Art Therapy
Garfield Conservatory, 2017
What is Art Therapy?
Art Therapy is an integrative mental health and human service that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship. Art Therapy can occur as Group Therapy or Individual sessions.
Art Therapy, facilitated by a professional art therapist, effectively supports personal and relational treatment goals as well as community concerns. Art Therapy is used to improve cognitive and sensory-motor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, and enhance social skills, reduce and resolve conflicts and distress.
Art therapists are master-level clinicians who work with people of all ages across a broad spectrum of practice. Guided by ethical standards and scope of practice, their education and supervised training prepares them for culturally proficient work with diverse populations in a variety of settings. Honoring individuals’ values and beliefs, art therapists work with people who are challenged with medical and mental health problems, as well as individuals seeking emotional, creative, and spiritual growth.
Through integrative methods, art therapy engages the mind, body, and spirit in ways that are distinct from verbal articulation alone. Kinesthetic, sensory, perceptual, and symbolic opportunities invite alternative modes of receptive and expressive communication, which can circumvent the limitations of language. Visual and symbolic expression gives voice to experience, and empowers individual, communal, and societal transformation.
~ Adapted from American Art Therapy Association, 2017
About the Therapist
In her practice, Peta interweaves the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy with Expressive Therapy. Using a wide variety of art media, clients are able to explore emotions, clarify goals and express themselves in a way that words cannot capture. Peta’s practice is based on a relational foundation, offering her clients the opportunity to identify and work through emotional barriers within the connection between client and therapist. Because each client is unique, treatment is highly individualized. Clients are offered the safety and space to create their own goals for treatment, and together with Peta, co-create a treatment plan to achieve them.
Ceramic, 2017
Sharpie, found objects, 2015
Bio
Peta is a textile artist and holds Masters of Art Therapy and Counseling [MAATC] from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Through internships at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital, Metropolitan Preparatory School and adult substance out patient programs, she gain experience with a wide variety populations where she provided individual and group Art Therapy. Peta is trained in Contextual DBT and works from a Trauma-Senstive outlook.m Her clinical interests include working with adolescent and emerging adult clients through the creative process, substance use, eating disorders, and perinatal mental health.