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Description:
This 3 ½ hour workshop focuses on trauma-informed art interventions that can be effectively and ethically utilized by the play therapist. Art therapy is not a modality but a Master’s degree profession following the same rigorous requisites commensurate with other mental health graduate curriculums. As such, art therapy concepts are not easily accessible by the “non” art therapist. However, there is an ethical perspective in providing guidelines on incorporating appropriate therapeutic art experiences into other therapeutic models to enhance expressive opportunities for the client silenced by traumatic life experiences.
Current thinking for the future of trauma treatment models includes integrative approaches such as the expressive therapies (Cloitre, 2021). Both play therapy and art therapy are included in the expressive therapies and align in diverse ways. A founding principle of trauma-focused somatic treatment models (van der Kolk, 2014, Ogden and Fisher, 2015) highlights the crucial role of low verbal, somatic therapeutic approaches in expressing and processing traumatic experiences and in addressing the deeply embedded “felt” memories, as well as the neurobiological impact of
trauma. Both the creative art therapies and play therapy are embodied processes that provide restorative benefits including a sense of safety, affect regulation, attachment repair, resiliency, recapitulation of missed developmental experiences in childhood, and enhance expressive language in integrative and triphasic trauma treatment (Sigal; Rob, 2021).
Through case presentations demonstrating art prompts and opportunities for participants to engage in art-making, the workshop will open the portal for the play therapist to invite creative interventions into their clinical space. The presenter is a well-published, licensed art therapist trained in IFS and EMDR who provides integrative and phased approaches to trauma treatment in her clinical practice. Didactic lecture will review the benefits and ethical use of art in play treatment. Topics covered include the stages of art development (Lowenstein; Brittain),
Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics, the appropriate use of art materials viewed through the continuum of art media, the role of the play therapist using art, and how to talk about the art with the child client. Jungian Active Imagination as a way to dialogue with “parts” through art will be discussed (Kolodny 2025). The art experientials are structured from pre-school through adolescence and include the squiggle story, body scans, containers, and ending with a Create, Destroy, and Transform art experiential (Kolodny 2026, Stickley; Wolf, 2021).
Art therapy offers myriad opportunities for multicultural inclusion and accessibility with art’s inherent ability to transcend language barriers. Consideration of cultural differences will be made throughout the presentation. Art-making and case presentations can evoke emotional responses. Presenter will remind participants to use self-care while presenter will be sensitive in presenting art and case material.
Participants will need to bring the following:
- 3 Sheets of Drawing Paper
- Oil or Chalk Pastels
- One small empty box (matchbox size to shoebox size or an envelope)
- Glue Stick
- Some Safe Place Imagery- Magazines, Downloads, Photos
- Scissors
Objectives:
- Name the 6 stages of art developmental as defined by Lowenstein and Brittain
- Define 4 roles of the therapist using art in play therapy
- Identify 4 ways play and art therapy overlap in a play therapy setting
- Describe 3 art and play prompts align with the Neurosequential Model
Presenter: Peggy Kolodny, MA, ATR-BC, LCPAT
Peggy Kolodny MA ATR-BC LCPAT earned her Master’s in Art Therapy from GWU in 1982. Specializing in trauma-focused multimodal art therapy across the lifespan, she is level 2 trained in IFS and in EMDR. She is adjunct faculty for FSU and GWU art therapy graduate departments and past faculty for UMD/SSW, Goucher College, and MICA.
Currently, Peggy is a Board Member of the International Society on the Study of Trauma and Dissociation and their Co-Chair of the EMDR SIG. She has authored chapters in multiple academic books. Peggy has presented for CBPS beginning in 1999.
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