relationships, and creative stress management strategies.
Future Directions: 
In the future, it would be valuable to repeat the study with a larger sample population. Furthermore, incorporating biological measures of stress could generally strengthen this type of innovative intervention.
Flavia Galassi
Project Developer and Manager for DanceCARE Erasmus+, Centre for Socio-Economic Research on Aging, INRCA - National Institute of Health and Science 
on Aging, Ancona, Italy (Flavia 0000-0002-5832-3676)
Sara Santini
Principal investigator PI DanceCARE
- Centre for Socio-Economic Research on Aging, INRCA - National Institute of Health and Science 
on Aging, Ancona, Italy (Sara 0000-0003-4705-4631)
Rosa-María Rodríguez-Jiménez, PhD
Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, Spain
President of European Association of Dance Movement Therapy
Marloes Shami - van Houten
Research, Education and Team Lead ´danceCARE´ for the European Association of Dance Movement Therapy (EADMT)
Principal Investigator ´Dance, Ritual and Transition´ at the Leyden Academy on Vitality and Aging
Hanna Poikonen
WiseMotion Community, Helsinki, Finland 

Flavia Galassi is the developer and manager of the DanceCARE project for INRCA. 
With a Master’s degree in Clinical and Community Psychology from University of Bologna, she has over 20 years’ experience in the field of mental health and well being.
With INRCA since 2009, he has gained extensive experience in research and design. She is also Expressive Psychotherapist specialized in Dance-Movement Therapy, since 2016, having completed a 5-year advanced training course at Art Therapy Italiana (Bologna).
As an expert in the mind-body and art-based research and approach, she has carried out numerous projects at national and international level, leading expressive movement groups in various settings, including psychiatry and substance abuse, the prison system, multicultural contexts and migrant integration, adolescence, and healthy ageing. She has designed and delivered training courses aimed at combating burnout among professionals, using a trauma-informed approach based on bodily connections and S. Porges’ polyvagal theory. 

Sara Santini graduated in Political Science from Alma Mater Studiorum in Bologna and PhD in Gerontology from the University of Vechta (Germany) in cotutorship with the Free University of Bolzano, graduated in violin from the Conservatory of Pescara, she works as a researcher at the Center for Socio Economic Research on Aging at IRCCS INRCA (Ancona). Contract Professor of Sociology at Università Politecnica delle Marche, Nursing Science Course (2019-2022).
Her research topics are: intergenerational solidarity, family caregivers, migrant family care assistants (badanti), active aging, music and art for dementia and for the well-being of healthcare professionals and family caregivers.
She is principal investigator of several Italian and European projects and coordinator of as many international research consortia. She has more than 60 scientific publications to her credit, including articles and abstracts. Her research is characterized by a humanistic approach that combines theoretical framework and methodological rigor

Dr. Rodríguez-Jiménez is an accredited senior professor and researcher with an interdisciplinary background in Atmospheric Physics (5-year degree), Psychology (4-year degree), and Special Needs Education. She holds a PhD in Atmospheric Physics and a Master’s in Dance Movement Therapy (DMT), with over 20 years of professional experience in dance, and is a Supervisor Member of the Spanish Association of DMT.
She has 30 years of experience in higher education, leading national and international projects in mental health, and currently represents the EADMT Board as leader of the Erasmus+ project DanceCare. Her research focuses on DMT applied to eating disorders, highly sensitive individuals, healthcare professionals, and stress reduction in educational contexts. She has published over 40 indexed articles and book chapters.
Since 2022, she is President of the European Association of DMT and Editor-in-Chief of Citare, Spanish Journal in DMT. She is Lecturer in Research Methodology at CODARTS University of the Arts and faculty member at Universidad Francisco de Vitoria.

