MÉLANGE

Education

MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing, The New School, New York City, 2010

PhD in Clinical Psychology, St. John’s University, NYC, 2000 (all requirements completed Sept 1999)

MA, Clinical/Community Psychology with Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies, U of Maryland, 1993

MA in Psychology with concentration in Political Psychology (Psychological Effects of Political Violence in Africa, Asia, and Latin America), Wm Lyon Univ., San Diego, Calif (external degree program), 1988

Bachelor of Arts with Highest Honors in Psychology, magna cum laude,
Phi Beta Kappa, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1984

Bachelor of Science in Urban Studies, cum laude, Worcester State College, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1984

Postgraduate Fellowships

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ethnopolitical Conflict, Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.  Ten-week intensive interdisciplinary program on the causes and consequences of and psychosocial interventions for war, genocide, and ethnic conflict. (June-Aug., 2003)

Postgraduate Certificate in Trauma Studies, The Trauma Center, Boston.  Advanced certificate program in theory and practice with child, adolescent, and adult trauma survivors. (1 day wk, Sept. 2001-May 2002)

Postgraduate Fellowship in Comparative Psychoanalysis, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, Boston.  Advanced training program in contemporary relational theory and practice. (Sept. 2001-May 2002)

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Child Development and Infant Mental Health, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Division of Child Psychiatry, Denver.  One-year full-time fellowship focusing on preventive, clinical, and community interventions with at-risk infants, young children, and families. (Sept. 1999 to Sept. 2000)

Honors and Awards

Outstanding Educator Award for leadership in advanced training programs and academic graduate studies in poetry therapy, National Association for Poetry Therapy, April 2019.

Invited Keynote Speaker, Arts & Global Health: Art, Memory, & Testimony in the Aftermath of Trauma, 5th Annual Arts in Healthcare Conference, Lesley University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 2014

Keynote Commencement Speaker and Recipient of Honorary Doctoral Degree (Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa), Worcester State College, Worcester, Massachusetts, May 2007

Member of 7-person team from the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) selected for the 2006 American Psychological Association’s International Humanitarian Award in Recognition of Extraordinary Humanitarian Service and Activism by a Team of Psychologists, for services rendered to Liberian refugees in the refugee camps of Guinea, West Africa during 2004-2005

Student Research Award, American Psychological Association, Division of Clinical Psychology, Aug 1997

Doctoral Fellowship, St. John’s University, 1993-1996

Most Innovative Use of Organization Development Award, Organization Development Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, 1986

Graduated Clark University magna cum laude, with Highest Honors in Psychology, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, 1984

Research Activities Not Listed Elsewhere on This Site

Consultant on a National Institute of Justice Grant to Weill Medical College of Cornell University, entitled ‘Developing a Taxonomy to Understand and Measure Outcomes of Success in Community-Based Elder Mistreatment Interventions.”  Responsibilities included recruiting, training and supervising students to conduct interviews with survivors of elder abuse in Maine. (2018-2019)

Member of Dr. Beatrice Beebe’s Research Team at New York State Psychiatric Institute (Columbia University Medical Center) in NYC (1994-1998). Assisted with laboratory research on parent-infant nonverbal interaction and maternal tactile communication (videotaped parent-infant interactions, interviewed participants, administered questionnaires, developed a coding system, coded data).  Also, attended weekly research team meetings facilitated by Dr. Beebe, a renowned psychoanalyst and infant researcher and Clinical Professor of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University

Research Assistant for Professor Beverly Greene at St. John’s University in NY (1993-1996).  Responsibilities included conducting literature reviews and summarizing relevant literature in support of Dr. Greene’s preparation of manuscripts and books on issues pertaining to race, gender, and sexual orientation in clinical psychology.

Psychology Articles/Chapters Not Listed Elsewhere on This Site

Stepakoff, S. (2014).  Graphopoetic process.  In B. Thompson & R. Neimeyer (Eds.), Grief and the expressive arts: Practices for creating meaning (pp. 66-70).  NY: Routledge.

