Featured Member: Maggie Deininger Berris

September 2, 2026

The American Art Therapy Association represents a diversity of professionals, students, and organizations across the nation. We recognize and celebrate the work of our members at all levels through our Featured Member series. 

For this profile, we spoke with art therapy masters student Maggie Deininger Berris

If you were talking to a potential client about why art therapy is unique what would you say?

The quality or visual aesthetics of your art do not matter; it’s about expressing thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences, or ideas through art-making. When you make art, you are using different brain networks than when simply doing talk therapy. Art is a different language; it’s visual and emotional. We respond and interact with the content of art products in either deep, intentional, meaningful ways or through quick kinesthetic and/or cathartic action that can affect change and healing when art media, body actions, and brain activation are all working together to create art products.

In art therapy, we use specific art media and prompts to foster healing, introspection, and growth. It’s the experience, or rather the process, as my profession prefers, of art-making; it’s brain activation/occupation and the mind-body connection that are the core functions of art therapy.

Tell us about what an average day looks like for you as a graduate student.

My days vary. I work at my clinical internship roughly 16–20 hours per week. At my internship, I carry an individual caseload of 8–10 clients, co-facilitate a weekly open art studio group, and have co-facilitated a guided art therapy group and a mental health grief group that utilizes art-making. 

When I’m not at internship, I am usually doing graduate coursework and/or working on my research thesis, occasionally squeezing in friend and family time. I also practice yoga and run.

I am a mom of three. I have a 4-year-old son and identical twin girls who are 2.5 years old. Managing everything is a wild balancing act and work of art, which would not be possible without the support of my family, particularly my husband, Davey Berris, who can only be described as SUPERDAD <insert iconic sound effect here>, as he is taking on the lion’s share of parenting while I finish out my degree.

“As a student developing clinical and art therapy skills, the most exciting thing is seeing improvements in clients; it’s hearing clients say, ‘This helped me get a break from my depression,’ after creating art.

However, what was really special to me was that I was able to apply my knowledge from my research study to identify an older adult woman who was attending an art therapy group as potentially having ADHD. This was very rewarding because her therapist told me she cried in session when she finally had an understanding of the years of struggle she had experienced in her life.”

— Maggie Deininger Berris

How did you get involved with AATA? What keeps you excited about the AATA community?

My involvement in AATA has only just begun, but what brings me to it is a desire to network and to learn from experts in our field. Soon I hope to meet and learn from reputable researchers like Cathy Malchiodi, Lisa Hinz, and Girija Kaimal about topics including the neuroscience of art therapy, the expressive therapies continuum, and trauma.

I hope to bring more attention and awareness to future research, such as using art therapy as a method to study and treat frustration levels in adults with ADHD. I believe that this type of work could directly increase life expectancy by decreasing the amount of frustration individuals with ADHD regularly experience. I look forward to deepening my knowledge of the neuroscience behind art therapy and ADHD.

What are your hopes for the future of the art therapy profession?

I have a big vision for the field of art therapy, and for art therapy as a treatment modality for ADHD. I would like to see art therapy be elevated and listed alongside other treatment modalities like medication and psychotherapy. I’d also like it to be listed alongside primary treatment modalities that authoritative organizations and experts recognize (i.e., ADDittude Magazine listing art therapy on one website under the treatment tab, or CHADD.org, understood.org following in its footsteps, or professionals like Ari Tuckman recommending art therapy to clients).

“Switching into this field has been the best decision I’ve ever made. My ADHD and neurodivergence position me to be profoundly successful and impactful, as creativity, empathy / emotional intelligence, humor, research, speaking/educating, advocacy, networking, leadership, and writing are my strengths, and align with this profession.”

— Maggie Deininger Berris

A surrealistic image, comprised of a women with a broken purple heart, healed with a gold jagged line, as kintsugi, on top of pink flames located in the center of her chest. She is seated in a meditative position in the center, support by the universes large hands that extend to the right and left in the center of the page, which is further supported by her community represented as black stick people that are place within a goblet pedestal, with monarch like butterfly on the left and right side, above the hands the women sits in pink flames representing her power and source of renewal. All of this is placed on a light blue background that fills in the rest of the rectangle space.

The Vulnerable Warrior
By Maggie Deininger Berris, 2026

Materials: Mixed media paper, acrylic marker, regular markers, and colored pencil

Artist Statement: The Vulnerable Warrior is all about healing after experiencing an emotionally painful event. It’s a metaphor that draws on Superman sitting in the yellow sun to regain strength and power after being injured by Kryptonite. Healing does not happen alone, and living with neurodivergence requires continually returning to a safe place to turn inward, while being supported by your family, friends, and community to regain strength and power. This image is about walking bravely forward with strength, confidence, and courage. It’s about what it takes behind the scenes in order to stand up and speak up to create change for clients and the society in which they live. I am still finding a more traditional artistic style; thus far, I’ve experimented with ceramics, painting, photography, scrapbooking, and sugar cookie designs, along with graphic design and social media. However, during my clinical internship, I challenged myself to create art with markers and discovered I enjoy working with acrylic markers because they mimic painting and require less time than traditional painting. It’s perfect as I am pressed for time and lack a personal art studio.

About Maggie Deininger Berris

Maggie Deininger Berris, CT BA, soon MA and LPC, is a current graduate student at the Ursuline College Campus of Gannon University pursuing a dual degree in Counseling and Art Therapy. She is currently completing her clinical internship at Signature Health, which provides wraparound health care. Additionally, she is completing her master’s research thesis on adults with ADHD, currently titled: “A Qualitative Case Study Exploring How Repeated Assemblage Art Making Influences Frustration, ADHD Symptoms, and Emotion Regulation in Adults with ADHD.” She also sits on the Marketing Committee of Open Doors Academy, a Cleveland, Ohio nonprofit that provides after-school programming.

Maggie has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication Management and a minor in leadership from the University of Dayton. She brings a decade of experience in nonprofit digital marketing to the art therapy field. Maggie has natural talents in leadership, public speaking, and networking, and is passionate about advancing the field of art therapy. Additionally, Maggie is working to close the clinical knowledge gap surrounding the updated conceptualization of ADHD. Maggie is also a mom of three: a 4-year-old son and two 2.5-year-old identical twin girls. She regularly practices yoga and enjoys running and hiking.

Connect with Maggie on LinkedIn.

 

Loading...