Posted April 14th, 2020 by Southwestern College & filed under Reflections from the President, Featured.
A Message of Reassurance
Dear Students,
Today I was deeply moved to read the responses to the student survey distributed by our Student Success Team under the leadership of Emilah DeToro, Director of Student & Career Services. I was touched by a student who wrote that they would like a “message of reassurance from…
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Posted April 5th, 2020 by Southwestern College & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, People of SWC, Featured.
By Deborah Schroder
An individual Zoom meeting with a student inspired me to think about this, and I so appreciate that. The student was wondering how faculty members were working to keep the heart of Southwestern present as we implement these new ways of teaching and “seeing” clients.
Prior to my first class this quarter,…
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Posted April 1st, 2020 by Donna Harrington & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, People of SWC, Wild Heart Gallery, Creativity & More, Top News, Featured.
An apt title for the potential personal experience this global pandemic has encouraged. Two days after it was announced that gatherings of 50 or more people needed to be postponed, and that public schools in New Mexico would be closed until April 6th (now that has been extended through the end of the school year),…
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Posted March 26th, 2020 by Southwestern College & filed under Professional Training Certificates & NEI, Student & Alumni Stories, Featured.
Photograph by Whitney Tressel at whitneytressel.com.
Welcome to another episode of Southwestern Soundbites– quick audio clips featuring current students, staff, and faculty discussing SWC’s various programs and happenings. In this episode, Courtney Shackelford speaks with current Art Therapy and Counseling student, Ben Miller, on his journey to Southwestern, his art, and his experience in Southwestern's…
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Posted January 29th, 2020 by Southwestern College & filed under People of SWC, Featured.
By Kate Latimer
The work of a counselor is inherently ironic, and often misunderstood. We are shepherds of grief, sadness, doubt, fear and anger, and know that when we can help our clients feel these things, and look the pain in the eye, healing occurs. This is the transformational paradox. We often feel worse before…
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Posted January 29th, 2020 by Southwestern College & filed under Student & Alumni Stories, People of SWC, Consciousness & Mindfulness, Featured.
By Laura Addiss, current counseling student at Southwestern College, and Juan Rivas Palacios, medicine guide and wisdom keeper of Chavin
Laura:
As future counselors it is essential that we go into our own shadows, to observe and
understand our emotions, thoughts, and fears. We must find the courage to look at our
unresolved trauma and…
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Posted January 28th, 2020 by Southwestern College & filed under Professional Training Certificates & NEI, Student & Alumni Stories, Featured.
By Courtney Shackelford
As someone who works full time and attends grad school I have enough on my plate. So why would I add any additional certificates to that workload? I have three reasons:
The information is critical to my future clients.
In grad school, you will develop a strong foundation for practicing…
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Posted January 21st, 2020 by Southwestern College & filed under Professional Training Certificates & NEI, Featured.
By Courtney Shackelford
What is it like to die? Perhaps it is a question that everyone besides myself has considered, but, as I was in the class "Dying to Know”, I found myself wondering about the topic. In the past I have wondered what it would be like to be dead, but never had I…
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Posted January 21st, 2020 by Southwestern College & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, Professional Training Certificates & NEI, Featured.
Welcome to another episode of Southwestern Soundbites– quick audio clips featuring current students, staff, and faculty discussing SWC’s various certificate programs. In this episode, Courtney Shackelford (Admissions Associate and current student) talks to her friend and peer, Amanda LaMendola. Amanda is both a student in the Art Therapy/Counseling program and the Addictions, Abuse, and Recovery…
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Posted December 20th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, Counseling at SWC, Professional Training Certificates & NEI, Student & Alumni Stories, Top News, Featured.
Photo by Alissa Petrosoniak
Welcome to Southwestern Soundbites-- quick audio clips featuring current students, staff, and faculty discussing SWC's various certificate programs. This episode features Courtney Shackelford, current student in the Art Therapy and Counseling program and also admissions staff, and Dru Phoenix, alum of the Art Therapy and Counseling program and Director of Enrollment…
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Posted December 9th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Reflections from the President, Ecotherapy, Featured.
Written on November 22, 2019
Let no one say that I lived in the ponderosa pine forest and failed to notice.
Today I went out and stood beneath thick pillows of wet snow and let the cold mist cover my face. I gazed into the jeweled kingdom of old stately pines and took dozens…
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Posted December 3rd, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, Professional Training Certificates & NEI, People of SWC, Consciousness & Mindfulness, Top News, SWC Blog.
A couple of weekends ago, Ginna Clark (Director of the NEI certificate program in Human Sexuality) and I, co-taught a weekend course entitled "Touch and Embodiment." Discussions included the history of sex therapy in the United States, what interrupts, coopts and/or numbs personal and interpersonal pleasure, and how to practice embodiment.
Through…
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Posted November 21st, 2019 by Dru Phoenix & filed under People of SWC, Consciousness & Mindfulness, Top News, Featured.
Sometimes when “life” happens it feels like you are running to catch up! That was the case when I studied Consciousness here at Southwestern College. When selecting a topic to study in the consciousness class I chose “veganism.” At the time, I was not vegan, but I decided to try and eat vegan during that…
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Posted November 14th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Professional Training Certificates & NEI, People of SWC, Top News, Featured.
