December 17, 2001,

Armand Volkas and Mireya Alejo:

Armand Volkas, MFT, RDT/BCT, a drama therapist since 1975, is an actor, director, and psychotherapist. He is a core faculty member at California Institute of Integral Studies and an adjunct professor at John F. Kennedy University. As founder and director of Healing the Wounds of History - The Acts of Reconciliation Project, he has used drama therapy and the expressive arts in conflict resolution, reconciliation, and intercultural communication with such groups as Germans and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis, and Japanese, Chinese and Koreans. Armand Volkas heads The Living Arts Theatre Lab, based in Oakland, and directs The Living Arts Theatre Lab's Playback Theatre Company. He is a Board Certified Trainer in Drama Therapy and works internationally.

Mireya Alejo is an MA expressive arts therapy student in her third year at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Her first approach to healing processes was as a social anthropologist working with traditional healers in her own country, Mexico; since then this has been her main area of interest. She obtained training and certification in Holotropic Breathwork and Transpersonal Psychology with Dr. Stanislav and Christina Grof rom 1991 to 1993, and facilitated groups in Mexico and internationally in such countries as Kenya, Brazil and the US. She has participated in Healing the Wounds of History since Spring 2000 with a personal interest in exploring her Mexican-Spanish background, intercultural conflict resolution and the connection between the personal and collective in intergenerational trauma.