Stepakoff, S. (2009).  From destruction to creation, from silence to speech: Poetry therapy principles and practices for working with suicide grief.  The Arts in Psychotherapy (Special Issue on Creative Arts Therapies in the Treatment of Trauma), 36, 105-113. (Reprinted in the book Expressive Therapies, edited by Nicholas Mazza, Routledge, 2017)

Beebe, B., Badalamenti, A., Jaffe, J., Feldstein, S., Marquette, L., Helbraun, E., Demetri-Friedman, D., Flaster, C., Goodman, P.,  Kaminer, T., Kaufman-Balamuth, L., Putterman, J., Stepakoff, S., & Ellman, L. (2008).   Distressed mothers and their infants use a less efficient timing mechanism in creating expectancies of each other’s looking patterns.  Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 37, 453-454.

Klagsbrun, J., Rappaport, L., Marcow-Speiser, V., Post, P., Byers, J., Stepakoff, S., & Karman, S. (2005).  Focusing and expressive arts therapies as a complementary treatment for women with breast cancer.  Journal of Creative Arts in Mental Health, 1, 107-137.

Stepakoff, S. (2003).  Searching for a story that makes sense: Bibliotherapy with a six-year-old boy in transition from long-term foster care to adoption.  In D. J. Betts (Ed.), Creative arts therapy approaches in adoption and foster care (pp. 97-130).  Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

Stepakoff, S. (1998).  Effects of sexual victimization on suicidal ideation and behavior.  Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior: Special Issue on Gender, Culture, & Suicidal Behavior, 28, 107-126.

Beck, E. T., & Stepakoff, S. (1995). Lesbians in psychoanalytic theory and practice. Feminist Studies, 26, 477-495.

To learn more about my literary publications, visit the “Writing” page on this website.

For a list of my publications on human rights issues, visit the “Human Rights Work” page on this website.

To learn about my work as a Registered Poetry Therapist and Poetry Therapy Mentor/Supervisor, credentialed by the National Federation of Biblio/Poetry Therapy, and my work designing and facilitating graphopoetic process experiences to strengthen cohesiveness in groups and communities and to build bridges across human differences, please visit my separate website, www.graphopoetic.com.

To learn about my work as a Professional Dream interpreter, drawing on ancient traditions in non-clinical, non-medical settings to support people in learning from dreams, please visit my separate website, www.professionaldreaminterpretation.com.

Presentations Not Listed Elsewhere on This Site

Stepakoff, S. (2018, June).  Milton Was Wiser Than Freud: Twelve Types of Dreams in Paradise Lost. 35th International Conference on Psychology and the Arts, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Stepakoff, S. (2018, June).  Fifty Shades of God: Dreams of the Divine in a Woman from Young Adulthood to Late Middle Age (part of a Research Panel titled “Dreams About God Across Historical and Cultural Contexts”, chaired by Kelly Bulkeley), paper presented at the 35th Annual Conference of the International Association for Study of Dreams, Scottsdale, Arizona. (This paper will be submitted for publication in the Fall of 2018 with the inclusion of Kelly Bulkeley as first author and me as co-author, whereas for the IASD conference presentation I am the presenter and Kelly is both a co-author and the Chair of the research panel.)

Stepakoff, S. (2018, June).  The Soundtrack of the Soul: Using Songs to Interpret Your Dreams.  Workshop, 35th Annual Conference of the International Association for Study of Dreams, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Stepakoff, S. (2017, June).  “In the Middle of Our Life’s Journey”: A Psychological Perspective on Poems About Midlife.  34th International Conference on Psychology and the Arts, Palermo, Sicily.

Stepakoff, S. (2017, June).  The Trajectory from Trauma to Transformation: Evidence from a Long-Term Dream Series in a Survivor of a Violent Kidnapping.  34th Annual Conference of the International Association for Study of Dreams, Anaheim, CA.

Stepakoff, S. (2016, June). Representations of Failure in Contemporary Poetry: A Jungian Perspective.  Paper presented at the 33rd International Conference on Psychology and the Arts, Université de Reims, France.

Stepakoff, S. (2015, Nov).  Uses Of Poetry in Psychotherapy with Older Adults.  Featured presenter at the monthly meeting of the Geriatric Mental Health Coalition of Westchester, St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, NY.