Inessa Mil'berg, SWC Alum sent us this blurb about Sandplay
Therapists interested in providing a non-verbal, depth approach to therapy might consider learning sandplay. Sandplay, as developed by Dora Kalff, is a nonverbal therapeutic process based on the psychology of C.G. Jung. The path to individuation as understood in Jungian psychology becomes visible in the…
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Posted November 8th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, People of SWC, Top News, Featured.
Debbie, you have been in the art therapy field for a significant time, can you tell us more about the trajectory of your career?
Hindsight is amazing, but looking back I believe that each art therapy position helped me secure the next position. Sometimes I would take a
leap of faith and try…
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Posted November 1st, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, Student & Alumni Stories, Featured.
"Week Five" marks the halfway point of my first quarter within my first year as a first-time graduate student. Both unbounded excitement and complete overwhelm compete inside me for my attention each day. While it feels like there is not much time to reflect blog-style at this peak point in Fall, it is important…
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Posted November 1st, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Reflections from the President, Ecotherapy, Consciousness & Mindfulness, Featured.
I define the patriarchal wound as ancestral suffering and intergenerational trauma caused by the power imbalance between genders. Under patriarchy, boys, men and the masculine are considered inherently superior while girls, women and the feminine are considered inherently inferior. The extreme social positionality of superior vs. inferior causes distance between the genders and distorts…
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Posted October 9th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Student & Alumni Stories, Where do SWC Grads Work, Wild Heart Gallery, Creativity & More, Top News.
By Deborah Schroder
Sometimes I think of art therapy as a wild, colorful plant, and I most often think in “plant words”, not “garden words” – which to me speaks of art therapy’s ability to grow and thrive in surprising, unexpected places. Although many have planted, nurtured and tended to it (garden words) over the…
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Posted September 23rd, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, People of SWC, Featured.
By Deborah Schroder
Do you remember the childhood story of the Little Red Hen? She went around the farmyard asking other animals to help her plant the seeds, nurture the wheat, harvest the grain and bake the bread. And no one would help her. So she did it all herself.
I think that I must…
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Posted September 18th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Student & Alumni Stories, People of SWC, Top News.
By Courtney Shackelford
This time last year I was new.
The sun was brighter than anything I had experienced on the other side of the country and the landscape was unlike anything I had ever seen.
I was in New Mexico.
I had moved from across the country, like many of my peers, to this…
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Posted September 3rd, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, Student & Alumni Stories, Top News.
By Deborah Schroder
I continue to be just stunned by the continuing wall of beauty that contains the Capstone murals. The weekend course, or Part One of Capstone, when the mural painting happens, is how we encourage students who are finishing up Practicum, to explore what they know and have experienced about group work, and…
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Posted August 27th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Reflections from the President, Consciousness & Mindfulness, Featured.
The initial impulse to create a unique higher learning institution devoted to consciousness began in 1976 in Alamogordo, NM. Then in the fall of 1979 the first 12 students began their course of study.
In the first entering class was Katherine Ninos, M.A., LPCC, who now teaches and mentors other teachers in the Consciousness curriculum.…
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Posted August 7th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Counseling at SWC, Where do SWC Grads Work, Featured.
by Kate Latimer, LPCC
Before investing in the 2-3 years of academic coursework needed to complete a graduate degree, students need to know what their job prospects will be upon completion. After the devastating effects of the 2008 financial crisis that left many degree-holders unemployed, colleges have seen a national trend of lower enrollment in…
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Posted August 5th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Student & Alumni Stories, People of SWC, Featured.
By Courtney Shackelford
The campaigner. That is what the ENFP has been called. It is a personality that is driven by story, idealism, and emotional connection. It is my personality and perhaps one of those personality types best suited to therapy work. Extroversion doesn’t mean that you don’t have a capacity for deep listening, though…
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Posted July 19th, 2019 by Donna Harrington & filed under Art Therapy at SWC, Counseling at SWC, Student & Alumni Stories, Featured.
I am a third of the way through my second residency at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee Switzerland. This intermodal education challenges students to learn through our bodies, minds and hearts. Students and teachers from all over the world (Hong Kong, Canada, Costa Rica, Switzerland, Mexico, Germany, Mexico, United…
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Posted July 18th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Top News, SWC Blog.
By Deborah Schroder, MA in Art Therapy/Counseling Program Chair
I’ve always enjoyed sharing Virginia Satir’s way of working, with my students in my family art therapy course. This spring at the International Family Therapy Congress, I was faced with a belief I’ve held about congruency that was clearly formed by my own white privilege.
In…
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Posted July 11th, 2019 by Dru Phoenix & filed under Top News, SWC Blog.
As part of our Wild Heart Gallery art show on “Anger and the Feminine Self” we are offering this somatic art directive to those interested in exploring their own anger further.
Supplies: Paper and Color Markers or Crayons or Paints or Magazines/Photos for Collage
Paper and pen for writing
Population: This can be…
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Posted July 10th, 2019 by Southwestern College & filed under Counseling at SWC, Student & Alumni Stories, People of SWC, Consciousness & Mindfulness, SWC Blog, Featured.
By Kate Latimer, MA, LPCC, Director of New Earth Institute
photo of Seren Morris, Joanna Conte and Kate Latimer at their SWC graduation
SWC for student orientation in the Fall of 2004.
I first heard about Southwestern College in 2002 while living in Morocco and teaching at a small international school located in…
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Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM
