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Art Therapy Perspectives

An Interview Series with Expressive Arts Therapist Nicki Koethner, MA, MFT: Part-Three

Nicki Koethner, MA, MFT is the founder of Express-Explore-Expand. She is licensed Expressive Arts Psychotherapist, Multimedia-artist, Expressive Arts consultant and a mystic who guides people through transitions and transforming trauma into empowerment. She has a private practice in Oakland for individuals, couples, children and families in English and German, and facilitates rituals and ceremonies. She is a community organizer for the Northern California Dance Collective and Terra’s Temple. In addition, Nicki is on the Board of Body Tales.

I met Nicki through a group for expressive arts therapists on Linkedin. I was pleased when she agreed to be interviewed, as I thought it would be great to have a perspective on the related, but different, field of expressive arts therapy. Nicki works from a multi-modal approach, and uses the whole body through dance, drama, etc. Later in the series Nicki will discuss more about her approach, various challenges she has faced in the field, and inspiration.

This is part-three of a three part series with Nicki. For part-one in the series click here.
For part-two in the series click here.

What keeps you going as an expressive art therapist? And/or where do you find inspiration?
Experiencing firsthand the healing powers of the arts is what keeps me inspired and going. I’m very blessed living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where there are lots of opportunities to connect with the soul through expressive arts. When I get stuck in my own routine or I’m distracted by my anxieties, doubts, and fears, I remind myself that I need to dance, move, breathe, draw, paint, listen to spiritual talks or music to break the spell of my emotional state or an over-identification with a particular story. The expressive arts have taught me to be open and curious to my own experience without attaching meaning to it and also to allow my unique perceptions to matter. I have come to appreciate listening to my impulses, inner rhythm and flow rather than forcing myself to do things which most of the time has been counterproductive. One such example was when I woke up one morning feeling somewhat depressed and discontent, needing to accomplish various tasks, feeling the anxiety of getting things done but not really being able to motivate myself. Instead of forcing myself to do the tasks, I decided to take pictures of myself in different costumes and write little stories attached to the pictures, a process that I call photojournaling. Being engaged in this process shifted my mood considerably; helping me to feel the flow again and also accomplish my tasks.

Witnessing the shift in others and seeing how arts connect people and deepen their experience with themselves keeps me going. Seeing the joy and expansion and the capacity to be a container for all emotions, beyond right and wrong, and allowing people to express their uniqueness and authenticity is what inspires me. There is so much richness when people fully engage in the creative process, allowing them to encounter the world through their particular eyes, hands, movements and thinking and not so much through the eyes of should’s and should not's, right and wrong.

Do you have any special self-care techniques?
I spend time in nature, engage in meditation and breathing, do yoga, go dancing, make art before and after sessions, write poetry, play drums, have a spiritual community, swim and spend time with people I love. Cooking is also a practice that gives me a lot of nourishment. The making of food is like a meditation to me and nourishes me on many levels, including all the senses. I also use energetic and sound-healing practices that I have learned through studying with Lisa Rafel, who teaches sound healing, shamanic healing, kabbalistic healing and energy healing to facilitate self-mastery, spiritual growth, intuitive development and greater consciousness. These exercises allow me to center myself energetically. Body Tales, developed b Olivia Corson, and Authentic Movement are other practices that have been very important self-care techniques.

How, if at all, have you witnessed the expressive arts therapies profession grow and change through the years?
I believe that Expressive arts having its roots in shamanic/indigenous practices and as a natural expression of human beings have always been part of our culture but not necessarily been part of more traditional talk-therapy models and/or cognitive-behavioral approaches. The Expressive Arts have revived and brought back what has been used throughout humanity into the context of therapy and allows the body-mind integration rather than the body-mind split that is so prevalent throughout the world nowadays. I believe that the use of more modern technology such as video, photography and computers have impacted expressive arts. Social and Community Action is becoming more highlighted within the teaching of Expressive Arts therapy.

How, if at all, do you advocate for expressive arts therapy both locally and abroad?
I have been involved with the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) for over eight years in various positions, starting as a Conference co-chair, then International committee co-chair and then Executive co-chair. IEATA offers bi-annual conferences bringing together artists, educators, consultants and therapists from various countries, who use multimodal expressive arts processes for personal and community transformation. IEATA also offers two registrations for professionals. REAT is the registration for Expressive Art Therapist and REACE is a registration for Consultant-Educators. You can find out more about IEATA at www.ieata.org. I also have given expressive arts workshops and performances internationally. I like talking about the expressive arts and integrate it when I give presentations, workshops and also as a community organizer. I help create dance events as an Overall Coordinator and facilitator with the Northern California Dance Collective (NCDC) and also help run Terra’s Temple as a communications director and priestess; both places that integrate the Expressive Arts.

Anything else you would like to share?
I love the arts since it is the language of the soul, allow us to be with the unknown, create in the face of death and one of the most direct paths to connect deeply with our soul. I feel honored supporting people’s journey into self-love and acceptance through therapy as well as the arts. I truly appreciate the universality of the arts, which can bridge language barriers for dialogue and conflict resolution, values diverse ways of learning and fosters deeper connection between people.

Readers can connect with Nicki via her website here.
She can also be reached via Linkedin or Facebook.

Originally posted on December 15, 2012

An Interview Series with Expressive Arts Therapist Nicki Koethner, MA, MFT: Part-Two

This is part-two of a two part series with Nicki. For part-one in the series, click here.

How would you describe your style or approach as an expressive arts therapist?
My motto and the name of my business is Express-Explore-Expand. I'm honored to facilitate people's self-acceptance, growth, and living in their truth, i.e. crystallizing their essence and authenticity to live a more spontaneous and joyous life. I support people in major life transitions and managing the stress of everyday life. While pain and all emotions are part of being human, suffering can be minimized by allowing all that is inside of us to emerge (to be expressed), to be curious about it (to explore it) and find meaning, wisdom and acceptance in our experiences which allow us to have more choices and a greater repertoire of responses (expansion).

The process of Express-Explore-Expand, an inquiry into your soul, is guided by the following questions: 1) What wants to be understood? 2) What wants to be released? 3) What wants to emerge? Having a non-judgmental witness and guide in this process answers the need of people to be witnessed in their stories, move beyond stuck patterns and trauma and old wounds into empowerment. It supports the integration of fragmented parts of our soul.

Expressive Arts Therapy invites clients to access non-verbal parts of themselves and engages the imaginal realm which essentially activates people’s resources to heal trauma and other imbalances that keep them in stuck patterns and identified with stories that are limiting. I often use somatic inquiry as an entry point into deeper exploration of what is currently present in people’s bodies to see what wants to be understood and expressed. From there I invite people to draw, move their bodies, write, breathe or make sounds to explore the sensations further and invite curiosity rather than attaching meaning to what messages they are receiving about themselves or a particular issue they might be working with. Depending on the client and the moment, we might use the drawing, the sound or movement to explore contrasting experiences (such as contraction and expansion as expressed in the body), reflect and integrate the process to gain deeper consciousness through writing or talking or just allow the emotions such as grief to come forth. This process supports the expression and also the expansion to take place because it works with the inherent resources the client has but might be cut off from. Role-plays, using puppets, sandtray, storytelling, as well as, working with images and music are other processes that clients engage in.

I also offer sacred mask making expressive arts workshops to connect people with archetypal universal energies and hidden parts of their soul.

Nicki invites you to find out more about her work in this interview describing her approach to Expressive Arts Therapy, in particular Mask-Making. And for more info regarding her underlying philosophy visit this article about free expression dance entitled, How do I enter the dance?

What are struggles or challenges have you had to overcome in your career?
The struggles/challenges in my career reflect aspects that I had to overcome in general in my life. One of the biggest challenges was to trust my own intuition, own voice and perceptions while being trained and still being receptive to the feedback of others. Now, I’m much more comfortable in listening to my own intuition guiding clients to deeply listen to themselves.

Throughout my internships there were some contexts that were more challenging to work in than others. In some, I had a dual role that made it more challenging to develop a therapeutic alliance with clients. In my internship with teenagers with severe trauma backgrounds in East Oakland, I experienced mild vicarious trauma due to the lack of support and containment of the overall agency and tensions in the team while I had supervisors that were competent and helpful. After I left the agency and returned to my work in the jail, I saw the value of the structure of the jail (which I didn’t always appreciated while I was there) that supported our work as Theater for Change Facilitator with individuals that have experienced multiple traumas in their lives. This experience encouraged me again to really focus on self-care, engage in my own art and also made me realize how important a strong container is for the healing of trauma.

