Community Resources, In Our Community, Other News

ZagZum – Visual art by artists who have a lived experience with a mental or physical disability.

ZagZum

Visual Art Exhibition | Conference | Reception | Sale

Visual art by artists who have a lived experience with a mental or physical disability.

EXHIBITION
Saturday | September 10, 10:00 AM until 9:00 PM. Admission is Free

RECEPTION
Saturday |September 10, 5:00 PM until 9:00 PM, Must RSVP at Eventbrite

CONFERENCE
Visual art by artists who have a lived experience with a mental or physical disability.
Saturday |
September 10, 11:00 AM until 4:00 PM. Must RSVP at Eventbrite

Where
Minneapolis Convention Center – 1301 2nd Avenue South | The Seasons, Minneapolis, MN 55403

ART SUBMISSION

Wednesday | September 7, 9:00 AM until 9:00 PM, Suite 204A 
ZagZum Call for Visual Art Submission Form

In Our Community, Other News, Qoutes

“Minneapolis, I am home.”

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Remembering Prince.

“I have written a song that says: If you ever lose someone dear to you, never say the words, “They’re gone,” and they’ll come back” – Prince

Prince dead at 57: Legendary musician found at Paisley Park

Worldwide grief over sudden death of musical genius
Read the entire article click here…

“Growing up in Minneapolis

The son of a social worker mother and jazz pianist father, Prince Rogers Nelson grew up playing music at home. His father, John Nelson, led the Prince Rogers Trio. His mother, Mattie Shaw, sang, as does his younger sister, Tyka Nelson.

Prince formed his first band with friends at age 13 and over time became the driving force behind the “Minneapolis sound,” a hybrid mix of funk, rock, pop and new wave.

He became known for shunning interviews, creating his own mystique and controlling his image with a team of stylists, publicists and lawyers. Even after becoming a global superstar, he stayed close to home, recording at Paisley Park and appearing often at late-night concerts and dance parties there.

Born on June 7, 1958, Prince had a thing for the number 7. On 7/7/7, he held three concerts at three venues in downtown Minneapolis, telling the crowd at one show, “Minneapolis, I am home.””

Community Resources, In Our Community, Other News

Start by Believing: A Community Dialogue

Ramsey County Hosts –  Start by Believing: A Community Dialogue

Start by believing is a public awareness campaign uniquely focused on the public response to sexual assault.  Because a friend or family member is typically the first person a victim confides in after an assault, each individual’s personal reaction is the first step in a long path toward justice and healing. Knowing how to respond is critical—a negative response can worsen the trauma and foster an environment where perpetrators face zero consequences for their crimes. ….  More local Start by believing office news   Start by believing national office news

When

Date
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Time
7-9 p.m

Location

Hamline University Sundin Music Hall
1531 Hewitt Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55104

Get directions

Ages

Adults

Start by Believing Logo2

Art Therapy, Art Therapy for Social Action, Community Resources, In Our Community, Other News

Creative Art Therapies Week, 2016!

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“Sharing Discoveries” Analog Instant Film, 2014 ©Heather Matson

In honor of Creative Art Therapies Week, March 13-19, 2016, I would like to spotlight Art of Counseling, pllc, whose mission is to create a unique specialty using Creative Art Therapies to foster emotional healing, encourage internal resiliency, enhance personal relationships and give a unique perspective to human storytelling and expression. Art of Counseling is a psychotherapy group practice located in Saint Paul, Minnesota that provides mental health services to clients in the metro area.  We have clinicians that are Registered Art Therapists (ATR & ATR-BC); trained in movement, play and poetry therapies; licensed or on track for Marriage and Family Therapy (LMFT) or Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC); trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and intertwines a trauma-informed therapy model in our clinicians’ individual theoretic model of therapy.

