Alicia Stephen
Alicia Stephen, MA, RDT, is a drama therapist, trauma clinician, educator, trainer, and consultant whose work advances the fields of trauma-informed care, embodied psychotherapy, and drama therapy. She is the Founder and Director of the Center for Healing Trauma, Director of Institute West/DvT–San Francisco, and a Senior Trauma Clinician at the Post Traumatic Stress Center at West Rock Wellness. Alicia serves as adjunct faculty at California Institute of Integral Studies, where she teaches graduate-level courses in trauma, resilience, group dynamics, and drama therapy. She is a certified trainer in Trauma-Centered Psychotherapy and Developmental Transformations (DvT) and has trained clinicians, educators, school counselors, and mental health professionals throughout the United States in resilience-oriented approaches to healing.
Alicia previously served as Director and Co-Director of the nationally recognized Miss Kendra Program, a pioneering school-based trauma prevention and intervention initiative that brought public health approaches to children, families, educators, and school systems across multiple states. The program was featured in the award-winning documentary Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope, which spotlighted groundbreaking efforts to address childhood adversity and toxic stress, including the work of pediatrician, ACEs researcher, and former California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris. Widely recognized for its creative and developmentally responsive approach, the Miss Kendra Program helped transform how schools engage children in conversations about trauma, resilience, and healing. Through storytelling, play, and trauma-informed education, the program provided children with age-appropriate tools to process experiences related to adversity, including family disruption, community violence, economic hardship, poverty, and systemic inequities, while fostering emotional literacy, connection, and hope.
For nearly a decade, Alicia trained and worked alongside internationally recognized Yale psychologist, pioneering drama therapist, and founder of Developmental Transformations (DvT), David Read Johnson, at the Post Traumatic Stress Center in New Haven. There, she provided drama therapy and DvT-based treatment to individuals and groups impacted by complex trauma, including children and families affected by sexual violence, gun violence, and war, while spearheading innovative community-based public health and resilience-building initiatives. These included ALIVE on the GO, an outreach program that brought street theater and play into public community settings, and Playful Encounters, a trauma-informed play-based initiative for young adults. This work reflected a shared commitment to extending trauma healing beyond the consulting room and into schools, neighborhoods, and community systems.
With more than thirteen years of experience working with adults, children, couples, families, schools, and organizations impacted by trauma, Alicia's clinical, teaching, and scholarly interests focus on the integration of embodiment, play, creativity, relational neuroscience, and community-based healing practices. Building upon her extensive experience in Developmental Transformations, trauma treatment, and drama therapy, she is currently developing an original framework for trauma-centered work with couples and families that integrates DvT, attachment theory, improvisation, and expressive arts approaches to foster connection, and relational healing. At the heart of her work is a commitment to helping individuals, families, and communities move beyond survival and toward greater connection, love, creativity, and collective healing.
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