Irma Dosamantes-Beaudry
Professor Emerita
Trained as a psychologist, psychoanalyst, dance therapist and dancer, Professor Dosamantes-Beaudry's current research interests are centered around contemporary psychoanalysis, sacred female healing traditions, the arts as healing and therapy, cultural, developmental and subjective aspects of self construction, and the role of the body as an instrument of consciousness. From 1977 through 1990, she served as the Director of the Graduate Dance/Movement Therapy Program formerly housed within the Department of Dance at UCLA. She is a past president of the American Dance Therapy Association and the American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery. In 1997 she was the recipient of the Chace Memorial Foundation Award for her lifetime contribution to the field of Dance/Movement Therapy. She has published widely. Her book, "The Arts in Contemporary Healing, published in 2003, was selected by Greenwood Publishing for inclusion in its Significant Contribution to Psychology Series. During 1990-2003, she served as the Editor-in-Chief of The Arts in Psychotherapy Journal, an interdisciplinary journal published by Elsevier Press. Professor Dosamantes-Beaudry holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University, a Psy. D. in Psychoanalysis from the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies, a post-Ph.D. in Dance Therapy from UCLA, an M.A. in clinical Psychology from the City University of New York and a B.A. from the same institution. She has supervised Fullbright and Visiting Scholars who have come to UCLA to study with her.
Professor Dosamantes-Beaudry adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the courses that she presently teaches, which include: "Women Healers, Ritual and Transformation"; "Self and Culture"; "Dance as Healing and Therapy"; "Frida Kahlo: The Construction of a Cultural Icon"; and "The Arts in Contemporary Healing."