A Developmental Transformations Institute
in the Greater Boston Area
Training Program
Since 2019, DvT Boston has offered a post-graduate training program and community for people looking to learn and practice the method of Developmental Transformations (aka DvT).
What is DvT?
It’s play! *** DvT emerged first in the 1980s as a combination of drama and dance-movement therapy, and it has been implemented in all kinds of clinical and non-clinical settings for therapeutic, educational, and recreational purposes. It is best conducted in a space devoid of props or furniture, with only carpet and pillows and a small circular rug for a witnessing circle.
It is an encounter between two or more people who engage in embodied transformations in the playspace – their co-created imaginary world. Each player (client) and playor (therapist) brings with them endless associations, impulses, roles, stories, emotions, desires, defenses, and rigidities, all of which have been constructed based on a need to organize and stabilize the raw stuff of experience and existence. As a way to question the need for rigid patterns of thinking and behavior, all these are subjected to the rules of the playspace: mutuality (we are choosing to be here together), discrepancy (everything is pretend), reversibility (we can switch roles at any time), and the very important restraint from harm. DvT is about being free!
DvT is a process of opening in order to experience presence.
“The method involves placing us in a unique interpersonal environment (the playspace) where we are forced to make choices, but where there are no real consequences for those choices, as a laboratory to explore a wide range of possibilities and then discern which ones will further the health and fulfillment of ourselves and others. […] DvT is a process of opening: opening in order to experience presence, opening in order to make contact with others, and opening in order to sense the infinite of which one is a part, the awe at the miracle of being alive this once, upon a time.” – David Read Johnson, Text for Practitioners 3, April 2025
How does training work?
Trainees are asked to make a semester-long commitment. Semesters run from Sept. to Jan. and Feb. to June. 2025-2026 Dates are Sept 27, Oct 11, Nov 15, Dec 13, Jan 17, Feb 21, Mar 14, April 18, May 16, and June 6. The cost is $160 per session.
Level 1 Training takes 2 years and upon completion allows DvT practitioners to practice with supervision, and Level 2 takes 1-2 years and upon completion allows practitioners to practice independently. Graduation is based on meeting the requirements listed on our Training page.
We are located at 112 Bishop Richard Allen Drive, Cambridge, MA, 02139.
Training Director
Erinn (she/her) has been practicing DvT since 2012, and has been a faculty member of DvT Boston since 2020. A graduate of Montreal and New York DvT Institutes, and long time drama therapist at the PTSD Center in New Haven, and Co-Director of the Miss Kendra Program, Erinn has had the chance to play with many people of all ages from all over the world.
Erinn’s passion for play has been lifelong. She is a queer woman originally from Canada who, through DvT, has found new ways to understand infertility, sexuality, motherhood, and existential dread. She has personally and professionally found that DvT can evoke^hold^express^embody the complexity of human experience unlike any other practice she has encountered.
Erinn works from home and is available for DvT training therapy and supervision.