Marloes Shami - van Houten, PHD is an interdisciplinary artist and senior researcher working at the intersection of trauma-informed care, embodied arts practices, and social change. She holds a PhD in Movement-Based Therapy, specializing in trauma and Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapies, and has extensive experience in trauma care and crisis-region contexts.
She has taken leading roles in international research and arts-based projects focused on youth, health and wellbeing, trauma, resilience, and social transformation. Currently, she is Principal Investigator of Dance, Ritual and Transition at the Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing and Education & Research Lead ´danceCARE´ for the European Association for Dance Movement Therapy (EADMT). Previously, she served as interim Program Director of Creative Arts Therapies at the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht.
As founder of the dance theatre collective [www.forgecollective.net]Forge, she develops interdisciplinary projects connecting art, care, ritual, and community.

Dr Hanna Poikonen is a neuroscientist and biomedical engineer holding a PhD in neuroscience of movement, music and dance from the University of Helsinki. She has completed her postdoctoral research at ETH Zurich on math expertise and EEG. Through various personal research grants, she has lead brain research projects in Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and Canada focusing on expertise in mathematics, music and dance, and rehabilitation in mild cognitive impairment and schizophrenia. She is the founder of the WiseMotion and AIVO Brain Wearables. Through her WiseMotion method on movement and neuroscience, Hanna has mentored higher executives, trained healthcare professionals, and offered rehabilitation to people living with MS disease or dementia, and people recovering from stroke. WiseMotion has lead and partnered in consortiums co-funded by the European Union and been featured in Harvard Medical School, CERN IdeaSquare, Six Senses, Intelligent Change Summit, Alzheimer Society of Finland, Stockholm University of the Arts and Sanitas Mayores in Barcelona and Madrid.
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Living the Present: From Traumatic Dissociation to Organic Action

This presentation outlines an integrated practice for treating trauma and eating disorders in youth, developed by Paola Di Girolamo (Actor, Drama Therapist). The methodology synthesizes a multidisciplinary theoretical-practical corpus: the symbolic structure of Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" provides the narrative arc of transformation; Robert Landy's Drama Therapy and Jacob L. Moreno's exploration of creative spontaneity structure the expressive process; Rudolf Laban's movement analysis (Weight, Space, Time) decodes physical responses; and Jerzy Grotowski's "Via Negativa" guides the elimination of bodily resistances.

The work is grounded in the fundamental tools of the actor—Action-Reaction, Listening, and Extended Mind—to facilitate a disidentification from traumatic emotions crystallized in the body. Participants will transition from the "dictatorship of judgment" (the body-as-archive) to the freedom of organic action. Through sensory grounding, the protocol dissolves physical resistances to emerge from traumatic dissociation.

The ultimate goal is the reclamation of a centered, lucid presence. By embracing an "aesthetics of error" as an authentic act of reality, the individual is guided to re-inhabit the body as a conscious space, finally free to live in the present.
Keywords: trauma, eating disorders, theatrical pedagogy, Drama Therapy, Hero's Journey, spontaneity, movement analysis, Via Negativa, presence.
Paola di Girolamo
Actress, Visual Artist, and Trainer
Actress, director, and art/drama therapist, founder of Studio16 APS and the To Be Real™ protocol. She
integrates Grotowski-based organic action with sensory perception to dissolve physical resistance,
transforming the body from an archive of rigid memories into a space for creative action and lucid
presence in the now.

Desy Salvadego
Professor / Associate Professor
Associate Professor in Integrative Physiology at the affiliation, UniCamillus International Medical
University, Rome.

Nicola Longo
Jungian Analyst
AIPA analyst who integrates Jungian clinical practice with Advaita non-dualist philosophy. His approach
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Indirect Hypnosis and Trauma: Towards a Non-Retraumatizing Model of Psychotherapy

