Continuing Education

This Provider Completely Avoided Burnout: Here’s How…..  read about how art complements medicine in this primary care clinic

What professionals are saying………..

Therapy is an art. It isn’t a formula that I follow. It requires that I see possibilities where others might not. The painting experience supports that art. Therapy is a process that develops based on what is uncovered or discovered in that process. It requires the dialogue of therapist and client to find the solution, one that isn’t necessarily evident at the start of that process. The painting experience supports that process. Therapy is most successful when the therapist is self aware. The painting experience is a practice in self awareness.

~ Lacy Middlebrooks Camp, MFT, LPC |Past President of The Georgia Association for Marriage and Family Therapy

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Process painting has been one of the biggest teachers for me as a person, an artist, and a psychotherapist—-because it addresses vulnerability and the necessity of working with that tender place in us. Not trying to control it, get rid of it, fix it—but to honor it, listen to that vulnerable place. That’s almost impossible if therapy is an outcomes-driven goal assessment model. Goals are met along the way to becoming more human in the best sense—and that is something process painting has continued to teach me.

~ Kate Featherston, LCSW

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Being a Jungian oriented psychotherapist where the “Image” is paramount and the “Imaginal realm” is ontologically real, process painting is a powerful tool to enhance and increase the capacity for deep inner listening and a method to allow the unconscious to come forward and communicate. This contributes to empowerment and emotional freedom in the client (or painter), as well as simply deeper awareness. Process painting is correlative to Mindfulness, which encourages being in the present moment, with awareness and openness, which has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression.

~ Tamara Oxford, D., LMFT

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Process painting is particularly helpful in teaching anxious clients to observe the coming-and-going of their anxieties which were previously unconscious. The observation of anxiety is just one example. Among other elements, clients also learn to listen to inner dialogues, recognize somatic responses, and develop patience with the ebb and flow of inevitable emotional and psychological states.

Clients paint with me in sessions and then continue painting at home when they find the value of self observation through painting. I am convinced that process painting IS therapy. It is a powerfully effective process for both clients and therapists. I wish all trainees would experience at least one weekend of process painting before qualifying for internship.

~ Heather Braley, MFT

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I personally have recovered from serious burn out that was jeopardizing my clinical work. In part due to my ongoing participation in The Painting Experience and the relationships with the facilitators, I have returned to functioning highly in my work again. The painting process eases burn out by providing an outlet for engagement in life without needing to create a certain outcome in order to feel successful. I am a believer that this process offered by The Painting Experience is one of the best forms of burn out control and self care that I have found in my search for CEU workshops related to self care and development.

~ Samantha Stewart, LCS

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Because of the twenty years I have spent as an acute care nurse, I am clear about the stresses – physical, mental, emotional – that accumulate for healthcare workers. There is no single way to ameliorate it. I experienced burnout at various times and have learned to be deliberate and creative in how I keep my energy up and my heart and mind engaged both with the work setting and with my patients. Process painting, the way it is practiced with the Painting Experience, has become a part of my self-care.

One of the greatest beauties of this kind of process painting is that it seems to be infinitely flexible. It can be playful or it can be serious. It is goal-less and yet it is worth doing. I don’t always know why, but I invariably feel better after I spend time painting. My mood improves and my tiredness lifts. Perhaps it is the freedom of following my impulses, perhaps it is relaxing the evaluating, analytical mind. Sometimes it is purely the pleasure of colors and the sensuality of paint on paper. I don’t have to decide what I need, nor what I will do, I simply show up to the materials and paint. There is no evaluation or ranking of the painter or the product. It is solely about doing and being. It’s restorative for reasons that I can try to explain but always seem to fall short of articulating.

Lastly, it’s important to point out that the work of the Painting Experience is inseparable from the people who make it available. Facilitation is essential, but even that is loose and responsive. It’s simply about helping me to keep painting rather than having me accomplish a goal, especially one set by an authority or even by myself. Stewart and all of the people he has working with him are kind and authentic. It is such a relief that this free, open-ended work is done in an environment that includes compassionate understanding and openness while remaining honest and practical.

~ Anne Pechovnik, RN

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Therapy is an art. It isn’t a formula that I follow. It requires that I see possibilities where others might not. The Painting Experience supports that art. Therapy is a process that develops based on what is uncovered or discovered in that process. It requires the dialogue of therapist and client to find the solution, one that isn’t necessarily evident at the start of that process. The Painting Experience supports that process. Therapy is most successful when the therapist is self aware. The Painting Experience is a practice in self awareness.

~ Lacy MiddleBrooks Camp, MFT, LPC

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Through The Painting Experience I have deepened my ability to listen and follow people’s developing processes in therapy sessions.  As I become more empathic to my own process , I am able to stay present and empathic to my clients.  It is also a major way that I use to help identify my own judgments and biases so that I don’t impose those on my clients.

~ Jan Bucy, CMHC

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There is a contemplative, introspective quality to process painting that is quite relevant to psychotherapy. I find that much like clients’ healing experiences of simply expressing themselves and having someone listen deeply, have accurate empathy, and a sense of congruence (Carl Rogers, client-centered psychotherapy), process painting provides the opportunity to simply express – without rules, censorship, or judgment. This kind of expression is healing in and of itself.

~ Molly Siddoway King, LCPC

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Your conducting of the Painting Experience workshop with your assistant, Annie Danberg, was masterful!  You were able to accomplish a rare task. You both formed and sustained a supportive group feeling of utter safety, focus and creativity. For me, the experience was liberating, full of color, intensity and fun. 
It was a perfect vehicle to allow each one of us to encounter and set at a distance our inner voices of self-criticism, self-doubt and timidity while inhabiting the realm of paint and paper and imagination. The experience of a group of people exploring their individual inner worlds generating a community was profoundly moving.

I would strongly recommend the Painting Experience for people seeking access to their imagination and interested in a unique process of self-discovery. I have referred patients to your groups and found that they benefited and will certainly continue to do so.

~ Alan Leveton, MD

Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of California School of Medicine San Francisco (Retired).

Founder and Past-President, Northern California Association of Family Therapists.

Psychiatric Director (Retired) of the Family Therapy Center, San Francisco.