Clients that have been attracted to our unique approach have been those who struggle with feeling stuck, depressed mood, anxious, nightmares and sleep issues, trauma, dissociation, self-harm and risk taking, shame and guilt, childhood issues, anger, addictive behavior, eating and body image issues, sex and sexuality, cultural exploration, blended family situations, couples and marriage counseling, abandonment, grief and loss, etc.  Even though we in-network for some insurances, Art of Counseling is proud to say that our clinicians’ dedicate a percentage of their case load to individuals on a sliding-fee-scale or pro bono, to help bridge the gap for affordable mental health services.  We recognize Creative Art Therapies Week honors the importance of how the arts can heal, enhance and help us all to grow.

Other News

Introducing our newest clinician!

Introducing our newest clinician Hannah Kleese, MA, AT. Now accepting new clients. Hannah specializes in art therapy and utilizes meditation, various art mediums, and writing in her work with clients. Areas that Hannah has worked with include clients that struggle with PTSD, depression, life transitions, grief/loss, anger management, codependency, Anxiety, Autism, and dual diagnosis. Hannah uses a strength-based approach and is supportive of each individuals specialized needs towards healing.

Read her profile below to find out more!

Hannah Kleese MAprofilpic-adjusted, AT

Email Hannah

Direct Line: (651) 318-0109 ext #702

Fax: (651) 344-5015

Hannah brings warmth and compassion to a therapeutic process that promotes a cooperative journey between client and therapist. Hannah believes that clients have the capacity to be the master of their own experience. She creates an environment that supports everyone’s unique quest for healing and balance.

Hannah uses a blended approach that includes visual art, writing, meditation, and talk therapy. Through self understanding and a strength-based approach Hannah will assist to unearth personal strengths in order to find coping strategies for outside of therapy. She welcomes adults, adolescents, and children from all walks of like to come and see if her approach is a good fit for the therapeutic process that they seek.

Hannah received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking, Papermaking, and Bookmaking from The Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a dual Masters of Arts degree in Art Therapy and Clinical Counseling from Southwestern College in Santa Fe, NM. Hannah is currently working towards her licensure as a Licensed Clinical Counselor (LPCC) and a registered Art Therapist (ATR).

Profile can also be found at our website

 

 

 

Community Resources, In Our Community, Other News

World Suicide Prevention Day 9/10

DayOfPost

It’s World Suicide Prevention Day, Take 5 to Save Lives. Join the movement by visiting www.take5tosavelives.org and updating your status with this message.

Join the virtual Facebook event as your Pledge to Take 5 to Save Lives on World Suicide Prevention Day. Invite others to join!

Other News

Pet Therapy: How Animals And Humans Heal Each Other – Reblog

NPR

Pet Therapy: How Animals And Humans Heal Each Other

March 05, 2012 3:44 AM ET

Those of us who own pets know they make us happy. But a growing body of scientific research is showing that our pets can also make us healthy, or healthier.

That helps explain the increasing use of animals — dogs and cats mostly, but also birds, fish and even horses — in settings ranging from hospitals and nursing homes to schools, jails and mental institutions.

Take Viola, or Vi for short. The retired guide dog is the resident canine at the Children’s Inn on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. The inn is where families stay when their children are undergoing experimental therapies at NIH.

Vi, a chunky yellow Labrador retriever with a perpetually wagging tail, greets families as they come downstairs in the morning and as they return from treatment in the afternoon. She can even be “checked out” for a walk around the bucolic NIH grounds.

Thelma Balmaceda, age, 4, pets Viola, the resident canine at the Children’s Inn on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. Families stay at the inn when their children are undergoing experimental therapies at NIH.

Melissa Forsyth/NPR

“There really isn’t a day when she doesn’t brighten the spirits of a kid at the inn. And an adult. And a staff member,” says Meredith Daly, the inn’s spokeswoman.

But Vi may well be doing more than just bringing smiles to the faces of stressed-out parents and children. Dogs like Vi have helped launch an entirely new field of medical research over the past three decades or so.

The use of pets in medical settings actually dates back more than 150 years, says Aubrey Fine, a clinical psychologist and professor at California State Polytechnic University. “One could even look at Florence Nightingale recognizing that animals provided a level of social support in the institutional care of the mentally ill,” says Fine, who has written several books on the human-animal bond.

But it was only in the late 1970s that researchers started to uncover the scientific underpinnings for that bond.

