Second-year student, Sylvan Schneider, offers his reflection on navigating his own therapeutic approach and being a student therapist at the Southwestern Counseling Center. …
Continue reading
Santa Fe is awesome as a grad school destination and city. Check out a few of the honors awarded to "The City Different" below (read the entire "Best of Santa Fe" Chamber of Commerce post here detailing many more awards):
Santa Fe was ranked #2 City for Art Vibrancy by the National Center for Arts Research and…
Continue reading
I never thought that the coursework in a master’s degree in counseling would help me to survive a night of being stuck in Utah’s rugged, remote, and desolate Horseshoe Canyon. Nor would I have ever guessed that an education in counseling would help me transform my consciousness in a survival situation to be able to…
Continue reading
When we view others with hostility, we're more likely to try to get our needs met at their expense. Transforming our hostility into compassion can shift our approach to conflict, allowing us to respond in ways that are more beneficial for everyone involved. (By hostility, I mean those strategies, impulses and habits that tend to…
Continue reading
Santa Fe has over 300 restaurants to choose from, and chances are whatever your tummy craves, or whatever diet you are on while studying here, Santa Fe has something special for you to eat! I can’t go over every restaurant or type of food offered in town, but I can give you the list of…
Continue reading
In the the M.A. Art Therapy/Counseling program I find myself reading and/or studying quite a bit. Spending hours on end at home can be wearing. A simple change of location is enough to keep me energized and in the frame of mind to do my best work.
My top five places to study in Santa…
Continue reading
By descending down into the depths of the soul, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening other souls.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Art therapy is a mental health profession in which clients, facilitated by the art therapist, use art media, the creative process,…
Continue reading
by Deb Schroder
If car designers only knew what art therapists truly need (not that we’re a big enough group to be listened to by the auto industry). We turn our mediocre, ordinary car trunks into Mobile Metaphor Containment Units – we drive around with art pieces stashed in the only container that exists in…
Continue reading
I read lots of books. I used to do a lot of underlining and note taking in those books—then I would file the books away on my bookshelf as a storehouse of knowledge.
Eventually, I started to notice something: I never went back to any of those books to look at my notes and underlines.…
Continue reading
Once a heroic Jedi Knight, Darth Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force, became a Sith Lord, and led the Empire’s eradication of the Jedi Order. He remained in service of the Emperor—the evil Darth Sidious—for decades, enforcing his Master’s will and seeking to crush the fledgling Rebel Alliance. But there…
Continue reading
“Interesting how you are only using a black sharpie marker in your art today,” says my art therapist, as she gently points out my visible tension with perfectionistic, black and white thinking….…
Continue reading
“How Can I Help?”, a book by Ram Dass and Paul Gorman, asks a critical question of potential Art Therapists/Counselors, others in the professions such as medicine, psychology, social work, the ministry, education, and humans in general. We read this book, which explores the topics of altruism and self care in the helping professions, in…
Continue reading
In a difficult conversation, when I'm considering saying something controversial, I find that it really helps to preface it with three magic words: "My story is..." This allows me to express my perspective while simultaneously owning it. Owning my perspective creates space for the other person to have their own perspective (which may be different…
Continue reading
Come Undone by Laura Schoff
I feel with such a passion that art has the capacity to heal in many different ways. It has been my support, my processing, my guide, my inner world displayed. Without this art, I may have not have completed my first classes at Southwestern. A year and a half(ish) ago,…
Continue reading
When I'm finishing up a session of meditation, I sometimes set an intention to continue doing nothing throughout my day. That doesn't mean I won't move from my meditation cushion—it means I'll take a wait-and-see approach to my day. It means acknowledging I'm not in control—and letting go. I simply wait and watch what my…
Continue reading
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that I am a film geek and child of the 80's. Bear with me.
That moment comes when you've been in grad school so long that you don't see how the training you are receiving has anything to do with working with clients. Perhaps that is…
Continue reading
The technology of the internet... what does it mean? Does the internet teach social skills? Does it matter? Can we make connections via the internet and are they real? What about personal narrative? How does digital media affect us?
In this video interview Dr. Natalie Carlton discusses the topic of digital media as narrative, people's…
Continue reading
From 2002 through 2010, I went on storm chasing trips to the Great Plains around Texas almost every spring. Toward the end of these years, I started getting more insight into the psychological roots of my fascination with storms, and I stopped doing as much storm chasing. I wrote the following piece in the spring…
Continue reading
Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Oh, yes, yes I do… like big books, art therapy and counseling tomes (including books about expressive arts therapies and indigenous and ancient healing traditions) and I cannot lie. One of the best…
Continue reading
Often, when I'm experiencing uncomfortable feelings and moods, I'm barely conscious of them. It's not that these feelings are subtle and hard to detect—at times they can be pretty intense and still be mostly unconscious. It is as if I am the feeling (as opposed to being aware of it). I make a practice of…
Continue reading
Sometimes I'll get compliments like, "You're so organized!" At these times, I'll often respond by saying, "Thanks! That's true, I am—except when I'm not!" That's because I try not to think of myself as being any particular thing—responsible, irresponsible, loving, hateful, or whatever.
In my experience, when I get invested in a particular idea about…
Continue reading
When I got accepted at Southwestern College (in Santa Fe), I had been living in Albuquerque for about a decade. My wife and I felt quite comfortable in Albuquerque, and we were not inclined to move to Santa Fe. It was clear that I would be commuting; the question was, how?
The Rail Runner train…
Continue reading
2nd Year SWC student Caitlin Harper explores her perspective on the use of humor in counseling. …
Continue reading
Influenced by archetypes and art therapy, Sprout explores the interplay between the unconscious and conscious parts of the psyche. …
Continue reading
This is a remarkable and brief video capturing Natascha's experience at the College...
…
Continue reading
In the early 90’s I began studying with shamanic practitioners. At first, I worked with well-known shamanic teachers Michael Harner, Ph.D. and Sandra Ingerman, M.A., as well as other excellent teachers associated with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. These early classes were a breath of fresh air for me, a way of balancing out my…
Continue reading
WOUNDED HEALER AS MAMA by Ivy Whisper
I was eight months pregnant with my first son when Gloria called me and said that she needed to talk to me about my friend Rose. She said that Rose had died the day before and that she’d been struggling with postpartum depression.
We had both…
Continue reading
I don’t think that anyone explores the shades of grey better than art therapists. Okay, not the 50 Shades within the popular book and movie, but the uncomfortable place between black and white thoughts and beliefs. I’m embarrassed to admit that I gave up on reading the 50 Shades book because I was so annoyed…
Continue reading
Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM