Joanne Ramseyer, ATR-BC, LCPC

Joanne Ramseyer is a board-certified, registered art therapist and licensed counselor with over 30 years of art therapy experience in community-based settings in the Chicago area. Joanne is the former Director of Art Therapy Services at one of Chicago’s largest outpatient mental health centers where she developed comprehensive, studio-based art therapy services for five sites across the city, serving children, adolescents and adults struggling with serious psychiatric disorders, social isolation and complex trauma histories. Working in this position, Joanne integrated trauma-informed art therapy treatment with relational-cultural, anti-oppressive and depth-oriented frameworks to promote client resilience, social belonging, empowerment and self-advocacy. During that time, Joanne supervised graduate art therapy and counseling interns, created four additional art therapy positions for the agency and collaborated frequently with clients to exhibit their artwork within neighborhood settings and galleries to increase public awareness of mental health issues.

For ten years, Joanne also directed her own private practice art studio where she facilitated creative process and wellness groups for women, supervised art therapists seeking registration and licensure and presented frequent art therapy workshops for the C.G. Jung Center of Evanston. In recent years, Joanne designed and co-facilitated monthly expressive arts groups for Veterans and their families at the Evanston Veterans Center and led weekly creative expression groups for older adults living independently at The Mather of Evanston.

Joanne is currently working as an art therapist at a therapeutic school where she implemented group and individual art therapy services using a choice-based art therapy model for adolescents presenting with internalizing disorders, complex traumatic stress, learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder and LGBTQ identity struggles.

Her teaching experience includes over 30 years as an adjunct instructor in the graduate art therapy programs at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Mount Mary University of Milwaukee, The Art Institute of Chicago, Concordia University Chicago and Northwestern University’s former Art Therapy Certificate Program. Joanne believes deeply in the transformative power of the creative process and guiding symbolic images as a healing practice. Her teaching approach incorporates narrative writing with art making to engage students in self-reflexivity, interpersonal authenticity, professional identity development, cultural humility and social action.

Joanne is passionate about creating her own art as the foundation for knowing art therapy. Her art practice includes mixed-media narrative and expressive painting, book art, collage, fiber arts,
found-object sculptures and collaborative art incorporating text and nature-based materials.