What Can an Art Therapist do for You

Erin Rose Nanney: Art Therapist

Hello! I’m Erin, I just joined the practice here at Panorama. I am trained in art therapy and see both children and adults. I was very excited when I saw this job opportunity at Panorama, which for those of you who don’t know, is in Murrayville in Langley. I have been in Vancouver since 2019 and loved the idea of getting out of the city. It’s just blossoming into spring now and the drive to and from work is stunning. So many cherry trees and wide open fields. I was raised in Tucson, Arizona but have lived all over the world. Almost nothing I have seen so far rivals the natural beauty of British Columbia. I have decided to settle in BC and am starting my first private practice here at Panorama. 

Panorama is such a warm and welcoming environment, I immediately felt at home in the office and knew that my clients would too. My particular passion in therapy is helping people discover who they really are. Wading through the anxiety, coping mechanisms, noise of life and life’s expectations to help you discover their truth and live a life that feels authentic to you. I find the two groups that I end up working with the most in this niche are adult women who feel anxious and like they have lost touch with who they are and queer folks who are just beginning to discover and own their identity.

Women with Anxiety

I work with women who struggle with anxiety and managing stress. If you find that you can relate to this, you may find the anxiety and stress often come about because, for most of your life, you have tried to be whatever everyone else thought you should be: a self-sacrificing caretaker, a successful career woman, a happy partner regardless of what the relationship looks like, a thin/beautiful/active/healthy person without bad habits. Somewhere along the way your needs and sense of self have gotten a little lost in trying to take care of everyone else and trying to live up to your own high expectations.

This way of living is common for many women. 

There is a societal expectation for us to put the needs of loved ones before your own needs and to be healthy and happy while doing it. But it can be draining and over time you may lose sight of who you are and what you want. That’s where the anxiety comes in.

Anxiety, especially anxiety attacks can be subconscious worry. It can often be a way of your subconscious telling you that something is wrong. This can be anything from worry and fear from situations in childhood that you never dealt with to unhappiness with an aspect of your current life.

I work with clients experiencing anxiety and support self discovery through teaching grounding techniques, from simple breathing exercises to guided meditations, exploring your values, what’s important to you, what’s not important and what you feel like is missing in your life. I also make time to explore your early experiences and to understand how that shaped your automatic reactions, beliefs and values now.

Additionally, I will help you explore your choices. I will work with you to help you determine if it's important and of value or perhaps something that you have outgrown that no longer serves you. Regardless of where your counselling journey takes you, I am on your team, and in your corner. Experiencing anxiety while also being responsible for taking care of others can be incredibly isolating. You feel like there is no one you can talk to or “burden” with your worries or concerns. That’s my job. To help you feel less alone and help you find a way to navigate out of the anxiety and build healthy coping strategies that serve you and help you to become the most authentic version of yourself.

Queer Self-Discovery

“Just as there are seven billion unique and beautiful people in the world, there are seven billion different unique and beautiful ways that gender and sexuality can be expressed”

 -Jonathan Van Ness

Another topic I’m really passionate about and love to work with people on is queer self-discovery. This category can take many forms. Someone exploring their attraction to the same sex, someone realizing that they don’t feel like they fit into any gender at all, a person feeling like they were born into the wrong body or a person exploring not being attracted to anyone. Whatever their experience has been, members of the LGBTQ+ community often find that their self-identity does not match with what their family or community expects of them (male, female, straight, interested in sex and relationships).

If you identify as LGBTQ+, you may have found that you have to face stigma and coming out, not seeing your experience in the media and in the beginning often feeling like there is something wrong with you or that your identity is not valid. I’m here to tell you that you, your experience, your gender, sexuality and gender expression are valid.

But it can be very easy to feel like you don’t fit in. 

Discovering, embracing and sharing your identity can feel overwhelming, isolating and anxiety provoking. I strive to create a safe space for people to explore who they are, what their values are and to support the truest version of themselves. Especially if it’s a version of yourself that doesn’t fit neatly into a box.

I will work with you, session by session, to explore what your needs are, identify your bigger goals and discover what will serve you right now. I can help you with a wide range of areas, from immediately introducing coping skills, to planning ways for you to feel safer out in the world, to helping you have the conversations you need to have with your friends and family that will help them understand who you are. I will create a space for you to explore and discuss whatever it is that you need to and together we will work to create a life, self and expression that feels authentic to you.

Art Therapy

I have my masters degree in counselling psychology and art therapy. I see clients who don’t want to do art and that’s fine. However lots of people don’t really understand what art therapy is.

Art therapy is a tool that we can use to work through your feelings, trauma, history, emotions instead of exclusively trying to understand it through words. Art therapy helps you realize things you didn’t know before about yourself.

The way I like to use art therapy is through art directives. An art directive is when we pick a specific topic and make art around it. One example of this would be, if someone is feeling misunderstood we could do an inside/outside collage. An inside/outside collage is where on one side of the paper, you collage images of how the world and other people see you and, on the other side, you collage images of how you see yourself. Then we talk about it.

My favorite part about art therapy is discussing the work with you. I don’t make judgements or assumptions about what you have made, but rather ask you what specific images, colors, choices mean to you. As we explore the art together you may begin to make realizations and discoveries about your behaviors, thought patterns, beliefs that you hadn’t realized before and may not have realized until they were laid out before you on paper.

Art therapy isn’t exclusively drawing or trying to make a realistic image. Collages, blobs of color and even words can be art therapy. I often watch clients, after I say something, like “draw your strengths,” actually write lists of their strengths instead. Which is great! I’ve had so many successful art therapy sessions when someone chose to write instead of draw. Because it doesn’t matter what it looks like or what form it takes. What matters is that the beliefs, feelings and thoughts in your head are now out on a paper in front of you. And when you are looking at them, and discussing them out loud, you may make connections and realizations about yourself that you would not have made otherwise.

I totally get that starting something new can be overwhelming, especially therapy because you’re coming into a space where you’re expected to share vulnerable and emotional parts of yourself. If you want more information, you can learn more about me here.

If anything I mentioned landed for you, feel free to reach out. I offer a 15 min phone consultation where we can chat and see if it feels like it would be a good fit. I’d love to hear from you and help you reach your goals for health and wellness.