Introduction

When it comes to therapy, I believe in creating a partnership with my clients. I utilize creative exploration to build an understanding of the issues and concerns that brings you to therapy in the first place. Through this process, we also work together to construct solutions and desired outcomes. I believe each person is an authority on his or her own life and it is my honor to assist in the unfolding and creation of a more fulfilling, examined life, by blending patience and compassion with my professional experience.

A combination of my personal art making, professional art therapy training, many years of education, and experience in the mental health field comes together to form the main elements in developing that creative exploration, used as a means of assisting my clients in expressing what may at first be difficult for them to verbalize.

I strive to uncover the uniqueness found within each individual and to help my clients realize his or her full potential based on the gifts each possesses. My passion is to assist with self-guided growth, thereby not only resolving the current issue, but also forging a new process for identifying solutions for the future.

The specific theoretical orientations that I draw from include Humanistic Psychology, emphasizing the growth and fulfillment of the self (self-actualization) through self-mastery, examination and creative expression. A Systems Framework, the belief that family influences the way we interact and communicate with others and using that information to assist in creating a map of past and current interaction patterns in order to facilitate a new understanding and direction. And finally, Jungian or Depth Psychology, helping individuals access their inner (unconscious) world and develop greater self-realization through dream work, imaginative, and expressive activity of all kinds, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, and story writing.

-Shaney Watters M.A., LMFT