AATA2025 Virtual Conference Schedule

Welcome 

Plenary Session 

Details to be announced!

[RESEARCH/EVALUATION] Exploring Pediatric Hospital Art Therapists: Organizational Structures’ Impact on Professional Identities (RE6)

This presentation explores how organizational structures influence the professional identities of pediatric hospital-based art therapists. Using qualitative research and theoretical frameworks, it highlights challenges like role misrepresentation and undervaluation, while offering strategies for improving recognition, integration, and collaboration in multidisciplinary teams to enhance patient outcomes and professional satisfaction. [PAPER]

Presenter: Susanne Bifano

[MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVES] Nature-Based Indigenous Gond Art in Art Therapy: A Creative Process (MP17)

This presentation highlights the application of Gond, a nature-based Indian Indigenous art and explores its therapeutic potential in art therapy. Nature-based guided imagery visualization is integrated with Gond folktale narration, followed by Gond-inspired artmaking presentation where participants use natural pigments and repetitive patterns. Participants reported multi-sensory benefits of the experience. [PAPER]

Presenters: Ritu Dua, Bani Malhotra, and Patricia St John

[TRAUMA] Active Imagination: Understanding the Integration of IFS with Art Therapy (RT5)

A brief overview of IFS illustrated by case material will demonstrate how the IFS-trained art therapist presenter integrates art into the IFS process for trauma treatment, anchored by Jungian Active Imagination. Participants untrained in IFS may better utilize Active Imagination into art-making. IFS-trained participants will gain creative tools. [PAPER]

Presenter: Peggy Kolodny

Lunch Break with Learning

[TRAUMA] Embodying Safety – Being an Art Therapist in Shared Traumatic Reality (TR20)

The experience of shared trauma reality of the therapist and the group of refugees at the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian war is laid out following the therapist’s own embodied trauma response based on polyvagal theory- and somatic practices-based art therapy, parallel to therapeutic states of containment, holding, nurturing, and self-care. [PAPER]

Presenter: Mia Janković Shentse

[ETHICS] Psychedelics, Art and Healing: Exploring Benefits, Risks, and Ethical Considerations (ET33)

Working with psychedelics presents unique benefits, risks, and ethical complexities that do not emerge in traditional therapy. This paper explores managing those complexities and ways that art therapy can help mitigate their impact, as well as ethical considerations in training non-art therapists to use art in this work. [PAPER]

Presenters: Rebecca Wilkinson and Alyssa Gurky

[MULTICULTURAL PERSPECTIVES] Beyond Henna: Tattoos and Healing, an American and Indian Art Therapy Perspective (MP10)

Tattooing, a form of body art, offers permanence not only physically, but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Its influence extends beyond aesthetics, to healing. This presentation explores the intersection of tattoos and art therapy, drawing from research. The presenters are an Indian tattoo artist/art therapist and an American art therapist/educator. [PAPER]

Presenters: Simone Alter-Muri and Anushree Bhargava

[TRAUMA] When Children Disclose – After Mandate-Reporters Call: Art Therapy at Child Advocacy Centers (TR9)

This panel explores steps following mandated reporter hotlines or child disclosures of abuse, examining the multidisciplinary efforts of local Child Advocacy Centers. It emphasizes the often unseen but vital teamwork that providers can rely on and highlights the role of art therapy in supporting children who have experienced abuse. [PANEL]

Presenters: Shirin Mazdeyasna, Sandy Mildenberg, Alison Fox, Renielle Yankana-Tracey, and Alison Sanzi

[EDUCATION & SUPERVISION] What More Can We Find?: Fostering Therapeutic Skills Using Visual Thinking Strategies (ES15)

Applications of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) foster clinical excellence in training art therapy students and cultivate interprofessional collaboration across diverse settings. VTS can support professional learning by helping trainees and practitioners enhance key therapeutic skills and encourage empathic dialogue when looking at and discovering the meaning of artwork. [PANEL]

Presenters: Bani Malhotra, Susan Anand, and Grayston Barron

[STUDIO & COMMUNITY] Imagination and Improvisation: Art Therapy & Ecological Identity Work (SC24)

This panel explores steps following mandated reporter hotlines or child disclosures of abuse, examining the multidisciplinary efforts of local Child Advocacy Centers. It emphasizes the often unseen but vital teamwork that providers can rely on and highlights the role of art therapy in supporting children who have experienced abuse. [PANEL]

Presenters: Monica Carpendale and William Parker

AATA Member Authors Fireside Chat 

Sponsor Showcase 

Art demo TBD

Networking Session

Coffee Chat

[ACTIVISM] Eco-Art for Community Engagement: Bridging Creativity and Environmental Awareness (AC18)

This interactive session explores Eco-Art as a bridge between individual creativity and environmental sustainability. Participants will engage in hands-on collaborative art-making, gaining practical methods to integrate eco-art into community projects while fostering environmental awareness and advocacy. [PANEL]

Presenter: Ayesha Jafar

[PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE] Creating Safety: Art Therapy Techniques for Crisis Planning with Teens (PP23)

