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New Offering: Expressive Arts Therapy for Teens!

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New Offering: Expressive Arts Therapy for Teens!

This Winter Quarter, we are expanding our expressive arts therapy programming to offer two Teen (ages 13-17, generally) Therapy Groups, one for teens with a cancer diagnosis and one for teens living with a loved one with a cancer diagnosis. They will run on Tuesdays (Teens with Cancer in the Family) and Wednesdays (Teens with Cancer) from 3:30 pm – 5 pm at our Dorothy O’Brien Center in the Healing Arts Room. Although these are not closed groups, advance registration is required so that our expressive arts therapist trainee Pamela Krueger can assess the teen’s readiness for the group therapy process.

 

The group will utilize a range of arts-based methods to offer the opportunity for teens to process their emotions, engage with other teens in similar circumstances, and obtain therapeutic support for their experiences. Artistic experience is not a prerequisite for joining the group; the group time that focuses on art-making emphasizes the creative process rather than any tangible art product. Using arts mediums can allow teens to engage their natural creativity and curiosity, something that can sometimes reveal ways to deal with challenges that talk alone cannot always accomplish. Each week, the art-based experience that is offered will relate to a group topic for that week, allowing teens to explore it in a variety of ways.

 

If you have a teen in your family affected by cancer, consider registering them for one of these groups. Please contact us before January 15 if you’d like your teen to be able to start for the first group meeting the week of Feb. 3. After that, please check with us to see if there are any spots remaining open. The groups will run for seven weeks, ending the week of March 15.