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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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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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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by Debbie Schroder
Program Chair for Art Therapy/Counseling Program
It doesn’t really surprise me that as we approach the eighth week of the quarter, I’m finally able to spend a little time putting together an image that contains mandalas created by incoming art therapy students, during orientation. The quarter has been full – of teaching…
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by Debbie Schroder
On a recent Saturday I needed to be at a task force meeting at 9 a.m. Yes . . .Saturday . . .9 a.m.! Running late, desperate for caffeine, I zipped into a fast-food drive-through. And I was stunned by the beauty of an image I saw there. In an advertisement promoting…
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by Debbie Schroder
The gardens on campus are lush and the temperature is hot – it must be Portfolio Review time!
Every year we ask our art therapy students who are moving into 2nd year, to bring in at least three pieces of art created during first year. By looking at their art and hearing…
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In April, 2014 a call was made: "Archetypally speaking, who is showing up for you lately? What mentors, thieves, medicine folk, or tricksters are asking you to speak their name, embody their abilities, and artfully express the connections you have? Please, answer the call, create the art, embody the voice that wants to be heard…
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by Karen Stefano Ed.M., M.A., L.P.C., NCC
How can you unwind your body and mind, listen to the inner stirrings of your spirit, and supercharge your creativity? It’s easy. Tissue Paper Collage!
Mythologist Joseph Campbell said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” The truth is that our culture is motivated,…
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by Jessica Callaway, LPAT, LPCC, ATR-BC
I didn't know what to expect when I decided to go to Haiti. I realized when I was on the plane that I was partly, or mostly, going for selfish reasons. I was excited to practice art therapy and teach yoga in an environment I had never experienced,…
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I am a big fan of reusing materials into new forms. Broken bits glued together to make guardians; Torn fabric to make new yarn or a rug; Old shoes into a Journey; Or large boxes into castles. After reading, Endangered Threads: Socially Committed Community Art Action, by Janis Timm Bottos (2011), I knew that there…
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I'll start with an ending. One Art Therapy Techniques class in 2014 ended with each member of the group creating an altar of the art that was made during the quarter. We made Mandalas every class, as well as masks, body tracings, finger painting, inner guides and characters, and containers. In that class, I made…
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1996 Grad, Jack Lehman, MA, LPCC, Certified Trainer – Center for Nonviolent Communication.
In Thailand, north of Chiang Mai, I worked individually with workshop participants in front of a group. It was a 2-day Introduction to Nonviolent Communication. I spent much of the winter of ‘10 -’11 in Thailand and gave 3 workshops there and…
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by Debbie Schroder
I can’t seem to stop smiling. I’m smiling because of my morning – I went to the Roundhouse, the New Mexico State Capitol Building, to watch Art Therapy intern Todd Nichols speak in the Rotunda. A number of senators and state officials also spoke, but they didn’t bring art! Todd…
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What is a Container?
There are so many types of containers, a person, place, or thing that holds. Many images come to mind: a milk carton, hands, shoes, a home, a room, a box, a nest, my heart, a chair, a mouth, a closet… Many sensations come to body: warmth, safety, fear, constriction, flee,…
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by Christine Miller
The initial quarter of classes I took at Southwestern College was both exciting and intimidating. It was through one of my first and most memorable classes that I learned the value of intention. Without a concrete intent to work on something, I would get lost in other thoughts and distractions or procrastinate…
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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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by Debbie Schroder
I seem to need to continue the idea of a summer reading list. I don’t understand why, because my summer is always as busy as the rest of the year. The fantasy of a book and lemonade out on the front porch is just that – a fantasy. I don’t even…
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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 Debbie Schroder
As it got close to 6:00 on Monday evening I could feel my eagerness to begin painting. Every Monday evening the in-state art therapy interns and I engaged in amazing relationships with our canvases. We painted for an hour, then shared our work and talked for the rest of…
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by Kat Dison
"Carl Jung realized that archetypes are not based on interactions and experiences between actual human beings, but on simplified characterizations. These simplified characters, or archetypes, perform roles that are essential to our understanding of the world. The magician archetype, for example, does not seek answers from external resources, but instead searches…
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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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Southwestern College Santa Fe, NM