BACH Speakers

Sandra L. Bertman, Ph.D., FT is Distinguished Professor of Thanatology and Arts at the National Center for Death Education, Mount Ida College. Synthesizing visual and creative arts, literature, spiritual values, and cultural beliefs, Dr. Bertman’s expertise is cultivating the therapeutic imaginations of clinicians in clinical and academic settings through workshops and illustrated lecture-presentations. For most of her career, Bertman was Professor of Humanities in Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Graduate School of Nursing where she founded the Program of Medical Humanities and Arts in Healthcare.  Her publications include the books Facing Death Images, Insights and Interventions (1991), Grief and the Healing Arts: Creativity as Therapy (1999), One Breath Apart: Facing Dissection (2009),and the DVD and book Art, Spirit and Soul (forthcoming).

Sean Caulfield’s Alzheimer advocacy developed from his early experience as a caregiver and an Alzheimer’s support group facilitator. In 2002, Sean, along with John Zeisel, Ph.D., co-founded ARTZ: Artists for Alzheimer’s®, a non-profit initiative of the Hearthstone Alzheimer’s Foundation, with the purpose of enhancing the cultural and creative life of people living with Alzheimer’s disease. ARTZ draws upon the support and collaboration of artists and cultural institutions, as a collective resource, to share, educate, and inspire. ARTZ has chapters in Boston, New York, Paris, Stuttgart, London, Melbourne, and Madrid. ARTZ has developed Alzheimer’s-specific access programs with some of the worlds most renowned and respected cultural institutions, which include: the Louvre in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Tribeca Film Institute in New York City.

In Massachusetts, ARTZ has developed the ARTZ Museum Network (AMN), which offers free weekly museum tours for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and their care partners. In 2005 Sean co-wrote I’m Still Here, a play about a family’s trials at learning of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.  Sean frequently lectures on creativity and Alzheimer’s at hospitals, universities, and community agencies throughout the United States and Europe. He has been a keynote speaker for the Alzheimer’s Association in Rockland County, New York, and has led workshops at the Alzheimer’s Association’s annual Map through the Maze conference in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York City, and New Jersey.

Daniela Aguilar Felix, MA is an Art Therapist at Whittier Street Health Center, Boston MA. She graduated from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain with a Master of Arts Therapy.  She is currently a Ph.D. candidate, ABD in Art Therapy from the same university.  She has been working as an Art Therapist for the past 6 years in Spain and the United States.  Her work utilizes the arts as a therapeutic and educational tool to provide strategies for children, adolescents and young adults, who have been victims of violence and are living at risk, to break the cycle of violence leading to a healthier life.

Suzanne B. Hanser, Ed.D., MT-BC is the founding chair of the Music Therapy Department at Berklee College of Music.  She is Past President of both the World Federation of Music Therapy and the National Association for Music Therapy.   She is affiliated with the Zakim Center for Integrated Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute,

Mitchell Kossak Ph.D., LMHC, REAT is the division director for Expressive Therapies at Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has worked as an expressive arts therapist for the past 28 years and has been a licensed clinical counselor, since 1994. He has presented his work and research on attunement and embodied transcendent experience at conferences nationally and internationally. He is the associate editor of The Journal of Applied Arts and Health.  He is also a professional musician.

Nat Needle, Ed.D. has been co-owner of SAORI Worcester Freestyle Weaving Studio since 2004. The studio, founded by his wife Mihoko Wakabayashi in 2000, was the first SAORI studio in the USA, SAORI having originated in Japan in the 1960’s. Through SAORI, Nat builds community among people of all ages, with and without disabilities and health concerns, dissolving barriers to isolation and marginalization by developing a common identity among students as Artists. Nat is a “community educator”, creating opportunities for people across the life-span in a local community to interact creatively in order to create greater mutual aid and validation across social barriers, enjoyment of life, and growth of confidence, identity, and economic options through persistent skill development. He especially makes use of the visual and performing arts, including people sharing their personal stories with neighbors. He believes these interactions benefit physical and mental health for all community members. He is a consultant to VSA Massachusetts, with responsibility for developing and supporting programs in Central Massachusetts. Nat holds a Doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Phillip Speiser, Ph.D, LMHC, Director of Arts Therapy at Whittier Street Health Center, Roxbury MA. The Arts Therapy Department is dedicated to using the creative arts to facilitate growth, learning and healing. Each year the department provides educational, therapeutic and arts in healthcare programs to over 1,000 children and families throughout the greater Boston area who are challenged emotionally, physically and developmentally.

Dr. Speiser is an expressive arts educator/therapist, drama and music therapist who has developed and implemented integrated arts in healthcare programs for two decades. His multidisciplinary work on the connections between arts/aesthetics, education and therapy has led to many projects/program collaborations, which have integrated these three areas. He is a senior lecturer at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA and has taught at numerous colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. He is the former chairperson of Very Special Arts Sweden and of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association.

Karen Wacks, Ed.M., Berklee College of Music Professor, a worldwide traveler, is committed to raising consciousness of the power of music to influence health and healing across the globe.  Having traveled and presented music therapy theory and practice internationally, Professor Wacks blends both the science and art of music to educate others on the importance of the arts to develop a more humane and sustainable healthcare system.   Her graduate studies at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education combined arts education, psychology, cognition and interactive technology. At Berklee, she teaches courses in clinical practicum and music therapy and medicine and is also the Clinical Coordinator for the Music Therapy Department and responsible for placement for over 100 music therapy majors per year.  She works closely with clinical training sites nationwide.  She plays French horn with the Berklee Faculty Brass Ensemble and performs regularly with community orchestras.

Lisa M. Wong, M.D.  holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Harvard and an MD from New York University. As a pediatrician and violinist, Dr. Wong advocates the importance of music in fostering discipline and creativity.  She encourages parents to immerse all children in music appreciation and music education from infancy.  Dr. Wong has been President of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra since 1991, a unique ensemble of musical and medical caregivers who collaborate with community service organizations throughout Boston to “Heal the Community through Music.” Dr. Wong was a Board member of Young Audiences of Massachusetts for eighteen years and helped start Bring Back the Music, which revitalized in-class instrumental music instruction in the Boston public schools. Dr. Wong is currently a Board member of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is married to violinist Lynn Chang and has two children who are also musicians.

Harvey Zarren, M.D. was trained originally in conventional cardiology and internal medicine, and now promotes the use of all appropriate therapies practiced by ethical practitioners. He is devoted to deepening the quality of the human experience of healthcare and is committed to the use of Arts in restoring and maintaining wellness. He currently practices privately doing Wellness Consults, and Clinical Hypnosis focused on body physiology. 

Dr. Zarren is the Founder and Physician Director of the Healing Your Heart and Healing With Hope programs at the NSMC/Union Hospital in Lynn, MA. Healing Your Heart is a low cost program for the treatment and reversal of heart disease. Healing With Hope is a support group for patients with any type of cancer, anywhere on their journey of experiencing cancer. Dr. Zarren is an Assistant Clinical Professor in Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a Patron of New Approaches to Cancer based in Surrey, England, and is currently the President of the Board of Directors of the Integrated Medicine Alliance and is a Past President of the New England Society of Clinical Hypnosis.

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