Background/Context:
This presentation explores the use of indirect hypnosis as a trauma-informed psychotherapeutic approach designed to minimise emotional flooding, resistance, and re-traumatisation in the treatment of traumatic stress disorders. Drawing upon the clinical traditions of Milton H. Erickson and contemporary trauma theory, it proposes that some standard trauma interventions may unintentionally overwhelm patients by encouraging repeated conscious re-experiencing of traumatic events. 
This project explores: 
The presentation introduces simplified integrative models of both normal and traumatic memory processing. It suggests that under normal circumstances, experiences are gradually processed and integrated through interactions between sensory, emotional, cognitive, and regulatory systems, particularly during sleep and memory consolidation processes. In trauma, however, overwhelming emotional activation, dissociation, hyperarousal, and disrupted sleep may interfere with this integration. As a result, traumatic experiences may remain insufficiently processed, fragmented, emotionally charged, and physiologically reactive, contributing to flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, intrusive imagery, and persistent bodily activation. 
Key insights or findings:
Indirect hypnosis is described not as a single technique, but as a broader clinical orientation grounded in emotional regulation through release, symbolic processing, dissociative distancing, metaphor, bilateral stimulation, and controlled altered states of awareness. Rather than requiring direct emotional reliving, the approach attempts to facilitate progressive integration while maintaining psychological safety and reducing overwhelm. 
The presentation also reflects on the broader principle that therapeutic change does not always require direct confrontation with traumatic material. Mindfulness-based approaches, somatic and body-oriented therapies, art and music therapy, movement-based approaches, horse therapy, and nature-based interventions may also support emotional regulation and integration indirectly. 
Relevance to trauma-informed practices and creative arts therapies:
The aim is not to reject existing trauma therapies, but to propose a broader and more flexible framework potentially suited to highly traumatised, dissociative, transcultural, or emotionally fragile patients.
Gary Edward Gedall
is a psychologist, psychotherapist, clinical hypnotherapist, and systemic and family therapy specialist based in Lausanne. He began his formal training in clinical hypnosis in 1999, later qualifying as a clinical hypnotherapist, while also pursuing advanced training in systemic psychotherapy, family therapy, trauma-focused approaches, equine-assisted therapy, and EMDR. Over more than two decades of clinical practice, he has worked extensively with patients of all types and a wide variety of problems, often in a transcultural, multilingual clinical setting.
He has written on a wide range of subjects; hypnosis, popular psychology (the Living in Harmony book series), inspirational fiction (The Island of Serenity series, Adventures with the Master) and children’s stories (The Peter the Pixie series). He also lectures and leads workshops on a variety of subjects.
He is currently in the process of completing his latest work, “Indirect Hypnosis and Trauma”. (Publisher to be announced).
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Holding the Unseen:
Expressive Arts, Embodiment, and Prenatal Twin
Loss

Background/Context:
Prenatal twin loss often remains invisible, unspoken, and somatically held across the
lifespan. In trauma-informed practice, expressive arts can create embodied, preverbal and transgenerational ways of engaging that hidden material.
This research project explores: 
What emerges symbolically and somatically through expressive arts processes among therapist-survivors who consciously acknowledge their prenatal twin loss, and in what ways, if any, do they relate these expressions to their prenatal twin loss or to a felt twin presence?
Methodology/approach:
Grounded in intermodal expressive arts therapy, phenomenology, participatory co-research, and autoethnography, the study focuses on therapist-survivors and clinicians who carry invisible grief.
Through weekly intermodal workshops and art-based documentation, the inquiry attends closely to images, gestures, bodily sensations and narratives as emergent forms of evidence rather than as fixed symbols. Analysis uses an art-based phenomenological thematic approach that privileges
“staying with the image”, embodied description, and collective harvesting of meaning.
Key insights or findings:
This work-in-progress aims to illuminate how creative practice may make presence of the unseen, support rational recognition, and inform trauma-informed education, supervision, and clinical
practice. The project invites dialogue with practitioners, researchers, and supervisors interested in expressive arts, embodied memory and participatory methods.

