Intro to Creative Arts Therapy

Facilitator:
Maggie Yowell Wilson, JD, MA, LMHC, CMHS, GMHS, RDT-BCT, REAT, Owl’s Well Counseling

Description:
Creative Arts Therapy is an umbrella term for therapies that use intentional applications of the arts and creative processes to ameliorate disability and illness and optimize health and wellness. Treatment outcomes include, improving communication and expression, and increasing physical, emotional, cognitive and/or social functioning.

The creative arts therapies are beneficial for individuals, families, and communities struggling with transition, loss, social stigmatization, isolation, and conflict. It is an effective option for the treatment and prevention of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and addiction, among other conditions. Creative arts therapy can promote positive changes in mood, insight, and empathy, and it can facilitate healthy relationships. Creative arts therapists work in a variety of settings such as hospitals, educational institutions, community mental health facilities, prisons, hospices, and private practices. The Veterans Administration is increasingly using creative arts therapies with active duty military, veterans and their families to address traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress.

This course is an overview of how the creative arts are used as therapeutic tools to supplement verbal counseling with Veterans and Military Families. This course uses didactic and experiential methods to facilitate the understanding of the use of art, dance/movement, music, poetry and drama as therapeutic vehicles, with particular emphasis on drama therapy. Participants compare principles and features of the different creative arts therapy approaches and explore common themes.

Objectives:
•Participants will gain a historical perspective of Creative Arts Therapy
•Participants will gain an understanding of how trauma impacts the brain and why Creativity can be healing.
•Participants will be able to identify and define the various creative arts therapies, including expressive arts therapy, art therapy, dance/movement therapy, music therapy, poetry therapy, and drama therapy, and have an overview of required training for the professions, professional associations and resources.
•Participants will understand the benefits of the various creative arts therapies.
•Participants will be introduced to some Creative Arts applications and resources for Veterans and their families that have been provided locally and more globally.

Facilitator Biography:
Maggie Yowell Wilson is a licensed mental health counselor, Washington approved clinical supervisor, child mental health specialist, geriatric mental health specialist, registered drama therapist/board certified trainer, and registered expressive arts therapist. She has provided counseling to veterans and their families for the past year under the King County Veterans levy. She works with all ages, focusing on building resilience and healing grief, loss and trauma in individual and group sessions.

Please Note: The ZOOM link will be sent out a day prior to the training.