One of the earliest studies, published in 1980, found that heart attack patients who owned pets lived longer than those who didn’t. Another early study found that petting one’s own dog could reduce blood pressure.

More recently, says Rebecca Johnson, a nurse who heads the Research Center for Human/Animal Interaction at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, studies have been focusing on the fact that interacting with animals can increase people’s level of the hormone oxytocin.

“That is very beneficial for us,” says Johnson. “Oxytocin helps us feel happy and trusting.” Which, Johnson says, may be one of the ways that humans bond with their animals over time.

But Johnson says it may also have longer-term human health benefits. “Oxytocin has some powerful effects for us in the body’s ability to be in a state of readiness to heal, and also to grow new cells, so it predisposes us to an environment in our own bodies where we can be healthier.”

Animals can also act as therapists themselves or facilitate therapy — even when they’re not dogs or cats.

For example, psychologist Fine, who works with troubled children, uses dogs in his practice — and also a cockatoo and even a bearded dragon named Tweedle.

“One of the things that’s always been known is that the animals help a clinician go under the radar of a child’s consciousness, because the child is much more at ease and seems to be much more willing to reveal,” he says.

Horses have also become popular therapists for people with disabilities.

“The beauty of the horse is that it can be therapeutic in so many different ways,” says Breeanna Bornhorst, executive director of the Northern Virginia Therapeutic Riding Program in Clifton, Va. “Some of our riders might benefit from the connection and the relationship-building with the horse and with their environment. Other riders maybe will benefit physically, from the movements, and build that core strength, and body awareness and muscle memory.”

On a recent day, one of the therapeutic riding program’s instructors — speech therapist Cathy Coleman — worked one on one with 9-year-old Ryan Shank-Rowe, who has autism.

Well, not really one on one. The co-therapist in this session was a speckled pony named Happy.

Cathy Coleman is a speech pathologist for the Northern Virginia Therapeutic Riding Program. She uses a horse named Happy in her therapy sessions with 9-year-old Ryan Shank-Rowe, who has autism.

Maggie Starbard/NPR

“Walk on” said Ryan, and Happy obediently did. “Excellent,” Coleman replied.

As the session progressed, Ryan made Happy trot, weave in and out of poles, and he even rode bareback, all the while answering Coleman’s questions and keeping up a continual back-and-forth chatter.

Coleman says she used to see Ryan in a more formal office environment. But since he started horseback riding, his speech has actually improved.

“I get greater engagement, greater alertness, more language, more processing, all those things,” she says. “Plus, he’s just really good at it.”

And Ryan’s mother, Donna Shank, says the riding has helped with more than just his speech.

“It’s helped his following directions, some really core life skills about getting dressed and balance — which really translate to a lot of safety issues, too.”

But not all the research is focused on the humans. “We want to know how the animals are benefiting from the exchange,” says Johnson of the University of Missouri.

Much of Johnson’s research, for example, has focused on the value of dog-walking by studying volunteers who walk dogs at animal shelters. She even wrote a book, Walk a Hound, Lose a Pound.

Those programs have clearly helped people get healthier, she says. Not only do they increase their exercise while they’re walking the dogs, “but it increases their awareness, so that they exercise more during the week.”

But it turns out the program was also helping the dogs.

“What we found was that they were significantly more likely to be adopted if they were in the dog-walking group,” she says, thanks to the additional exercise and socialization they were getting.

Johnson is now working on a new project with likely benefits for dogs and humans. Military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are providing shelter dogs with basic obedience training.

And while it’s still early in the research, she says, one thing seems pretty clear: “Helping the animals is helping the veterans to readjust to being at home.”

Now the research is getting an even bigger scientific boost.

The National Institutes of Health, with funding from pet food giant Mars Inc., recently created a federal research program to study human-animal interaction. The program, operated through the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, offers scientists research grants to study the impact of animals on child development, in physical and psychological therapeutic treatments, and on the effects of animals on public health, including their ability to reduce or prevent disease.

Johnson says it’s critical to establish the scientific foundation for the premise that animals are good for people, even if that seems obvious.

