Summary: Today’s school counselors, and other service providers for children, are being asked to do more and more with less and less. Even when the counseling load doesn’t increase, the intensity of just one child’s needs can be overwhelming. In this extended workshop, we will explore how to clear the space around ourselves and how to hold that space, despite forces around us descending into chaos and despair.
Objectives:
- Participants will engage in art tasks designed to “unload” the toxic stressors that invade their work with children.
- Participants will be introduced to the most powerful intervention available to them in their work.
- Participants will engage in a visualization task designed to discover what nourishes their identity as a counselor/caregiver.
- Participants will engage in art tasks designed to affirm and protect their efforts at self-care.
Vicki Williams-Patterson is a Board Certified Art Therapist and a Licensed Professional Counselor. She has worked as an art therapist since 1983. Her graduate education at Hahnemann University was strongly rooted in developmental psychology and psychodynamic theory, and she has continued with that orientation. Since 1990, she has been conducting seminars on the therapeutic uses of art in the counseling process at local, regional and national conferences. Since receiving her graduate degree in Art Therapy, she has engaged in advanced professional training in the areas of trauma recovery, Jungian psychology, and Sand Tray Process. In November 2009 she received the American Art Therapy Association’s Annual Award for Clinical Services. She is the past President of the Texas Mental Health Counselors Association, a division of the Texas Counseling Association.