AHA 4-Part Course starts 5/11: "Rebuilding Your Relationship with Music!"

The American Humanist Association is offering a 4 part course called a "Music Support Workshop for Recovery from Cults & Abusive Relationships" with Dorian Wallace, MT-BC. It starts on May 11 and takes place on Monday nights from 8 pm - 9:30 pm until June 1.

"Music can become entangled with coercion, control, trauma, and manipulation. This trauma-informed workshop provides a structured, supportive environment for participants to reclaim autonomy in their relationships with music.

Session 1 – Building Safety
Establishing consent, pacing, and psychological safety.
Session 2 – Music with Positive Association
Reconnecting with music is linked to strength, identity, and joy.
Session 3 – Music with Negative Association
Carefully exploring music connected to harm or control; reclaiming choice and boundaries.
Session 4 – Building Our Audio-Biography
Creating a self-designed soundtrack of one’s life in the here and now.

Through guided listening, reflective exercises, and facilitated discussion, participants explore how music intersects with memory, identity, and agency."

The course does have a cost of $100 for 4 sessions.
For more information, REGISTER HERE.

Dorian Wallace is a composer, pianist, and board-certified music therapist who explores music’s healing qualities in therapeutic work, social action, and community engagement. His practice integrates contemporary classical composition, free improvisation, and a deep commitment to fostering meaningful, emotionally resonant experiences.

His music therapy work extends to people incarcerated at Rikers Island, Crossroads Juvenile Detention Center, and Sing Sing Correctional Facility; survivors of cults through the Lalich Center for Cults and Coercion; and patients on hospice care at Calvary Hospital. He integrates dynamic listening, improvisation, and lyric analysis to support trauma-informed, liberation-centered therapeutic spaces. His Liberation Music Therapy concept has been presented at institutions such as Columbia University, the Trauma Research Foundation, Montclair State University, the University of Louisville, and Loughborough University, among others. He leads workshops for adult film workers through Pineapple Support, activists experiencing burnout through the Democratic Socialists of America, and people transitioning out of insular communities with Footsteps. Dorian’s work as a composer, pianist, and therapist remains committed to exploring the ways music can facilitate connection, healing, and social change.

AHA's Workshop and Seminar series brings open dialogue, learning and self-improvement on topics of interest brought to you by the American Humanist Association.