I often would go for walks after working with the teenagers to process and digest their experiences and our interactions. One day, I went home and wanted to do sitting meditation instead. While I was trying to just sit still and had a hard time doing so, I saw the djembe drum that I had borrowed from a friend. I started playing the drum without much training or skills just letting my hands respond to the sound of the drum and allowing various rhythms to emerge while also making sounds with my voice till I felt complete. I noticed a dramatic shift throughout my whole body. I felt less tense, lighter and clearer. This experience showed me the value of deeply listening to the needs of the moment rather than following a prescribed program and also the power of using both sides of the brain through the movement of the hands and sounding.

I had to do both of my licensing exams twice, failing them by one and two points. While I would have preferred to pass them the first time around, both times, I wasn’t devastated by it, which showed me that I had progressed in my own healing. I didn’t think that the tests really tested my abilities as a therapist but actually tested whether or not I’m a good test taker. However, not passing the tests motivated me to ask deeper questions regarding healing and transformation again and highlighted the contrast between my expressive arts training and some of the standardized accepted models that were tested in the exam. This contrast was also sometimes highlighted with supervisors that had a different background and weren’t comfortable with the use of expressive arts in psychotherapy. Both experiences eventually helped me in understanding on a deeper level what I appreciate about the expressive arts, (its value of integrating both hemispheres of the brain and addressing different ways of learning and being in the world) and how important and valuable it is to be congruent within myself to be an effective therapist.

I have made mixed experiences in terms of the acceptance of expressive arts therapy by people who are not in the field. Some people highly value its effectiveness, understand its value and others don’t understand it and it leaves them skeptical. Yet I have seen that more people gravitate towards it nowadays while the mainstream still doesn’t acknowledge it fully as evidenced by lack of insurance coverage.

And for more of my interview with Nicki, check back later in the week for the final installment of the series.

Originally posted December 12, 2012

An Interview Series with Expressive Arts Therapist Nicki Koethner, MA, MFT: Part-One

How does the work that you do differ from other creative arts therapies?
The specialty of expressive arts is that it is intermodal and/or multi-modal, interweaving various creative expressions for deepening a process thereby engaging different senses and capacities. It speaks to the different forms and ways of learning which supports us to respond to the diverse needs of clients from moment and moment. As expressive arts therapists, we might not be trained in the same depth in one modality that a music therapist, drama therapist, art therapist or dance therapist is but we are highly sensitive to each modality and know how the different qualities of those modalities interact, bring forth different processes and can be used in combination to deepen a process or create more balance within a client. I also sense that expressive art therapy, at least in my training and practice of it, emphasizes the cultivation of the client finding their own meaning and crystallizing their essence rather than external analysis, diagnosis or interpretation. Of course, this varies from therapist to therapist.

What initially drew you to expressive arts therapy?
I was drawn to Expressive Arts Therapy for its intermodal/multi-modal approach since I liked visual arts, poetry, music, theater, photography, dance and movement. I was expressing myself in these ways from a young age on. At the time, when I was looking for a graduate degree program, I had already been working with expressive arts, using it with children in a high-school, on the streets and in an after-school program in New York. I wanted to learn more since most of what I did with the kids and teens was self-taught. During that time, I mainly used visual arts and crafts, mask-making and papier-mâché to support the kids and teens to find a voice, encourage them to trust themselves, and have a container to express what is important to them. I would sometimes demonstrate ways of creating something but always stressed that there are different ways to make it and that mistakes are not mistakes but opportunities to create something different. It was a therapeutic way of using creative expression to enhance their self-esteem, confidence and access their natural creative abilities.