Key words: prenatal twin loss, expressive arts therapy, phenomenology, autoethnography, transgenerational memory, therapist-survivors
Sabrina Mazzola Roguljić, MA, CAGS, PhDc
Sabrina Mazzola is an Italo-Croatian art therapist and artist based in France.
She holds an MA in Art Pedagogy from the Academy of Applied Arts, University of Rijeka, and completed a four-year professional program in art therapy and psychogenealogy (IEPA, France). She earned an Advanced post-graduate studies diploma (CAGS) in expressive arts from the European Graduate School (Switzerland) and is now in doctoral candidacy, beginning research on expressive arts and prenatal twin loss.
She has worked clinically in Monaco, including a psychological centre for children, a an adult psychiatric unit, a foster home, and a British school, and she teaches art therapy in IEPA, Saint-Laurent-du-Var.
An accredited supervisor of French Syndicate of Art Therapists and regional representative for SFAT PACA, Sabrina is also affiliated with HART and EFAT. She serves on the editorial board of Croatian Journal of Art Therapy “Transfer”. 
An exhibiting visual artist, her abstract work explore the emotional heritage and the reparative and transformative potential of creative processes.
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Exploring the Role of Music Therapy in Young Adults with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in the UK and Singapore

Background/Context:
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are associated with long-term health, relational, and socio-economic challenges, including increased vulnerability to substance misuse. While music therapy supports embodiment, emotional regulation, and relational safety, research on ACEs and music therapy remains predominantly Western-focused. At present, only one scoping review has examined this intersection. This study expands the knowledge base by exploring how music therapists in the UK and Singapore work with young adults with ACEs, including therapeutic approaches, cultural influences, and the wider factors shaping practice.
Methodology/approach:
Semi-structured online interviews were conducted with four qualified music therapists — two practising in the UK and two in Singapore. Interviews focused on clinical experiences, therapeutic processes, and contextual factors shaping engagement with young adults with ACEs. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.
Key insights or findings:
Three core themes were identified:
1. Music Therapy Approaches and Techniques: Person-centred, trauma-informed frameworks and key music therapy techniques.
2. The Therapeutic Process: Emotional and relational dynamics, music as embodied expression, and the centrality of supervision.
3. Factors Influencing Engagement: Internal-external, family-cultural, and systemic-structural influences shaping young adults’ participation in music therapy.
Relevance to trauma-informed practices and creative arts therapies:
Findings highlight the need for culturally responsive, trauma-informed music therapy for young adults with ACEs. Polyvagal-informed approaches, therapist self-awareness, and robust supervision support safe practice. The study also underscores the need to move beyond symptom-focused models toward addressing broader social and structural contributors to ACEs, positioning music therapy as a meaningful component of trauma-informed futures and systemic healing.
Jan Ong 
is a Singaporean HCPC-Registered Music Therapist based in the UK. Her work is shaped by her lived experience with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and by moving between individualistic and collectivist cultural contexts, where she has witnessed how values, emotional expression, and systems of support differ. These experiences informed her decision to explore music therapy’s role with young adults affected by ACEs in both the UK and Singapore.
She is guided by the understanding that trauma is present across all cultures and backgrounds. Her work reflects a commitment to approaches that recognise the cultural and systemic influences on trauma, healing, and identity. She has worked across psychiatric, community, and wellbeing settings and is particularly interested in cross-cultural perspectives within creative arts therapies. Her approach is grounded in person-centred values, with an emphasis on attunement, relational safety, supported by reflective practice and clinical supervision.
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Neuroaffirming Creative Arts and Radical De-Masking

Background / Context 
This poster explores how neuroaffirming creative arts practices can support somatic safety, self-expression, and de-masking in trauma-impacted neurodivergent individuals who may experience language-based therapeutic approaches as overwhelming or inaccessible. Drawing from my interdisciplinary background in sociology, neuroaffirming creative practice, and arts-based inquiry, the presentation examines how non-verbal creative processes such as bilateral drawing, collage, intuitive mark-making, and sensory-led visual expression may function as tools for nervous system regulation, embodied grounding, and emotional processing.
The poster will describe my creative and trauma-informed approach to art-making and reflect on recurring themes that emerged through my own artistic process as a neurodivergent practitioner. 
Methodology / Approach 
Using selected pieces of my own artwork as a qualitative and autoethnographic case study, the presentation explores lived experiences of masking, sensory sensitivities, burnout, fragmentation, and the internalised pressure to conform to normative expectations of productivity and social performance.
Key Insights & Emerging Findings 
Situated within a neuroaffirming and critical sociological framework, the work also considers art-making as a form of radical de-masking and resistance to systems of oppression, including ableism, patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism. The poster invites broader reflection on creative practice as a site of embodiment, healing, and liberation beyond deficit-based understandings of neurodivergence.
Gina Potarca holds a PhD in Sociology and has over 15 years of experience conducting research and teaching in the fields of family, relationships, health, and social inequalities. She has taught sociology at the University of Geneva, the University of Zurich, and the University of Liverpool, where she also held an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) role with a particular focus on neurodiversity and inclusive practice. Alongside her academic background, Gina is a creative arts life coach and neurodiversity coach with introductory training in art therapy. Her current work develops a neuroaffirming and trauma-informed creative practice at the intersection of sociology, embodiment, neurodiversity, and systemic critique. Her practice foregrounds creative expression as a site of healing, self-expression, and resistance to oppressive social norms and systems.
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Toolbox for Inner Peace: An Emerging Framework for Trauma-Sensitive Creative Care

Background / Context 
Serene Roots is an emerging trauma-sensitive creative retreat initiative based in rural southern France, founded by trauma survivor, journalist, artist, and trauma-informed coach Erin Lynne Tallman. 
Inspired by a life-altering motorcycle accident in 2013, the project explores how creativity, nature immersion, symbolic reflection, and sensory experience can support emotional regulation, resilience, and reconnection outside traditional clinical settings. 
Methodology / Approach 
At the center of the project is The Toolbox for Inner Peace, an evolving reflective framework that encourages participants to identify and document the practices, environments, rituals, and resources that contribute to their personal well-being. This allows them to build their personalized toolbox for inner peace. Through themed retreats and meditative writing workshops inspired by seasonal and symbolic motifs such as fireflies, flowers, and lunar cycles, participants engage in expressive arts practices, reflective writing, nature walking, and community witnessing within a non-judgmental environment centered on emotional safety and personal meaning-making. 
Key Insights & Emerging Findings 
Preliminary observations from workshops suggest that symbolic creativity and meditative writing can support emotional awareness, vulnerability tolerance, sensory grounding, and non-verbal processing. Participants frequently describe feelings of emotional release, increased self-awareness, and comfort within spaces intentionally designed to remain free of criticism, interpretation, or unsolicited advice.
Relevance for Trauma-Informed & Creative Arts Practices 
The work contributes to growing conversations surrounding trauma-informed creative care, embodied reflective practice, nature-based healing environments, and community-centered approaches to resilience and reconnection. The framework emphasizes creativity not as performance, but as a restorative process rooted in reflection, symbolism, sensory experience, and relational safety. 
Erin Lynne Tallman 
is a trauma-informed coach, editor, journalist, author, and founder of Serene Roots. She is currently pursuing further training in trauma-informed therapies and naturopathic medicine while developing Serene Roots as a restorative environment dedicated to art, nature, well-being, and inner peace.

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Somatic Body Mapping in Pregnancy: Creating a Trauma-Informed Welcome for Baby and Changing Self

The poster presents the practice of Somatic Body Mapping (SBM) with pregnant people to honour and support their transition into mother/parenthood.  It outlines how the approach helps clients to creatively engage with their own embodied trauma history, bond with their unborn baby/ies, and prepare for birthing & mothering/parenting.  The focus of the poster is on SBM’s creative-therapeutic elements that foster trauma-informed care and allow both baby and parent to experience and shape a loving welcome to family life less burdened by intergenerational perinatal trauma.
•    Preparatory Body Life Form with questions that invite mother/parent to gather and consolidate their knowledge and intuition about their own prenatal past and birth history, including traumatic events and circumstances. 
•    Guided Movement, Self-Touch and Body Meditations that practice gentle, grounded, regulated and receptive connection with self and baby.    
•    Tangible Mark Making that captures, externalises and transforms bodily and emotional responses that are rooted in personal perinatal past
•    Co-created Ritual of Body Tracing that foreshadows birthing dynamics and emphasises choice, support and agency
•    Life-size Creative Body Mapping that guides visual and felt orientation towards safe places in the body whilst navigating areas that hold potential for overwhelm and/or dissociation. 
•    Improvised Embodiment Ritual of the final body map that celebrates the mother’s/parent’s creative powers and allows them to step towards birthing and mothering/parenting with confidence and in touch with baby and changing self.
Annette Schwalbe, MA, MSc, RDMP, ADMP UK & UKCP accredited
Dance Movement Psychotherapist, Clinical Supervisor and Somatic Body Mapping practitioner and trainer based in the UK.  Over two decades of experience including 10 years in Mali, Pakistan, Uganda and Kenya. Annette co-founded Art2Be, a Nairobi-based collective of artists, therapists and activists who work world-wide with people experiencing illness and social marginalisation. 

In recent years, Annette has worked as clinical lead at UK based charities supporting survivors of sexual abuse and violence as well as parents experiencing mental health challenges during pregnancy and after birth.  Annette is best known for her development of the practice of Somatic Body Mapping (SBM), a trauma-informed somatic & creative therapeutic approach that helps individuals and groups navigate major life transitions. Her current SBM work with pregnant mothers/people focuses on transforming transgenerational experiences of prenatal and birth trauma. Annette also trains and mentors SBM practitioners internationally. 

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Ritual, Symbolism, and Group Psychodrama in Expat Bereavement: Developing a Trauma-Informed, Culturally Sensitive Approach to Grief

Migration often involves cumulative experiences of loss, disrupted social networks, and reduced access to culturally meaningful mourning practices, increasing vulnerability to psychological distress during bereavement. Despite growing evidence linking ritual disruption to poorer mental health outcomes among migrant populations, few trauma-informed interventions integrate symbolic, culturally grounded, and community-based dimensions of grief.
This ongoing mixed-method PhD project explores the relationship between ritual practices and bereavement experiences among expatriates in Switzerland. In Phase I, adults bereaved for at least six months complete questionnaires assessing grief symptoms, psychological well-being, social support, cultural identity, and personal mourning rituals, alongside open-ended reflections on symbolic meaning-making and perceived helpfulness of rituals.
Findings from this exploratory phase will inform the development of a ten-session trauma-informed group intervention grounded in Classical Morenian psychodrama and symbolic-ritual processes. The intervention aims to support emotional expression, collective meaning-making, and culturally responsive mourning among expatriate populations.
Here I presents the project rationale of a culturally informed grief model integrating ritual, symbolism, community support, and creative therapeutic processes relevant to trauma-informed care and arts-based therapeutic practice.
Anca Siminea 
is an FSP-recognized psychologist and trained psychotherapist based in Zurich, Switzerland, currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Zurich. She works in private practice and across clinical settings, specializing in trauma-informed, culturally sensitive, and neurodivergence-informed psychotherapy with adults, couples, and adolescents.
 Her integrative approach combines evidence-based and experiential modalities, including EMDR, Classical Morenian psychodrama, Ericksonian psychotherapy and clinical hypnosis, projective techniques, and psychoeducation for ADHD and autism across the lifespan.
Alongside her clinical and academic work, Anca is undertaking advanced training in psychodrama at the Psychodrama-Institut für Europa (Berlin) under Hilde Gott and Manfred Yannicke.
Her doctoral research explores bereavement, ritual, and symbolic meaning-making among expatriates in Switzerland, focusing on the development of culturally informed, trauma-sensitive group interventions integrating psychodrama and symbolic processes for grief support.
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