Today’s Guest: Dr. Eric Maisel is the author of more than 50 books as well as the "Rethinking Mental Health" blog for Psychology Today. He trains creativity coaches and works with clients worldwide. Dr. Maisel’s most recent books include “Redesign Your Mind” (Mango, 2021), “Transformational Journaling for Coaches, Therapists and Clients” (Routledge, 2021), and “Unleashing the Artist Within” (Dover, 2019).

SHOW TOPICS

• The rift between personal creativity and business creativity
• The rebellious nature of creatives and the importance of dedicating a portion of our creative energy to the greater good
• The challenges artists face when building and maintaining community with one another

​Season 5, Episode 9

Today’s Guest: Anna Hindell is a Certified Gestalt therapist and Iyengar Yoga teacher with a thriving private practice in New York City. Anna helps teenagers, adults, and couples with issues including depression, anxiety, life changes, eating disorders, addiction, trauma, and parenting. She is a graduate of the Gestalt Associates, and the Center for Somatic Studies, and she is also a Certified Iyengar yoga teacher. Before starting her private practice, Anna worked in public and private schools as a high school social worker and also as a psychiatric social worker at Metropolitan Hospital. Anna has 20 years of experience working in the field of mental health as well as teaching yoga, and her focus as a Gestalt Therapist is on integrating the body into her work with clients.
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SHOW TOPICS

• Exploring the background and principles of Gestalt therapy
• Moving through challenges and finding freedom through a combination of Gestalt therapy and yoga principles
• The creativity and freshness behind the concept of making a new therapy for each client
• What does self-care look like for therapists?

Season 5, Episode 8

Today’s Guest: Kristen Rashid (she/her) is a Registered, Board-Certified art therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor, holding a Masters Degree in Creative Arts Therapy from Drexel University. Kristen is the founder of Artful Explorations Therapy, an art therapy and counseling center for kids, teens, families, and adults, located in Philadelphia, PA. Kristen has a background in graphic design and book arts, and apart from her art therapy work, her main creative outlet for the past few years has been writing picture books. She’s a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and is the blogmaster for the Eastern Pennsylvania chapter. She’s also the recipient of a 12x12 Picture Book Challenge Scholarship for 2023. Before picture books, Kristen focused her creative energies on songwriting, and before that on visual art. Creative expression is always an integral part of her life.

SHOW TOPICS

• What does art therapy with children look like?
• Finding comfort in new artistic modalities that have less pressure than the ones we use for work
• The release of simply experiencing art, even if that means sitting down to watch a movie
• The challenges that professional or experienced artists may face in art therapy

Season 5, Episode 7
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Today’s Guest: Bridget Steed is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Person-Centered Expressive Arts Therapist, and multimodal artist currently living on the Yucatán Peninsula in Southern Mexico. She works as a teletherapist for a nonprofit agency where she sees kids and adolescents, combining talk therapy, visual art, music, movement, drama, and writing, while also growing her private practice, Precious Cargo Expressive Arts Therapy, and maintaining an art business. Bridget holds a dual Master's Degree in Art Therapy and Counseling from Southwestern College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and completed her post-graduate studies through late psychologist Dr. Natalie Rogers’ Person-Centered Expressive Arts Institute in Sonoma, California. She is passionate about using "art as healing" and believes everyone has within them a deep well of untapped inner resources in the form of creative expression just waiting to be uncovered. 

SHOW TOPICS

• Helping clients identify and see that special thing within themselves
• Is everyone creative? And who gets to decide?
• Breaking down the multimodal approach of expressive arts therapy
• The tenets of person-centered therapy that allow clients to feel empowered

Season 5, Episode 6

Today’s Guest: Sara Montague Miller is a Licensed Professional Counselor in solo private practice on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She specializes in working with members of the LGBTQ+ community and clients struggling with spiritual or existential concerns. She provides clinical supervision for those seeking counseling licensure in Mississippi as well as business consultation for therapists starting solo practices. She also owns Uninvented Colors Photography, capturing lifestyle portraits locally and decorating walls all over the world with bold and colorful art prints. 