This presentation explores the essentials of identifying and addressing safety concerns with teen clients as art therapists. Participants will learn key assessment and safety planning techniques, and engage in an experiential component to create a hands-on tool to guide clients through the safety planning process in a creative, supportive way. [PANEL]

Presenters: Joanna Flora and Alissa Paulison

[STUDIO & COMMUNITY] Illuminating Wellness: Integrating STEAM in Museum Education – Implications for Art Therapy (SC8)

This session explores STEAM education, neon sign art, and art therapy in museums to promote K-12 student wellness. By integrating art-centered STEAM initiatives, museums foster emotional resilience, creativity, and community connection. Highlighting museums as transformative spaces, this session examines innovative strategies for enhancing education and well-being through art. [PANEL]

Presenters: Nicholas Denson, Kyrsten Harper, Winona Jane Caro, and Cloud Osmond

[GRIEF & MOURNING] A Collaborative Therapeutic Board Game: “Dog Park” (GM21)

This presentation will highlight the collaborative efforts between gaming and technology, art therapy, and palliative psychology in the creation of a therapeutic board game for a neurodivergent 15-year-old patient receiving hospice care. [PAPER]

Presenters: Jenson Maydew and Rachel Kentor

[DEI] Art Therapy and EMDR: Trauma Recovery for a Transgender Woman (DEI25)

This presentation will highlight the collaborative efforts between gaming and technology, art therapy, and palliative psychology in the creation of a therapeutic board game for a neurodivergent 15-year-old patient receiving hospice care. [PAPER]

Presenters: Shirin Mazdeyasna and Abbie Zuidema

[TRAUMA] Nature and Neuroscience: Harnessing Empathy and the Environment in Art Therapy (TR13)

Learn how neuroscience-based and nature-based approaches can enhance connection and emotional regulation. This session provides tools to enrich your art therapy practice with these powerful, complementary approaches. Presenters share insights, case studies, and practical strategies. [PAPER]

Presenters: Veronica Hicks and Lisa Kay

Lunch Break with Learning

[STUDIO & COMMUNITY] Beneath the Surface: The Role of Art in Creative Arts Therapist Identity (SC28)

Creative arts therapists often navigate multiple identities as artists, therapists, educators, and activists. This panel presents the story of the Beneath the Surface art exhibition, advocating for the profession, educating the public about creative arts therapy, and explores the role of art in the therapists’ personal and professional identities. [PANEL]

Presenters: Bethany Altschwager, Melissa Lee Alvey, Alexandra Devin, Mayra Iris Guevara, and Harapan Hope Limansah

[THEORY & ASSESSMENT] The Shadow Side of Psychedelics: Navigating Risks Safely (TA34)

This presentation explores the shadow side of psychedelic-assisted therapy, addressing risks, ethical dilemmas, and commercialization. It highlights art therapy’s role in integrating psychedelic experiences, fostering emotional processing, and supporting trauma-informed care. Participants will gain practical strategies for client safety, ethical practices, and honoring Indigenous knowledge in psychedelic healing. [PANEL]

Presenters: Charmaine Husum and Roberta Shoemaker-Beal

[TRAUMA] Dreaming Self into Being – Complex Trauma Survivor’s Key Processes for Becoming (TR40)

Video: Art exhibit and poetry reading; Hear the cries of hidden, voiceless parts of a highly functional trauma survivor, sharing her story to help herself and others feel seen. Witness works integrating the conscious and unconscious through, art, poetry and somatization, a clients life’s work of collecting shattered parts. [PANEL]

Presenters: Lilla Ohrstrom and Kathleen Marmet

[TRAUMA] Beyond Words: Art Therapy Interventions for Empowering Survivors of Crime and Abuse (TR31)

This presentation explores the role of art therapy in facilitating the recovery of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, particularly in the context of a rape crisis center. The case studies will highlight how art therapy along with EMDR therapy complements traditional victim services such as counseling and advocacy. [PAPER]

Presenter: Shirin Mazdeyasna

[ACTIVISM] Creative Arts Therapies and the Climate Crisis: A Framework for Intentional Engagement (AC7)

This presentation proposes a framework for creative arts therapists (CATs) to engage in intentional climate action. The framework supports reflection and adaptation within diverse modalities and theoretical approaches, helping CATs align their practice with climate sustainability through client work, educational roles, and contributions to professional and community contexts. [PAPER]

Presenter: Heather McLaughlin

[TECH & INNOVATION] Detecting the Liminal: Art Therapy Meets AI to Manage Distress (TI38)

Presenting the preliminary results from a clinical trial on the use of a digital art tool for distress detection in hospitalized oncological patients. We will discuss future applications of AI and machine learning in integrating art therapy with digital medical data, highlighting implications for predictive modeling in patient care. [PAPER]

Presenter: Marie Deschamps

Closing Session with Art-Making

Notes

The program is still being developed and updates will continue to be published in the program. The published schedule is subject to change. Presenters listed in the program have been invited, but changes may occur. If you have any questions, or need help registering for conference, please contact info@arttherapy.org