I had a life-changing moment in my early 30s. I'd just moved to a new city, I was lonely, and I was looking for people to hang out with. One Sunday morning, I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of a church I'd recently started attending, an hour after the church service…
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Consider the idea that we co-create the dynamics of our relationships. This implies that when a problem is showing up in a relationship, each person in the relationship has helped create that problem and each person has a role to play in responding to the problem. I find this premise leads to an empowering way…
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I make war with what comes in contact with a person's health or happiness, believing that God made everything good..."
~Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
Grad school is a unique, generally rigorous, and ideally outstanding life experience which will push you to your intellectual, emotional, and physical limits. At the end of year one…
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Why do I rush? Often, it's because I'm trying to finish up something tedious I've been doing (so I can get to do something I actually want to be doing!) I want to get through the boring stuff so I can move on to the good stuff. The problem is, the good stuff never really…
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I can be good at strategizing. I can also be somewhat anxious. Put those two together, and what do you get? A mindset where I'm trying to anticipate and plan for every possible risk in advance. (Believe me, that's no way to live!)
When I notice myself doing this, I try to shift to a…
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Technology, particularly device and computer apps, is a wiz-bang fabulous time saver to help you get your grad school life sorted and into maintenance mode. Plus, the entire campus is wired, which means you have access to your SWC email, and the world wide web, from any device while at school.
Being an über organized…
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When I'm unhappy, it's often because I'm not getting what I want. What to do at a time like this? I might try identifying the needs behind my wants. Identifying my unmet needs can help me have more compassion for myself—but it doesn't shift me out of my self-enclosed, solipsistic state. It's easy to keep…
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I view my meditation practice as a process of surrendering to my "true self." (My true self is the same as your true self.)
Surrendering to my true self is related to the practice of doing nothing. Doing nothing doesn't mean that my mind stops or my body stops; it means that my personality isn't…
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What do you get when you rock a holistic, integrative, soulful curriculum and approach to Art Therapy and Counseling, in an innovative and powerfully transformational dual degree program? You get soul-making at the graduate level, an exponentially mentally, emotionally, energetically, and otherwise, experiential and life-changing experience.
I knew that Southwestern College's M.A. in Art Therapy/Counseling…
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Second-year student, Sylvan Schneider, offers his reflection on navigating his own therapeutic approach and being a student therapist at the Southwestern Counseling Center. …
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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“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….…
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“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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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