Emily Nash, Director of Training and Supervision, The ArtReach Foundation

Ms. Emily Nash, a Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, has been a leader in the field of therapeutic theatre for over twenty five years. She has developed an innovative approach to using theatre as a healing process, integrating the disciplines of theatre with that of modern psychoanalytic group therapy. Ms. Nash’s extensive experience includes work with the Department of Psychiatry at Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York Psychiatric Institute, Cornell Hospital, VA Hospitals in the New York area, residential centers for youth at risk, shelters for domestic violence, and has worked internationally with teachers and children traumatized by war.

Ms. Nash is the Artistic Director and Director of Training and Supervision for Creative Alternatives of New York, a non-profit organization which provides therapeutic theatre groups to a wide range of communities with special needs. Ms. Nash trains and supervises the staff of Creative Alternatives, as well as offering training workshops to the clinical staff of programs served by the organization. She has been invited to teach and train throughout the US, including a project that Ms. Nash co-lead on an Native American reservation, working with youth workers and children in Native American communities, incorporating drama therapy into their programs with children and adolescents at risk.

Ms. Nash is the co–founder, along with Dr. Robert Landy, of The Institute for Drama Therapy, a New York City based institute which provides training workshops and advanced study of Relational Drama Therapy, a group oriented drama therapy model, created by Ms. Nash and Dr. Landy.

Ms. Nash has been a core member of The ArtReach Foundation since 2002. She played an integral role in incorporating drama therapy into the ArtReach program. Ms. Nash worked with the ArtReach team in Bosnia for four years, where her work included co-developing a “train the trainers” program, in which already trained Bosnian teachers went on to train educators in other parts of the country in the ArtReach model. Ms. Nash would return to Bosnia to observe, supervise, and provide continued training with the teachers in their given school districts. In November 2006, Ms. Nash traveled to Rhodes, Greece, to provide training workshops to teachers from Lebanon. In January 2007, and in March 2007, she worked as a ArtReach program in Amman, Jordan, working with members of JOHAD, a human rights program in Amman, and with the Lebanese teachers in the second phase of their work. Ms. Nash was also a part of the ArtReach program in Little Rock, Arkansas, working with educators responding to the influx of refugee children from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Ms. Nash has co-presented her work with ArtReach at The International Trauma Conference in Boston, the National Association for Drama Therapy Conferences, as well as for the New York Coalition for Creative Arts Therapies.

Ms. Nash received her education from New York University. She was a founding member of The Center for the Advancement of Group Studies and has trained for over twenty-five years with Dr. Louis Ormont in Group Psychotherapy. She has a strong background as an actress in the theatre and her extensive theater training includes work with Uta Hagen, William Esper of the Neighborhood Playhouse and Sandra Seacat of the Actor’s Studio as well as with various leaders in experimental and avant garde theatre. Ms. Nash also has a background in dance and incorporates movement and music into her therapeutic group work.