Under the tutelage of Megan Resig, our resident expert, the CATA Steering Committee met Sunday to get ‘educated’ about blogging, website update, social media and generally  in using the internet to promote the Creative Arts Therapies. Thank you Megan for offering us this training and sharing your amazing skills! We are hoping that by  empowering more of us on the Steering Committee with these skills,  we will be better able to maintain communication, share valuable links and offer a forum for others to promote their work.

The Steering Committee is dedicated to improving communication among CAT’s and the public.  There’s lot of work ahead but worth the effort.

We need to get the word out — Creative Arts Therapies ARE unique, valuable, valid!  Please check-out the links on our website.  There’s lots of information and more to come soon.

There is an opening for an art therapist position at Lifeworks NW. The position is for Adult Outpatient Therapy

Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare in Portland has an opening for a program supervisor, preferably an art therapist or licensed clinician with strong background in group services.  Visit http://www.cascadiabhc.org/careers/ and enter job number 826 for complete information.

For the last four years CATA has been focused on facilitating connections between the various creative arts therapy modalities, offering opportunities for learning, mutual support and validation.  It has also been considering the feasibility of pursuing CAT licensure in the state.  We recognize the rich and historical relationship between the arts and therapy and have opened the group to anyone interested in exploring this relationship. However, we have spent much time and energy identifying the unique contribution of Creative Arts Therapists as different from artists doing therapeutic work or therapists incorporating arts into their practice.   Each of the CAT disciplines has their own professional standards with a relevant credentialing process.  These standards have been developed to assure that Creative Arts Therapists will have the education, training and supervision needed to do therapy within their own scope of practice.

Many CATs, myself included, have wondered about the necessity of pursuing Board Certification (or Registration) considering the expense (since most of us need to pay for outside supervision) and the difficulty accumulating clinical hours. (I decided to pursue DMT credentialing because I wanted to offer  DMT supervision and do private practice.)

Many new CATS are now graduating from dual-degree programs and eligible for counseling licensure, a credential more generally recognized by states and employers.  So why bother to do the extra work needed to gain CAT credentialing?

My recent experience has given me confidence that our credentials and contributions are indeed valuable and recognized as unique and valid.  Recently the large hospital system where I have worked for 15 years decided to radically change their “model of care” leading to the temporary lay-off of 41 non-nursing staff in the child/adolescent and adult behavioral health units.  Therapists, OT’s, teachers all sacked, essentially.  We were told that jobs would be available, no one would lose benefits, but the nature of the jobs, schedules, FTE’s could not be assured.  Most were eventually offered mental health assistant positions with the proviso that they needed to take C.N.A. courses and be available to be floated to the medical units if necessary.  There were four Mental Health Therapist positions open to those with a graduate degree and either a state license in Counseling or Social Work, OR with the highest credentialing in their creative arts therapy discipline.  Several of my colleagues on the adult mental health unit are Creative Arts Therapists but without credentialing beyond their graduate work.  They were ineligible to apply for the positions.  Of the four of us who were ‘hired’, three are Expressive Arts Therapists – myself a Dance-Movement Therapist, an Art Therapist and a Psychodramatist.   The clinical management clearly acknowledged the unique contribution of CATs and showed confidence in the credentialing process as relatively equivalent to state licensure.

Though the experience has been traumatizing for myself and my colleagues in so many ways, the one beacon of light was the recognition afforded Creative Arts Therapies and the knowledge that our patients will ultimately benefit from the CATs.  (And of course, I am so grateful to still have a job!).

If we do not maintain credentials in our fields, and especially because there are dual-degree possibilities now, our disciplines are subject to becoming subsumed by counseling or social work. Of course, if the opportunity for licensure is realistically available, it makes sense to pursue it. But our viability as a profession – that is our potential for employment which utilizes our special skills and knowledge — depends on the maintenance of education and training standards. In this very difficult and unfortunately, competitive, health care environment, it is more important than ever to maintain these standards so that our employers, the public, our clients and patients feel confidence in the relevance and validity of our work.

________________________________________________________________________________
Carolyn Johnson (MA, BC-DMT, NCC) has been working as a dance-movement therapist for over 26 years. She currently is the group therapist on the Adult Psychiatric Unit at Providence Portland Medical Center and offers dance-movement therapy supervision in her private practice. She has presented DMT workshops in the U.S. and Japan and has incorporated art, music, poetry, yoga and mindfulness approaches into her work with a variety of populations. She is the Chairperson of the Oregon Dance Therapy Study Group (an informal regional chapter of the American Dance Therapy Association) and is one of the founding members of the Portland Creative Arts Therapies Association.

In December 2011, Meridian University hosted a free telesummit featuring over 30 speakers talking about The Mystery of Embodiment from diverse perspectives. These talks and Q&A sessions are now posted online at http://www.meridianuniversity.edu/index.php/moeprogrampage through Friday, January 13 so that you can tune in whenever you have time.

Why is embodiment important? Our being mysteriously embodies our world and our lives into existence. Psychology, medicine, and other health professions attend to and struggle with the complexity and mystery of embodiment. Our embodiment offers us possibilities for ecstasy, wisdom, and transformation and also opens us to the vulnerabilities of trauma, illness, and social oppression.

For an inside look at news and politics of the healthcare system in and around Oregon, check out The Lund Report. This website includes insightful articles, consumer tools and legislative updates. Get informed, and get active!

Fall is a natural time of dying.  Warmth and daylight fade into winter, the year draws to a close, and I feel nostalgic about lost time, missed opportunities and departed loved ones.  Letting go of a twenty year career in New York to care for my mother four years ago after the death of my father and subsequently losing her, has given me some intense experiences with grief and loss.  Meanwhile, listening to the stories of private clients and beginning clinicians in supervision reminds me that there are many forms of bereavement.

Creative arts therapists are often inspired by their own passion as artists to share with others the healing and transformational power of the arts. Sadly, when I see recently graduated art therapists in supervision for professional credentials, they are invariably bereaved from the loss of art in their own lives.  I too, remember starting out as an art therapist overwhelmed by student loans, licensing hurdles, and work environments that were at times indifferent and unsupportive or at worst, hostile.  There seemed to be no time or inspiration to make the art that had once filled me with passion and purpose. Life seemed to have become a tunnel of weary days and exhausted nights connected by long subway commutes.

from Scar Tissue, 1999

I love being a therapist, and I love the creative challenges that it presents every day.  Yet, when working exclusively as a therapist, the artist in me goes into mourning.  It feels constricted and misses the excitement of transgressing boundaries. Fortunately, these stretches of time that I call “tunnels” have periodically opened serendipitously into spaces for alone time in the studio.  And happily, I’ve been able to achieve new levels of artistic expression despite the time away.  It’s as if the artist continued working in the dark until it emerged inspired with something original and important to say.

One of these artistic emergences happened right after I had completed two grueling years researching and writing the manuscript for a book on self-mutilation and art therapy. In a flurry of activity fueled by a mixture of relief, rebellion and anxiety about having a manuscript in publication, I created “the book I really wanted to make”, a collection of automatic writings and collages called “Scar Tissue”.  It remains one of my favorite bodies of work.

Sorting through reminiscences, old photographs, a dusty book collection, an overgrown garden and boxes of memorabilia, I’m aware of another emergence.  Scribbles and ideas jotted down and put away for the future are finally seeing the light.  The old creative impulses are not lost, but strengthened and deepened by all that has happened in the intervening time, almost as if the sleeping artist awakes from a refreshing dreamtime.  These “tunnels” that I equate with a form of bereavement always seem to lead somewhere new and exciting, which makes me wonder if bereavement is a natural and integral part of growth and creativity.

By Diana Milia, LPC, ATR-BC, LCAT, ACS

Counseling and art therapy for self-acceptance and creative transformation

503 317-2245

www.pdxarttherapy.com

Diana Milia works in private practice in Oregon City with children and adults, specializing in attachment and loss, body image, family caregiving and clinical supervision.

If you’re a fan of the Grateful Dead, then some of you may know that the group’s former drummer, Mickey Hart, will be playing in Portland, Oregon on December 2 at the Aladdin Theatre.

Known for his wildly innovative skills as a percussionist, both with the Grateful Dead and with The Mickey Hart Band, Mickey Hart is also a passionate advocate for music therapy. In August 1991 he appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging (a landmark event for music therapy) and attested to the healing power of drumming and rhythm on afflictions associated with aging. He also currently serves on the “Music and the Brain” at Institute for Music and Neurologic Function at Beth Abraham Hospital in NYC.

Mickey Hart was scheduled to be a guest speaker this year’s American Music Therapy Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. However, due to health complications, Mickey was unable to attend. He did, however, send this message to conference attendees:

Dear AMTA,

It is with deep regret and disappointment that I am unable to attend the conference as planned.  Unfortunately, I have temporary health issues that are prohibiting me from flying. At this time, I can only extend a heartfelt apology to those who were looking forward to hearing me speak and drum.

Even though I cannot attend the conference, my support for music therapy and its practitioners is unwavering.

My goal is to push forward the science and research that confirms music therapy as an effective healing method and clinical practice.  We all know that music and sound are special to us as human beings, and now we’re on the precipice of discovering why.  Not only is it an exciting time, but it is a time where music therapists, scientists, and music enthusiasts are coming together to help put music therapy in every community across the nation.

On the upcoming Mickey Hart Band tour, I am connecting with Music Therapists in every city that I perform in.  In addition, I hope to raise money for the AMTA research fund and other local organizations.  Please come see one of our shows, show an AMTA [conference] badge and get in for free.

Once again, I am very sorry that I cannot join you at the conference. I know you all will continue to work hard, like you always have.

In rhythm,

Mickey Hart

 

So if you are looking for something to do next Friday, head down to the Aladdin theatre and support this amazing music therapy advocate! You can find more information about his concert tour here.