SOCIAL THERAPEUTICS | HOME
The East Side Institute
welcomes you!
An international center for the study of social therapeutics and performance activism — bringing human and community development to the forefront of culture change and social transformation, and promoting alternative and radically humanizing approaches to psychology, education and community building.
MEET PERFORMANCE ACTIVISTS —
Performing the World Community
Since 2001, Performing the World has brought together performance activists from all over the globe who are using performance and the arts to engage and transform the world. Since 2020, we’ve had six online gatherings– packed with workshops, performances, conversations, panels, storytelling, play, and colleagues creating and discovering together. Now we’re going bigger and deeper. The spirit of Performing the World welcomes you throughout the year.
Developing Leaders —
Leaders! Exercise Your Imagination!
Leader of the Institute’s sister organization, the Global Play Brigade and a champion of play and performance in Africa, Associate Rita Ezenwa-Okoro has a new book: Exercise Your Imagination, For Leaders Who Want to Play a Head Taller.
A Maker-Space for Social Activists
Nigerian performance activist, spoken word artist and ARTvocacy Movement leader, The Gift Chikere, made this beautifully evocative “appreciation reel“ to cap her “curious journey of becoming” in the 2025/26 International Class, a global classroom performed with an environment building mindset.
Developing Across Borders
Step onto a global social therapeutic stage and grow! Developing Across Borders welcomes participants from cultures across the world into a weekly, virtual, group-building session for all seeking to grow emotionally, socially and historically with the mess and muddles of life.
Performances of Social Therapeutics —
Creating Our Mental Health
The influential New York Amsterdam News (America’s premier Black newspaper) salutes Jessie Fields, MD, with its 2026 Readers’ Choice Award granted to “Unsung Community Leaders.” Read the paper’s earlier profile pointing to her success at bringing social therapeutics to poor communities and the institute’s Creating Our Mental Health initiative.
Meet Our Associates
Among the expanding rhizome of Institute associates are gifted social change agents such as You (Yoyo) Huiying who introduces social therapeutics to colleagues across China.
FEATURED CONVERSATIONS |
Cracks and Rhizomes–Can We Save Ourselves from Ourselves?
An online conversation with Bayo Akomolafe & Social Therapeutic Practitioners — Watch Conversation Here
The Tyranny of Trauma – A Meandering Search for Method
And read this fascinating conversation with Báyò Akómoláfé and Lois Holzman, hosted by Janet Wootten — which explores the “tyranny of trauma” and a practical-critical engagement of scientific psychology.
