|
| |
Deborah
Schroder, M.S., ATR-BC
 |
| Deborah
Schroder, M.S., ATR-BC |
Deborah
Schroder is the program chair for the MA in Art Therapy/ Counseling
and Art Therapy Certificate programs. She received her BA and
an MS in Art Therapy from Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, WI.
She taught undergraduate and graduate courses in art therapy
at Mount Mary College, and has explored the uses of art therapy
in a wide variety of milieus including inpatient and day-treatment
settings, a nursing home, a school, a community art center and
private practice. Deborah is the author of Little Windows
into Art Therapy, published in 2005 and written for beginning
therapists. She has a strong interest in international
art therapy, and has lectured overseas in Northern Ireland, Greece and Portugal.
|
Approach to Teaching
“Trust the art” is Deborah’s most-used phrase when talking with students about art therapy. Her experience with her own artmaking, and years of making art with clients and watching their processes has continuously reaffirmed her belief that art comes from soul.
When she taught a week of summer school in Belfast, a student who was a potter was struggling with the decision to become an art therapist. By the end of the week he had transformed a teapot, giving it a face and arms and feet, and most importantly, a voice. His creation’s voice spoke with passion to him and the rest of the class, about being an art therapist.
Deborah believes that the honesty of the art moves clients, shifts perceptions and summons up messages from deep inside one’s spirit. She talks about a rather skeptical client who “lived in his head” and came to family art therapy reluctantly. He was moved to tears by his own tentative, stick-figure drawing of himself embracing his daughter and wife. He hadn’t been able to verbalize that desire, and so the image arrived and spoke from his soul about what he deeply yearned for.
Students in Deborah’s classes are encouraged, and expected, to learn art therapy from the authentic encounter with their own souls during the artmaking process.
|
|
|
What students have to say about her classes
Deb's wisdom and experience make her an amazing teacher. Her genuine love for art therapy is contagious. Deb's teachings and insight have left me with tools that not only benefit me as an art therapist, but as a person, as well.
- Tricia Saviano, SWC alum
|
“I feel so honored to be able to witness students’
journeys. As they document their explorations, understandings,
and personal transformation, I am filled with wonder at
the good work they will do in the world…I trust
that they will each be the therapeutic presence that can
enable another human soul to share words and images and
move towards healing.”
Quote
from Word Pictures:The Poetry and Art of Art Therapists
by Bruce Moon |
|
|
|
 |