Coming from Germany originally, I looked for various graduate programs in Europe that would include the arts since I wanted to go back to Europe. I found the European Graduate School (EGS) in Switzerland, which linked me to the Expressive Arts Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. When I read about the various programs at CIIS, a school that integrates Western psychology with Eastern philosophy, I had a hard time choosing which program yet the Expressive Arts Program was the one that resonated most deeply, especially because of its international link. My plan was to go there first since I had a BA in Psychology from this country already and then transfer to EGS and eventually go to Germany. However, I stayed at CIIS and went for an intensive summer course to EGS as part of my MA program in Counseling Psychology with a Concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy. I valued having the experience of participating in both programs giving me a balance of two slightly different approaches. EGS felt to me more like Arts using Psychology, coming from a phenomenological perspective, while CIIS was more about Psychology using the Arts. What I valued in both programs was the experiential way of learning and the quality of the teachers.

What populations do you/have you worked with?
I have worked with all kinds of populations. Starting with inner city kids in New York City in a high-school, on the streets, and in an after-school program as well as a therapy aide at college and volunteer in a hospital setting. I facilitated Theater for Change classes for men who committed violence in the Resolve to Stop Violence Project in the San Francisco County Jail through Community Works and worked with teens-at risk in East Oakland. I used to work with clients with triple and dual diagnosis in a residential recovery program and in a rehabilitation program for men and women coming out of prison. I have also worked with self-growth clients, children, adults and families in private practice and in workshops.

In addition, I have provided psycho-educational workshops for families going through divorce and separation for Kids Turn. I also work with the LGBTQ community. I have given trainings to Interns on how to include Expressive Arts in therapy to deepen client processes and currently co-facilitate a professional development group for interns in Berkeley at the Pacific Center for Human Growth in which we use expressive arts as well as somatic processes.

How did you get to where you are today?
A good question, which I find hard to answer. I deeply believe in the mystery of life. I can pinpoint some aspects of my journey yet there will always be parts that are unexplainable. I have been a seeker throughout my life. I love to learn through experience and have been highly curious about life and all its manifestations. I love people, nature, art, dreams, stories and thrive on connections. I left Germany right after graduating from high-school to be an au-pair in a program called Experiment –“Learning to Live together by Living together” because I wanted to experience another culture and learn another language fluently before going to university to study psychology. I was supposed to stay only a year and go back but stayed in the US and started studying in New York City. During my undergraduate studies in Psychology, where I was enrolled in a MA/BA program, I realized that I wanted to become a therapist, which wasn’t initially my reason for studying Psychology. Originally, I wanted to combine my interest in environmental protection with my interest in psychology and looked into studying environmental psychology. However, I realized that my personality was more suited for working with people directly and that my art classes were some of the most inspiring classes I had.

Even before college, I had drawn a vision board that showed three elements that mattered the most to me and I wanted to include in my life: art, children and nature. Now, I combine all those elements working with people of all ages connecting them with their inner children and their essence through expressive arts and nature.

One of the most important aspects in my work is to keep people’s curiosity and engagement with themselves and their encounter with life active and alive rather than just functioning within a given societal frame. Expressive arts represent that for me: they allow me to stay young, curious and listen to my own experiences, tune in to my senses and access a deeper level of being. I can follow the inspirations of the moment and follow where my heart leads. When I get stuck in my patterns or ways of thinking and perspectives, the arts transport me to the imaginal realm, opening up new possibilities and fresh movement so that creativity (the life-force that is inherent in all of us) can be expressed more freely through me. The arts also allow me to be with all the emotions that run through me without those emotions paralyzing me. We are part of creation and all of us are a unique expression of it yet our conditioning and socialization can block us from the direct access to this truth. The continued engagement with the arts allows me to stay open and curious and bring forth that is within me and digest what I encounter in my engagement with the world.

In terms of working as an expressive arts therapist, I would say that life experiences, my diverse work experiences, my own healing work, energetic healing practices, authentic movement, somatic inquiry, Body Tales, spiritual practices, meditation, shamanic and energy healing, dancing, drumming, poetry, music and encounters/relationships with people and my expressive arts training have shaped and informed my work with clients.

For more of my interview with Nicki, check back later in the week for part-two in the series.

Originally posted on December 10, 2012

An Interview Series with Natasha Shapiro, LCAT, ATR-BC: Part-Two

Natasha Shapiro, LCAT, ATR-BC, is a professional artist, a Licensed Art Therapist and an Advanced Reiki Practitioner. She obtained her BA Cum Laude in Russian Literature at Harvard University and her MPS in Art Therapy and Creativity Development at Pratt Institute. She runs a private practice out of her studio office in downtown NYC, Tribeca Healing Arts, where she provides individual and group art therapy, couples therapy, individual and group supervision as well as Reiki, Sand Tray and Play Therapy, Creativity Development and Workshops. She has been exhibiting her work in galleries and alternative spaces for many years.