“The last thing we want is for an entire field to be based on warm fuzzy feelings and not on scientific data,” she says. “So it’s very important that now the NIH is focused on this … and it is helping scientists across the country like myself to be able to do our research.”

See more and the conversation!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/09/146583986/pet-therapy-how-animals-and-humans-heal-each-other

Other News

Pets grieve too

Recognizing the symptoms of missing a departed owner or pal

July 23, 2013|By William Hageman, Tribune Newspapers
When a family pet dies, people grieve. But the reverse is also the case: When you go, your dog, cat or rabbit may grieve over losing you. And when a pet dies, a surviving pet may take it worst of all.

Pet grief exists. It’s not the same as the grief a person experiences nor is it as deep. It’s not present in every case. But it exists in ways recognizable to us.

The most evident manifestations of grief are a loss of appetite, social withdrawal or the frequent revisiting of places that were meaningful, according to Barbara J. King, a professor of anthropology at Virginia’s College of William & Mary who specializes in animal behavior.

King, the author of “How Animals Grieve” (University of Chicago Press), says that in some cases an animal’s response to a death can be explained by the pet being in tune with the surviving people in the house.

“We know with dogs, they’re so tuned in to our gestures and facial expressions,” she says. “There’s fascinating research that they’re more attuned than chimpanzees are, and chimpanzees are supposed to be the end-all and be-all of cognition. The problem comes in when some animal grief gets dismissed (on that basis). … The depth of an animal’s response and the length it lasts seem to go beyond responding to people in the home.”

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did a still-quoted behavioral study in 1996 to gauge the degree of pet responses to the death of another pet. The survey asked about changes in eating habits, sleeping, vocalization, solicitation of affection and more.

In both cats and dogs, the survey found, the category showing most change was solicitation of affection. In dogs, 34 percent demanded more attention, 12 percent sought less, 24 percent became clingy/needy, 4 percent avoided contact with their human. Only 26 percent were unchanged. In cats, 38 percent sought more attention, 8 percent sought less, 20 percent became clingy/needy, 10 percent avoided contact, 23 percent remained unchanged. (Figures were rounded off.)

Eating habits showed considerable change, with 36 percent of dogs and 46 percent of cats eating less than usual following the death of a housemate. The observed decreased appetite lasted from less than a week to six months.

In their conclusion, the researchers wrote, “we can assure pet owners that signs of grieving are not uncommon in dogs and cats.”

“I don’t want to say dogs grieve, cats grieve, horses grieve,” King says. “I say some dogs grieve. Sometimes people contact me and say (they) had two dogs and one died and the other didn’t grieve — why not? It’s animal individuality … the survivor’s relationship to the dead, the survivor’s personality. Sometimes animals recover quickly or do not grieve at all, but I think they grieve for us.”

Grief isn’t limited to cats and dogs, King found. “It was very surprising to me how much rabbits grieve. Ducks too. There was a duck rescued from a foie gras factory who had a duck friend die, and it didn’t survive the friend’s death. There can be a slow decline and death.”

If you suspect a pet is grieving, provide extra attention and love for your pet. King also suggests letting the survivor see the body if possible.

“Lots of animal people on farms and in homes do this now,” she says. “Sometimes the survivor seems to get a sense of closure. You have two close pets, friends, one goes to the vet and … doesn’t come back. … If it’s possible, let them smell the dead animal, see it. It might help. Or get a clipping of fur from the animal at the vet and let the survivor smell it.”

Bringing a new animal, a young animal, into the home has been shown to rejuvenate an older pet. But in the case of grieving, it might be best to let things run their course.

“Animals do love,” King says, “and we know one of the risks of love is grief.”

bhageman@tribune.com

Chicago Tribune Article

Art Therapy, Other News, Psychology

Color Therapy & Healing – An Introduction

From Art Therapy Blog

It is everywhere you look, and everywhere you don’t look. You delight in its marvels both consciously and sub-consciously. You see color all the time, but how often do you think about its origins and effects? In a series of articles, we are going to explore this topic further. With this first article, we’ll go over some basics of color therapy and healing. You can read the next 2 articles here: 1) Color Meanings and 2) Color Psychology. You can also download our color meaning and symbolism charts.