Stepakoff, S. (2003, May).  Using Poetry in the Therapeutic Relationship in the Aftermath of Trauma and Loss.  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Invited Presentation for the Continuing Education Program of the Department of Social Work.

 Stepakoff, S. (2002, April).  Poetry Therapy for Bearing, and Being With, Tragedy.  Workshop, 22nd Annual Meeting of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, Denver, Colorado.

Stepakoff, S. (2002, April).  Praise Poems: Learning from African Traditions.  Workshop, 22nd Annual Meeting of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, Denver, Colorado.

Stepakoff, S., Beebe, B., & Jaffe, J. (2000, July).  Mother–infant tactile communication at four months: Infant gender, maternal ethnicity, and maternal depression. Paper presented at the International Conference of Infant Studies, Brighton, England.

Beebe, B., & Stepakoff, S. (2000, May).  Infant Research and the Origins of Relatedness: Variations by Maternal Depression, Ethnicity, and Infant Gender.  Paper presented at the 11th International Forum of Psychoanalysis: Culture & Psychoanalysis, William Alanson White Institute, New York.

O’Connell, K., & Stepakoff, S. (1998, July).  Medical Dreamwork: Ancient Foundations, Modern Applications. Paper presented at the 15th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Dreams, Laie, Hawaii.

Stepakoff, S. (1998, July).  Poetry Therapy Methods for Working With Dreams.  Workshop, 15th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Dreams, Laie, Hawaii.

Stepakoff, S. (1998, May).  Next Time More Keening: Poetry Therapy for Speaking Our Truths About Cancer. Workshop, 18th Annual Conference of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, San José, California.

Dennis, A., & Stepakoff, S. (1997, March).  Breaking the Silence on Sibling Violence.  Workshop, 22nd Annual Conference of the Association for Women in Psychology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Stepakoff, S. (1997, March).  Poetry Therapy for Healing After Separation and Relationship Loss.  Workshop, 22nd Annual Conference of the Association for Women in Psychology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Stepakoff, S. (1996, May).  Poetry Therapy When a Love Relationship Ends.  Workshop, 16th Annual Conference of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, Columbia, Maryland.

Stepakoff., S. (1995, June).  The Power of Metaphor in Poetry and Dreams.  Workshop, 12th Annual Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, New York.

Stepakoff, S. (1994, July).  Poemwork: A Synthesis of Dreamwork and Poetry Therapy.  Workshop, 11th Annual Conference of the International Association for Study of Dreams, Leiden, Netherlands.

Stepakoff, S. (1994, April).  Existential Isolation and the Yearning for Connection: A Poetry Therapy Approach.  Workshop presented at the 14th Annual Conference of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, Columbia, Maryland.

Stepakoff, S., & Dennis, A. (1994, March). Poetry Therapy with African American and Jewish Women: From Talking in Circles to Creating a Conversation.  Workshop presented at the 19th Annual Conference of the Association for Women in Psychology, Oakland, California.

Stepakoff, S. (1993, October).  Poetry Facilitation for Enhanced Awareness of Ethnocultural Identity. Workshop presented for the Interdisciplinary Interest Group on Culture, St. John’s University, New York.

Stepakoff, S. (1993, April).  Poetry Therapy for the Promotion of Body Acceptance.  Workshop presented at the 13th Annual Conference of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, Baltimore.

Stepakoff, S. (1992, August).  Lucretia’s Legacy: The Role of Rape in Women’s Self-Destruction.  Paper presented at the 100th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

Stepakoff, S. (1986, May).  Using Organization Development with Youth Gangs.  16th Annual Conference of the Organization Development Institute, Williams Bay, Wisconsin.

Click here for a list of my presentations on human rights issues, or go to the “Human Rights” page on this website.

To learn about my work as a Registered Poetry Therapist and Poetry Therapy Mentor/Supervisor, credentialed by the National Federation of Biblio/Poetry Therapy, and my work designing and facilitating graphopoetic process experiences to strengthen cohesiveness in groups and communities and to build bridges across human differences, please visit my separate website, www.graphopoetic.com.

To learn about my work as a Professional Dream interpreter, drawing on ancient traditions in non-clinical, non-medical settings to support people in learning from dreams, please visit my separate website, www.professionaldreaminterpretation.com.