This is part-two of a two part series with Natasha. For part-one in the series, click here.

Can you share with us more about the supervision group you run? I know you take a unique approach.
It has evolved over the years. Now it’s one weekly group of 6 members with a waiting list and includes people with more experience. My main approach is studio art supervision. I think it is important to make art during the group itself in the company of the group members and me. Art therapists desperately need to make their own art. Their jobs are traumatizing. You are making art in the room with clients, or witnessing their art making, but did you make art this week or month? My supervisees report that the group has helped them reconnect to and nurture their artist self.

The supervision group is founded on my conviction that art making connects the art therapist more to their work and helps avoid retraumatization and burnout. Every week, we spend the first 45 minutes making art. Participants and I experiment with a wide variety of art media. The remaining time is for a case presentation, which often involves response art that gets processed at the end. The response art gives the case presenter another tool, non-verbal, to get a sense of the case. The presenter’s current art project is also useful as a way to process clinical issues. I love this group; it is inspiring to hear group members report that since joining the group, they started making their own art again or making art more often.

How would you describe your style or approach as an art therapist?
Eclectic, with the setting as my art studio, with my art on the walls. People feel
comfortable here in this unique and inviting environment. It is controlled chaos. I enjoy the way art therapy just comes up spontaneously. I meet the person where they are at, and it is a natural progression. I Sometimes I make art along side the person, or we do something together. Other times the session involves talking and/or processing dreams or using the sand tray. I also do Reiki. After I became an Advanced Practitioner, I did some workshops where I included meditation and art making. Sometimes individual Reiki sessions are an opportunity to incorporate art making with the bodywork through adding mandala drawing to the session. The newest piece for me is play therapy and sand tray as I have mentioned. With kids it’s a lot of role-play, and elements of Play therapy, involving characters fighting or playing, whereas with adults, they may make a world in the sand tray and I will act as witness.

What are struggles or challenges have you had to overcome in your career?
Building and maintaining therapy groups in private practice is a huge challenge. Another big struggle was building my privative practice, and then rebuilding it after I had a kid, which coincided with the economy tanking. That’s when people need therapy the most, but let go of it because even the co pay costs too much. I have worked with people to make low financial arrangements to help them go to therapy in a difficult time of their life, often people without insurance. It is very rewarding when someone starts working with you even when their insurance won’t pay or they are not sure about coverage, and then stay with me anyway paying on a sliding scale, showing how much they value the relationship with me.

What keeps you going as an art therapist? And/or Where do you find
inspiration?
When you are an artist, it is inherently therapeutic how rewarding it is, and how healing both therapy and art therapy can be for people. I get inspired when my patient expresses being proud of themselves for overcoming something. It is an honor to be on someone’s journey. I respect the process.

How do you keep up with your own art making?
I focus on the fun of the materials and the process and avoid analyzing my own work. It is hard as an artist to market myself, and produce an artist statement, because part of the joy for me is getting lost in the process and using the non-verbal side of the brain. I don’t have many titles because of this. It always amazes me when people come up with interesting titles. In my own work, the series will have a title but not the individual pieces.

I just got a piece accepted into a Small Works show at the 440 Gallery in Brooklyn, and I have a piece in a show at New York Creative Arts Therapies, LLC. They have an art show every year in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and this year its’ a benefit auction for the foster kids part of their program. http://nycreativetherapists.com/

Besides showing work, selling work is crucial, knowing someone will have your art in his or her home is a great feeling and motivation. I make art no matter what. I carry around a mini “studio” in my bag and do some kind of art daily. I always have a journal going; sometimes I pull from the journal for bigger pieces. Having the studio and making art with my child also helps. I always need to make art to survive. What is more difficult is finishing things, getting yourself geared up for a show, and trying to advance your career. I need to stay in process and not worry about the product. Having shows does keep you going, but it is challenging to get to that point and keep it up.