Topics covered in this article:

  1. What is Color?
  2. An Introduction to Color Therapy
  3. A Brief History of Color Therapy

What is Color?

As most of you know, color is light and energy. Color is visible because it reflects, bends, and refracts through all kinds of particles, molecules and objects. There are a variety of wavelengths that light can be categorized, producing different types of light. Visible wavelengths fall approximately in the 390 to 750 nanometre range and is known as the visible spectrum. Other wavelengths and frequencies are associated with non-visible light such as x-rays & ultraviolet rays. Most people are aware of the effects of non-visible light, so it makes sense that visible light would also affect us.

One example of the way light can affect us is a mild form of depression known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which causes many people suffering during winters.

An Introduction to Color Therapy

Color therapy and healing (also known as chromotherapy or light therapy) is a type of holistic healing that uses the visible spectrum of light and color to affect a person’s mood and physical or mental health. Each color falls into a specific frequency and vibration, which many believe contribute to specific properties that can be used to affect the energy and frequencies within our bodies.

While it is common knowledge that light enters through our eyes, it’s important to note that light can also enter through our skin. Given the unique frequencies and vibrations of various colors, people believe that certain colors entering the body can activate hormones causing chemical reactions within the body, then influencing emotion and enabling the body to heal.

Colors are known to have an effect on people with brain disorders or people with emotional troubles. For example, the color blue can have a calming effect which can then result in lower blood pressure, whereas the color red might have the opposite effect. Green is another color that may be used to relax people who are emotionally unbalanced. Yellow, on the other hand, may be used to help invigorate people who might be suffering from depression. (We’ll dive deeper into specific colors in a future article.)

Alternative therapies also believe that a person’s aura contains different layers of light which can be used for cleansing and balancing. Knowing the colors in your aura can help you better understand your spirit, and thus help you better understand how to heal. Additionally, the colors surrounding you can also have various effects.

A Brief History of Color Therapy

It’s no mystery that the sun and its source of light (or lack thereof), can have a profound effect on us. Thousands of years ago, some countries began exploring color and its healing capabilities. Egypt, Greece and China are known for their forays into color healing and therapy. A few examples include:

  • Painting rooms different colors with the hopes of treating certain conditions.
  • Utilizing colors in nature in their surroundings (blue from skies, green from grass, etc.)
  • Healing rooms that utilized crystals to break up sunlight shining through.

There is evidence of people attempting to use color for healing and therapy from as far back as 2000 years. And it has gained in popularity throughout the years, with numerous books being written about it, including Johann Wolfgang Goethe who studied the physiological effects of color. As we mentioned though, many people are skeptical about using color and light for healing or therapy.

Stay tuned for upcoming articles over the next few weeks where we’ll introduce color meanings and symbolism, how we see color, and the various effects of specific colors.

Does color affect you? Let us know in the comments.

Other News, Psychology

18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently – ReBogg

By Carolyn Gregoire

Creativity works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process.

Neuroscience paints a complicated picture of creativity. As scientists now understand it, creativity is far more complex than the right-left brain distinction would have us think (the theory being that left brain = rational and analytical, right brain = creative and emotional). In fact, creativity is thought to involve a number of cognitive processes, neural pathways and emotions, and we still don’t have the full picture of how the imaginative mind works.

And psychologically speaking, creative personality types are difficult to pin down, largely because they’re complex, paradoxical and tend to avoid habit or routine. And it’s not just a stereotype of the “tortured artist” — artists really may be more complicated people. Research has suggested that creativity involves the coming together of a multitude of traits, behaviors and social influences in a single person.

“It’s actually hard for creative people to know themselves because the creative self is more complex than the non-creative self,” Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at New York University who has spent years researching creativity, told The Huffington Post. “The things that stand out the most are the paradoxes of the creative self … Imaginative people have messier minds.”

While there’s no “typical” creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. Here are 18 things they do differently.

Read more about “18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently