The Delaware Valley Art Therapy Association (DVATA) is the local association for art therapists in southeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey. Every year the DVATA sponsors a conference for continuing education of art therapists. This year the conference, which was held on October 10th, featured one of our most distinguished and accomplished alumni, Sandra Sheller‘04/’05, as the keynote speaker.
Sheller addressed the topic of art therapy in the treatment of trauma in her presentation entitled “An Art Therapist Explores the Heart and Soul of Trauma.” Sheller also offered an experiential workshop “Intimate Edge: Use of Therapist’s Art Making to Advance Art Therapy.”
The conference featured art therapists from the Creative Art Therapy and Counseling faculty as well as the PhD Program for Creative Arts Therapies. Michelle Rattigan (MA), assistant clinical professor in Creative Arts Therapies Department presented her work on “Self-Compassion & the Creative Clinician.”
Girija Kaimal (PhD), assistant professor in Creative Arts Therapies Department presented her research on “Health Outcomes from Visual Self Expression” and Nancy Gerber (PhD), director of the PhD Program In Creative Arts Therapies, was ably accompanied in their joint work on “Artistic Inquiry: A Pedagogy to Study Intersubjectivity within the Creative Arts Therapies.”
Kaimal’s research for which she received the American Art Therapy Association Research Award was recently featured in DrexelNow. Scotti published recently an article she co-authored with Angela Libby Aicher on the topic of the DVATA conference. It was entitled “Veiling & Unveiling: An art exploration of self-other process” in the Qualitative Inquiry Journal. Gioia Chilton PhD ’14, an alumna the first graduate of our doctorate programme, Gerber & Scotti, co-authored another related article. This article was entitled “Towards a aesthetic intersubjective paradigm for arts-based research: An art therapy perspective.”
Art therapy alumni were also well represented. Sandra Sheller was joined by Mindy Jacobson Levy ’78, Michelle Dean ’96, and Laurel Greberman ’91 who all contributed to the presentations!