How do you put your artwork out there?
I am now very involved online promotion and improving my website. I got invited to a website called Artsicle. Both individuals and corporations go onto the website they can rent or buy your art. The Internet is useful in many ways for artists and art therapists. I also rejoined the Organization of independent artists. This year the fall salon show is an online gallery.

As a blogger, I discovered a wonderful blog called Broken Light Collective; people submit a photo a short profile, real name or fake name, and talk about their connection to mental illness, and how the photo relates to that connection. Sometimes they post photos by therapists, some have mental illness or just affected by it. It is a great community where someone can talk openly about their struggles and educate the public about mental illness. I would like to do something like this, an online type gallery for people with mental illness who use other means of expression than photography.

How do you balance your identify of both artist and art therapist?
By having a studio that I do both in, being first an artist, and continuing my art career, always working on my own personal art. It is a tricky balance. I’m good at using any free moment to make art. Having the studio as the arena for both helps make room for both and keep a balance. To be a good therapist, I have to make art regularly. It’s important to show my work regularly. My last solo show was very exciting, at a gallery in Tokyo in 2010. It was an amazing experience, as I have a personal connection to Japan.

Click here to see Natasha's collage drawing in the OIA online gallery.

And click here to see the whole group exhibition of OIA.

Where would you like to see art therapy go in the future?
I want the public to appreciate and recognize art therapists as having extra skills and expertise, and for more people to view creativity as inherently healing. I want it to have better publicity and marketing. I want us to have a lot more exposure in the mainstream media.

If readers would like to connect with Natasha they can do so through the following websites-

Natasha's Blog
Natasha's Private Practice Website
Natasha's Artist website

Originally posted December 7, 2012

An Interview Series with Natasha Shapiro, LCAT, ATR-BC: Part-One

I met Natasha Shapiro through the Art Therapy Alliance, and had the pleasure of visiting her studio in New York City to see first hand where she creates her artwork and meets with her clients. She has worked with a number of populations throughout her many years in the field, and her experience is so vast that I decided to break her story into a two-part series. I hope you enjoy reading about her journey of becoming an art therapists, as well as her hopes for the future of art therapy.

What initially drew you to art therapy?
I would divide most therapists into two groups, the "Wounded Healer" and the “Caretaker”, though of course there are mixtures of the two. The "caretaker", as the opposite of the wounded healer may not have experienced therapy before and enters the profession wanting to help people, and later through the process find out about themselves. I see myself as a Wounded Healer. I experienced various serious issues in college and started my journey with therapy during college. My first experience of psychotherapy coincided with my taking an elective drawing class on a whim, which ended up changing my life.

In Alfred DecCredico's beginning Drawing class, I discovered my identity as an artist and learned that a career choice can be a "calling", not an intellectual choice. I feel the same about my identity as an art therapist/ healer. Even though I did not know about art therapy at the time, daily art making began and continues to be not just therapeutic but my number one choice for self-care .

My first exposure to art therapy was when I randomly found and read a basic book, Art As Therapy, by Tessa Dalley. I had been working in galleries and museums, and at that time (mid 90’s) the School of Visual Arts had an Art Therapy Continuing Ed Certificate Program. I enrolled with the goal to learn more about art therapy first hand. My first internship was at the Veterans Hospital with mentally ill vets. My second was at an SRO. From this experience at SVA, I realized art therapy was what I’d been looking for, another kind of "calling" that could combine my artist identity with my desire to help people suffering from mental illnesses.

At the SRO in Coney Island, my onsite supervisor, a social worker and great mentor, was excited about starting an art therapy program at the site. He encouraged and trusted me to start my first art therapy group and long-term individual art therapy sessions. I worked there with formerly homeless "MICA" patients.

By the time I got to grad school, I had thus already had some experience. The summer before I entered the program, I worked at an Upper West Side apartment complex at a program working with seniors doing a painting group and also having my first experience with home visits.

Throughout my grad school experience, I was vigilant about nurturing my artist identity by making art daily, continuing to have my art studio, and exhibit and sell my work on a regular basis. I also participated with other students in organizing the annual art therapy Department exhibitions of student artwork.

What populations do you/have you worked with?
I have worked with a lot of populations, varying in age from very young children to "geriatric", and in diverse settings, such as inpatient hospital, outpatient day treatment and residences, dealing mainly with mental illness, MICA and all kinds of trauma as well as some co-occurring serious medical issues.

