by Debbie Schroder
I have a song stuck in my head. I think it’s staying stuck because we’ve entered a new year and part of the lyrics are “How am I gonna be an optimist about this?” The song is called “Pompeii”, by Bastille.
This quirky song’s melody sounds pretty upbeat but the lyrics really appeal…
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by Debbie Schroder (2013)
The Wild Heart Gallery in the art therapy building is simply exploding with color! The show, entitled “The Hands That Guide” was hung this week and is a delightful mix of art created by faculty and staff at Southwestern College.
I’m always aware,…
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As an Art Therapist, I know that the art process is an important container. As a supervisor, I like to weave in art making and sand tray work in supervision, to articulate client and agency issues and express the multi-dimensional experience that a new therapist has.
Katelyn did her practicum and internship at a jail,…
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The Mirror and Portal of Art
by Allegra E. Borghese
I have been studying art therapy formally for a little over a year. Really though, it has been much longer. While my initial creative interest was fashion design, it lost its luster when a series of events cast me into a dark…
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by Debbie Schroder
The front door was already open and as I opened the sliding glass door to my patio, a fierce gust of wind blew through my house, lifting an antique plate and a figurine right off of the shelf they were on. They crashed to the floor in jagged pieces as I quickly…
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by Lisa Marie Paradis
Where do you hail from?
You and yours snug tightly
In between the dream
Awaken to five year old father's soul inhabited by butcher's
Chicken floating gently across
the room- enter the
back of the neck- boulders
upon the fleeing road-where
do you hail from?
barbed wire divisions in size-fait-memory-Is the
…
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1998 Grad, Gretchen Wachs, M.A., LPCC
Having worked as a visual artist for most of my life puts me in a unique position as a creative psychotherapist, as I am no stranger to the deep psychological work that goes hand in hand with true creative investigation. This works in reverse as well, and I truly…
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1996 Grad, Susan Boyes
I live and work in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I have a part-time position as an art therapist for traumatic brain injured adults in a rehabilitation center. I also have a thriving private practice, providing art therapy to TBI clients and others in their own homes, or in my office. I…
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1990 Grad, Michele “Ama Wehali” Rozbitsky has developed a domestic violence program for the Eight Northern Pueblos called ‘Peace Keepers’, worked as a crisis counselor, art therapist and in outpatient mental health services at St. Vincent’s Hospital, and in private practice. In the last six years she has become a Shamanic practitioner and has written…
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1985 Graduate, Rick Cotroneo
I started a part-time practice in classical homeopathy. My background in Education made me a candidate to serve as a commissioner on the Accreditation Commission for Homeopathic Education in North America (ACHENA). Just as Southwestern College has grown over the years through the process of accreditation, so now I am working…
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by Debbie Schroder
The idea seems simple, initially. When making a Genogram (kind of a family tree) use an image instead of a square or circle (how Genograms are usually done).
Each week in my Family Art Therapy course, one or two students shared their art-based Genograms. Never doubting our…
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I worked from pictures I took of myself, and then used pastels and ink to explore these feeling states. Working large accentuated these places, so that I could look at them outside of myself.
…
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Shadow Boxes created in my section of Current Trends in Art Therapy, Winter 2013.
After exploring a population that students have a form of resistance to working with (from lack of information to disinterest, to strong opposition) through a research and reflection paper, they were asked to look at how their resistance is a part…
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Painting by Laura Lansrud-Lopez, M.S., M.A., LPCC, LPAT, ATR-BC, ATCS, ACS
Words by Deborah John, Ph.D., ATR-BC, LPAT
I wrote this poem to explain the way that I experience all art forms as deeply connected.
The Arts
connect and move the soul
to places we long to be.
Ultra-blue or grape-dark sky
Drifting…
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by Magdalena Karlick
I delved into this rag rug project at the beginning of the summer, wanting to recycle old, ill-fitting, and stained clothing to make a rug for my son’s new room. I imagined a place where he could sit comfortably while looking at his books or playing with his toy animals.
Here are…
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Materials: Markers, Colored Paper, Scissors, and Glue
These days, most presents for family and friends are family creative efforts; Mama and Judah (2 1/2 years old) taking lead. My folks and my brother are all Scorpios, with their birthdays within two weeks of each other. This year we made a collage with spontaneous scribbles, hand…
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by Deb Schroder
On a beautiful October Saturday, eight of us who teach in the Art Therapy Program gathered to share ideas, concerns and breakfast. I feel like I just want to say out loud that we have amazing, passionate teachers here!
I’m also going to say something else out loud in order to hold…
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Capstone Project: Artist Statement
Suzanne Otter, Fall 2012
Making art as a way to work through complex personal issues was helpful to me during the many years I worked as an organizational development consultant. I continued this “self-art therapy” during my formal study of art therapy and counseling at Southwestern College. The image-making and journaling…
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by Rush Cole
...blackness. Trapped. Overwhelmed. No way out. Tired, so tired. Sudden energy from the surge of self-hatred that roared through me.
“Get it over with, you don’t deserve to live!” The blade against my wrist.
The Voice, coming from a part of me I didn’t know existed. “Put down the…
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An Art-Based Ritual
by Deb Schroder
Artwork created by Magdalena Karlick
A summer ritual in the art therapy program has begun again. We’ve started our annual “Portfolio Review” process which is a part of the transition for first year students who are ready to begin second year in the fall.
Deborah John and I will…
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This is another assignment for my History of Art Therapy: Current Trends class. Students were asked to bring in to class a medium sized box, recycled materials, and an idea about a scene they would like to change: Personal, Professional, or Global. This was inspired by a project done with Veterans at…
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Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM