Hi I'm Elaine and I'm going to show you what it's like to be in the Creative Arts
Therapy program at West Lib
So now I'm heading to my creative art therapy assessments course with Dr. Susan Ridley
So we're going to do our presentations of the scribbled drawing for
the assessments
The point of art therapy is to take away the couch
aesthetic of therapy that everyone thinks of when they hear of therapy
They imagine someone laying on a couch and a therapist saying how do you feel about that
That's not what art therapy is; Art therapy is more for those who do not
communicate their feelings well verbally They are able to express themselves more so
without having to verbalize anything and the therapist can analyze their art and
then ask them questions to where they're more easy to understand an answer since
they don't have to come up with it off of the top of their head
This is Screen Printing class and currently we're finishing up
some mono types and we're gonna print them here real soon so stay tune
The creative arts program is absolutely fantastic there is so much that goes
into it with psychology and with art so I wanted to do something with art but
then I realized that psychology was also my calling and nothing has ever been
more perfect of a fit so you really get a nice blend of the psychology and the
art all together to prep you for later for your master's program or if you want
to just be an aide it'll prep you for that to
Line up your paper so what would you
like your print to go?
So today I'll be doing a practice therapy session with one of my
classmates
There is an internship that is required to graduate your undergrad
program from West Lib; I personally will be working with trafficked women and I
assume it will be a very emotional experience but I really feel like that
will prep me for the future
I just found myself very lucky to be actually working
with a population that could really use art therapy
So right now I'm gonna be doing a spray-paint piece outside of the Fine
Arts Building and we'll see what we can come up with
I've always been very
intrigued by people and why they behave in the way that they do and I personally
would like to work with the mentally ill whereas many other people will want to
work with children or trafficked women or veterans there are tons and tons of
options for you to go into
I know a lot of people want to work with children and
when people hear art therapy they immediately think of children but that
is just one of the many options that you have to work with
Today we're in the
printmaking studio and I'm gonna be working on some of my screen prints
West Liberty is the only University in West Virginia
with an art therapy undergrad which is absolutely phenomenal because
it's also a reasonably-priced school in comparison to all the others and for the
grad schools that I have visited they're all extremely impressed that you have an
undergrad in actual art therapy whereas most people who go into their master's
program for therapy are coming from just having psychology classes and art classes
West Liberty is certainly preparing me for the future and giving
me a solid foundation to work on when I extend my education down the road
So hopefully that gave you some insight as to what it is to be a Creative Arts
Therapy major at West Lib if you have any questions go online and check us out