That experience has informed my private practice, as I continue to work with children and adults with mental illness, children with social and behavioral issues, as well as divorce and attachment issues. Adults that I work with include people suffering from mood disorders, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, PTSD, OCD, career and relationship issues, and creative blocks. I also value and appreciate working with people of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and the LGBTQ population. Almost all my patients have experienced serious trauma(s), whether in childhood or later.

I also facilitate what I call “Art Play Groups” of 2 to 5 children, age around 2-6, in my studio. That came out of having my own child and hosting a lot of her play dates in the studio. I also acquired a sand tray, and it’s interesting how it blended my personal and professional life as my first experience of it involved using it with my daughter, then age 4. Some children gravitate to the sand tray and the dollhouse and toys or sit at the table and do multimedia artwork. I have also facilitated the making of murals on paper using many fun media, collage, paint, stickers, and rhinestones.

What are other populations or areas you are interested in working with?
Sand Tray Therapy is a relatively new, challenging and exciting experience for me. I have found that some adults and kids enjoy just handling and playing with the sand (rather than the traditional idea of making a “scene” in the sand tray) to reduce anxiety.

I am just recently getting involved in an exciting project and opportunity to promote art therapy. It involves collaboration between the Japanese Government and Japanese Company with several Hospitals in the U.S. that specialize in Oncology. There is a relatively new kind of therapy for cancer called proton therapy, which can replace chemotherapy and does not cause some of the debilitating side effects associated with chemotherapy. The Japanese person in charge of this project recently contacted me to discuss making the environment, in which this therapy will be given, to be therapeutic and healing. I will be working with a Japanese artist named Hiroko Sai, who is very well known in Japan and has a lot of installations worldwide. Click here for her website. It is a great opportunity to promote art therapy through the planning of a big exhibition fundraiser for the foundation that is being formed for this project. My idea for the exhibition is to collect art from children around the country in oncology units with art therapy departments to use their artwork and include their stories for the exhibition. Aside from children, there will also be a focus on breast cancer. This is a relatively new population for me; while I have had experience with patients suffering from cancer and currently have a patient who is a cancer survivor, most of my experience with the disease is personal.

The other project I am working on involves starting an art therapy group for women with anxiety and depression in my private practice. Last year I had an art therapy group for women with eating disorders and body image issues. Although there were only three group members, It was very exciting for me, as they got a so much out of the combination of art making and verbal processing. Nonetheless, it was hard to keep the group going and attract more members. I decided to shift the group to a more general type, for anxiety and depression but it never got off the ground. I have been trying to start this group again, looking to have at least 4 members to get it going. Another art therapy group I want to do in the future would be for adult adoptees, another area of interest for me now.

Also I am planning a workshop about the “Pregnant Art Therapist”. It would cover transference and counter transference, issues around the intrusion of the pregnancy in the therapeutic space. I did not get enough support when I went through the process, and there is very little literature out there. Pregnancy is a big identity crisis, and then you become a new mother, a whole new experience. Every patient has a personal reaction. Important topics would be, how does it change you as a therapist? How do you tell your patients? How can you use the pregnancy therapeutically? I have begun by exploring the topic in my art therapy blog.

What are challenges that you think art therapy faces?
It is frustrating that the media and the public still do not know enough about the benefits of art therapy and the skills involved in being an art therapist. Issues directly involving art therapy come up in the media and often the “expert” consulted may not even be an art therapist. We, as art therapists, really need to make people understand that the art therapy is a crucial part of treatment. I am trying to use blogging and social media to promote our field. Why must art therapists’ first job often involve being called a recreation therapist, or getting paid less than other therapists with a graduate degree? We need to do in-services with staff, and continue promoting art therapy and demand better pay. Since the events of 9/11/01, art therapy has become better known and respected but it still is not enough. My second job after grad school was an unusual experience because an art therapist there had paved the way, and they really valued the art therapists and art therapy interns.

So the profession is often misunderstood and devalued. I see this with the people I supervise. In summer 2008 I started two supervision groups for professionals newly out of graduate school. In a couple of cases those graduates were one of a few people who had a job from their graduating class.

For more of my interview with Natasha, check back later in the week for part-two in the series.

Originally posted on December 3, 2012