Cecilia Dintino, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist and drama therapist. Dr. Dintino is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Columbia University Medical Center, and adjunct faculty in the Graduate Program for Drama Therapy at NYU.
Dr. Dintino has worked in numerous hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes over the past 32 years. She has a private practice where she facilitates groups and works with individuals using integrative means to foster change, inspire curiosity, and provide support in the service of growth, both personal and communal. Dr. Dintino incorporates mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, psychodynamic theory, positive psychology, narrative therapy and various drama therapy methods as tools to manage painful emotions, enhance creativity, and build an evolving relationship with one’s self, past, present, and future.
Dr. Dintino is a graduate and was a founding faculty member of the Institute for Developmental Transformations. She was also the co-founder of Drama Lab, NYC, a therapeutic theatre company. She has been an active participant in NYU’s performance programs and serves as a board member for the Foundation of the Arts and Trauma. In 2014 Dr. Dintino received the NADTA Performance Award.
Dr. Dintino is also the co-founder of Twisting the Plot, a platform that challenges the bias of ageism and affirms life beyond midlife as generative in role and purpose. Dr. Dintino is an author, speaker, podcast host and aging activist.
Degrees Held
- B.A.
- M.A.
- M.S.
- Psy.D.
Selected Publications
Dintino, Cecilia, Drama Therapy in Midlife and Beyond: A Reformative Proposal. Drama Therapy Review, Vol. 7, No. 1 2021
Hodermarska, Maria, Landy, Robert, Dintino, Cecilia, Mowers, Dave, Sajnani As Performance: Ethical and aesthetic considerations for therapeutic theatre. Drama Therapy Review Vol. 1, No. 2 October 2015 pp. 173-186.
Dintino, Cecilia, The Wisdom of Gaye Doner Tudanger: Therapeutic Theatre and love. Drama Therapy Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 2018
Dintino, Cecilia, Steiner, Navah, Smith, Ann, Galway, Kimberly Developmental Transformations and Playing with the Unplayable. A Chest of Broken Toys: A Journal of Developmental Transformations 2015
Publications also available with Huff Post, Psychology Today, A Plus magazine, and A Women’s Thing Magazine.
Dintino, C. and Johnson, D. (1996) Playing with the Perpetrator: Gender Dynamics in Developmental Drama Therapy. Drama therapy: Theory and Practice, Volume 3 London: Routledge.
Johnson, D. R., Forrester, A., Dintino, C., James, M. and Schnee, G. (1996) Towards a Poor Drama Therapy. In The Arts in Psychotherapy, Vol. 23, No. 4, pp. 293-306.