Sara McMullian, RDT-BCT, LCAT, has served in the clinical arena for more than 30 years. She has played a significant role in developing, piloting, implementing, and supervising new initiatives in wellness and recovery. She has served as a consultant and supervisor, coordinating numerous special projects and programs in both the public and private sector, including hospitals, psychiatric rehabilitation programs, nursing homes, clinics, communities and schools. During her tenure in Florida, Sara was part of a special trauma team as well as a member of the CHARIS unit, integrating spirituality and religious beliefs in treatment. During this time she also spearheaded the training and implementation of a treatment model that utilized a Hero journey Creative Arts Therapy protocol, incorporated into best practice standards for treatment centers in the Florida Panhandle. She has served as a consultant for disaster and emergency relief response programs, including Project Liberty, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy, working with first responders and their families. Sara’s current interest and passion is in recovery-based treatment models, integrating the most current approaches in treatment with drama therapy and creative arts theory and praxis.
She has been a faculty member of the NYU Program in Drama Therapy since 1997, where she redesigned the Clinical Populations course, integrating the most current clinical developments and philosophies in treatment alongside the most current drama therapy theories and practice.
Sara has served Board Member for NADTA . She presently serves as vice chairperson on the New York State Board for Mental Health Practitioners.
Degrees Held:
BA
MA
Awards:
NADTA Education Award for Teaching and Mentorship, 2016 recipient
Publications:
McMullian,S. and Burch,D. (2017), “I am more than my disease.” An embodied approach to understanding clinical populations using Landy’s Taxonomy of Roles in concert with the DSM-5, Drama Therapy Review, 3:1, pp.29-43,doi:10.1386/dtr.3.1.29_1
The education of the drama therapist: In search of a guide, The Arts in Psychotherapy, 32 (2005) Pg. 275-292
Role Profiles: a drama therapy assessment instrument, The Arts in Psychotherapy, 30 (2003), Pg. 151- 161
Research Interests:
Role Theory and Emerging Applications
Ethics in the Clinical Arena
Trauma Informed Drama Therapy Treatment