​SHOW TOPICS

• The many similarities between therapy and photography
• Logotherapy and asking the big existential questions
• The creativity and cognitive flexibility needed to challenge dominant worldviews around topics such as gender and religion

Season 5, Episode 5

Today’s Guest: Annabelle Coote, MA, LMHC, BC-DMT,  is a licensed mental health therapist, certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapist, and board-certified dance/movement therapist based in Massachusetts. She has more than 25 years’ experience using somatic, creative, and experiential approaches. At Mind Body Matters, Annabelle offers consultation and training for therapists who want to develop their clinical work using mind, body, and creativity. In her private practice, Movement Matters Integrative Psychotherapy, she specializes in anxiety, trauma, women’s issues, life transitions, and cultivating creativity. Annabelle has authored book chapters on depression and trauma using embodied and creative approaches in therapy and telehealth and has presented at numerous conferences. Annabelle is known for her deep compassion, humor, quirky metaphors, spontaneous creativity, ability to simplify complex concepts, and the conviction that profound transformation happens in tiny steps.

​SHOW TOPICS

• Aspiring for a sense of being grounded amidst the messiness of life and therapy
• ​How imposter syndrome and the pressure to know everything can derail our work and creativity
• Taking risks in the therapy room to help clients become unstuck and turn off their “autopilot” responses
• ​Practicing the entire spectrum of nonviolence as a therapist and eliminating negative or adversarial vocabulary from the therapeutic lexicon

Season 5, Episode 4

Today’s Guest: Katie Curran, MA, LMHCA, is a licensed mental health counseling associate located in Spokane, WA. She specializes in working with young adults, artists, grief, witchy folks, and identity/purpose struggles. She utilizes art, ritual, normalization, and alternative approaches to meet individuals where they’re at, recognizing that counseling is definitely not “one size fits all.”

SHOW TOPICS

• Identifying the “language” we speak and using that language through therapy to be our most authentic selves
• Fostering empathy for and humanizing people who are incarcerated and those facing addiction
• The effect of grief on blocking the creative process, and how our art and soul co-conspire to help us face things directly
• Seeing art-making as a somatic methodology for moving trauma through the body

Season 5, Episode 3

Today’s Guest: Sandy Cohen, NBC-HWC, is a national board-certified health & wellness coach and a writer and podcaster who studies the science of well-being. Her work with The Associated Press has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and hundreds of other newspapers and websites around the world. She is now working toward a Master's degree in Public Health at the University of Alabama. Sandy earned a certificate in health & wellness coaching from the University of Wisconsin and became a national board-certified coach in December 2020. She launched her own podcast, "Inner Peace to Go," in January 2022.

SHOW TOPICS

• Questioning realness and authenticity when working in the world of celebrity journalism
  
• Transitioning from reporting on Hollywood to focusing on health and wellness after facing mental and physical health challenges
  
• The power of journalism to make people feel seen and put complicated topics into accessible formats and terminology
  
• Simple steps we can take to improve our health and wellness
  

Season 5, Episode 2
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Today’s Guest: Julia Vering, LSCSW, LCSW, REAT, is a performance artist and musician, licensed clinical social worker, and Registered Expressive Arts Therapist based in Kansas City. She has integrated the arts into social work for 20 years, centering her practice in joy, humor, imagination, and the strengths perspective. She has received grants from The Charlotte Street Foundation and Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts for her community-based performance work involving collaborations with older adults and people with neurocognitive disorders. She also tours and releases albums as “Unicorns in the Snow,” a performance art project that integrates interactive projections, stop-motion animation, and original music. 
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Vering has worked in hospice and long-term care settings for the past 17 years. She opened her private practice, Expressive Arts Therapy KC, in 2022. She became the first Registered Expressive Arts Therapist in the state of Kansas in 2023 and serves as the Kansas State coordinator for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association. Vering integrates expressive arts, psychodrama and EMDR into her practice, and is currently creating a workbook and film on performance art interventions for people with neurocognitive disorders. 
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SHOW TOPICS

• Finding liberation and community through "weird" and "quirky" art forms
• The symbiotic relationship between art and therapy
• Facilitating healing and rehumanizing activities for patients and families in long-term care facilities through silliness and fun

Season 5, Episode 1
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Today’s Guest: Elizabeth Davis, MFA, MS, ATR-BC, LCAT, is a board-certified, state-licensed art therapist and an EMDR consultant and trainer through EMDRIA. She has more than 25 years of experience working in the field of trauma. Her approach integrates art therapy, EMDR therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, and play therapy. She has conducted dozens of workshops, including for the EMDR International Association and the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. She is an author and editor of Creative Arts Therapies and EMDR (2022). She currently serves as a director at the Trauma Institute and Child Trauma Institute.
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SHOW TOPICS

• What are parts of a person and how do they manifest?
• The necessary parts of themselves that artists form in order to better create and commune with their art form
• How to foster harmony between parts through love, compassion, and respect
• Switching between the therapist and artist parts of ourselves