Background

Therapy, Education, Arts

The three foci of therapy, education and the arts have been important for me throughout my life. I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor, Certified Expressive Arts Therapist, and BC Registered Play Therapist. I hold a Masters Degree in Expressive Arts Therapy and Psychology from the European Graduate School and a Graduate Certificate in Play Therapy from Concordia University in Montréal. In addition to extensive training in Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy, I have engaged in workshops and intensive weekend training courses in several of the Creative Arts Therapies (Poetry Therapy, Dance/Movement Therapy, Music-Integrated Therapy). My training in Play Therapy has its biggest influence in the following approaches: Child-Centered Play Therapy, Child-Parent Relational Therapy, Expressive Play Therapy, Sand Play Therapy, and AutPlay Therapy with additional interest, readings and workshops in Jungian, Gestalt, and Synergetic Play Therapy. In addition, I have done training with the Neufeld Institute on an attachment-based developmental approach to understanding children.

I am a certified teacher and have been working for Le Conseil Scolaire Francophone (CSF, The French School Authority of BC, S.D.#93) since 2004, where I am currently a School Counsellor at L’École Océane. My professional memberships include the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors, the BC School Counsellors Association, the BC Play Therapy Association, and the Ontario Expressive Arts Therapy Association. I am an International Certified Child-Parent Relationship Therapist - Level 1 Associate/Parent Educator.

My formal artistic training is mainly in dance, with explorations in many other modalities including voice work, theatre, clowning, creative writing, and visual arts whenever life provides the opportunity. When I practice art, even if it is only finger painting with my children, or singing while washing dishes, I feel an energy shift, and I know that I am positively affecting my health and well-being. Many times, I have arrived to do a dance performance or gone out to a social dance exhausted by the multitude of tasks and responsibilities that we all have in a modern, high-speed society, and by the end of the event, I feel transported to a more positive frame of mind, and a more energized and alive state of being in my body.  I am convinced that it is essential for us all to nourish the body-mind-spirit connection in a society that is more and more ruled by digital life and lack of physical engagement in the aesthetic and natural world. 

As a young adult I participated in a Canada World Youth/Jeunesse Canada Monde exchange between Tunisia and Canada. Working as a volunteer in a medical centre, living in a Tunisian family, participating in local holidays, learning the language, seeing the Gulf War develop through the lens of Arabic state television and living in a less consumer-oriented culture - everything about it had a profound impact on my worldview, my values, and the way I communicate with people.

I am a lover of languages. I feel that each of the art forms is a language, with a specific vocabulary and way of transmitting messages to other people.  I have enjoyed learning the basics of many artistic “languages”, as well as world languages such as French, German, Dutch, and Arabic because I love how it allows me to communicate with a wider range of people and in different ways. My immersion into any new language has been a rich and exciting learning experience.  This has made me very sympathetic to anyone learning something for the first time, be it English, painting, or dance. 

Gardening is an activity that I find inherently therapeutic, and it has been of service to me in times when I feel like things are getting too much, and I need to get grounded by getting my hands in the dirt.  I like to explore with my clients what their own naturally therapeutic activity might look like.  I am a mother of two teens, which gives me a personal understanding of the great challenges and great joys of parenting. In the past, I have used Expressive Arts Therapy with children in psycho-education groups at Family Services, and over the last two years I have applied intermodal Expressive Arts to work with elders living with dementia. I currently have a private counselling, Expressive Art Therapy and Play Therapy-based practice in Nanaimo, BC. In addition, I work as a school counsellor.

Master’s Thesis

My thesis is a coming-together of Community Arts and Expressive Arts Therapy, entitled “Public Participatory Festivals and Lantern Workshops: Community Arts and Expressive Arts Therapy”

Thesis Abstract 

“What effect does participating in interactive community art have on individuals?” 

In this thesis I explore what happens when people participate in public, interactive arts events, seen through the lens of expressive arts therapy.  Key components of community arts are examined, mirrored by the corresponding concepts of expressive arts.  Using heuristic, phenomenological, arts-based and community-based methods, I document and explore work that moves from a personal immersion in a community arts event, to a series of lantern-making workshops and processions with groups of people living with mental illness, unemployment, and refugee experiences, and finally to interviews with community arts organizers, artists and participants.  Results indicate that participation in community arts activities can increase connection to others, expand range of play, provide an experience of magic and alternative world, and create an energy shift in participants, thus paralleling the therapeutic effects of an expressive arts experience.

Résumé en français

«Quels sont les effets sur les individus qui participent à des événements en animation socio-culturelles?»

Le but de cette recherche est d’examiner l’expérience des personnes qui s’impliquent dans des événements publics de nature interactive et artistique avec une perspective de thérapie par les arts expressifs.  J’explore des concepts clés de l’animation socio-culturelle ainsi que ceux des arts expressifs semblables.  Quatre méthodes de recherche ont été utilisées pour documenter et explorer le travail pratique de cette étude.  Ces dernières sont les méthodes heuristique et phénoménologique ainsi que la recherche par les arts et la recherche communautaire.  Le travail pratique est divisé en trois volets: la première partie est ma propre immersion à un festival public, la deuxième partie est composée d’ateliers et de processions de lampions avec des groupes d’individus en prise avec des maladies mentales, avec le chômage ainsi que les expériences vécues par les réfugiés.  La troisième partie résume les entrevues avec des animateurs, des artistes et des participants aux événements d’animation socio-culturelles.  Les résultats de la recherche indiquent que la participation pourrait créer des liens entre des gens, élargir leur champ de possibilités, offrir la chance de vivre une expérience magique, sortir de leur réalité quotidienne et transformer l’énergie des participants.  Les activités en animation socio-culturelles offrent ainsi des effets thérapeutiques parallèles à ceux des arts expressifs. 

Note: La traduction française de ce résumé est écrite en l’honneur de mon pays bilingue et de mes participants de recherche francophones.