VIVIEN MARCOW SPEISER

Vivien is Professor Emerita and Co-Director of the Institute for Arts and Health in The Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University.

Professor Marcow Speiser has directed and taught in programs across the United States and internationally and has used the arts as a way of communicating across borders and across cultures. She believes in the power of the arts to create the conditions for personal and social change and transformation.

Her interests and expertise are in the areas of working with trauma and cross-cultural conflict resolution through the arts and she has worked extensively with groups in the Middle East and in South Africa. Her contributions to the field have made her an international leader in dance and expressive therapy and earned her a Fulbright Scholar Award, as well as a Salzburg Global Seminars Fellowship in 2020.

​She received an honorary JAAH Lifetime Achievement in Arts and Health Award in 2019, the 2014 Distinguished Fellows Award from the Global Alliance for Arts and Health, as well as a 2015 Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award from the Israeli Expressive and Creative Arts Therapy Association.
Vivien holds a Ph.D from Union Institute, an M.Ed. from Lesley University, and a BA from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. She is a Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT), a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), National Certified Counselor (NCC), and a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist (REAT).