ABOUT ME
JOANNA CHMIEL MA, DVATI​
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I hold a master's degree in psychology and have completed pedagogical qualifications for teachers in Poland. After moving to Canada, I pursued further training in art therapy at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute, integrating my passions for both art and mental health.
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I worked with children, youth, and adults in various settings, including hospitals, kindergartens, counseling centers, and senior support clubs, assisting clients in their journeys toward healing and personal growth.
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Throughout my career, I've intuitively used art and creativity as tools for self-expression and connection. I've witnessed firsthand the incredible benefits art brings to people's lives, including reducing anxiety and stress, increasing self-worth, and strengthening family bonds. These experiences have guided me to become a professional art therapist, sharing art as a healing agent.
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I believe in supporting clients on their healing journey, empowering them to tap into their inner resources, self-understanding, and intuition. I foster a non-judgmental partnership where clients are seen as experts of their own experiences.
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My work approach is integrative allowing me to answer the specific needs and goals of individual clients, groups or communities. The philosophical core of my practice combines influences from person-centered, positive psychology, strength-based and is grounded in mindfulness.
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As an art therapist, I offer a safe, empathetic space, embracing creativity as a healing tool. I work from a multicultural lens, supporting diverse backgrounds and experiences in both Polish and English. Through individual and group sessions, I guide clients in self-discovery, life transitions, and emotional challenges, promoting growth and resilience.
ABOUT ART THERAPY
WHAT IS ART THERAPY?
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Art therapy is a mental health discipline that merges creativity with psychotherapy. It utilizes the creative process of making art to improve physical, mental, and emotional well-being. By integrating visual arts with counseling techniques, art therapy promotes self-exploration, healing, and personal growth.
Through the use of imagery, colors, and shapes, art therapy helps individuals express complex emotions and thoughts that very often we found to be hard to articulate. This gentle, unique approach fosters a therapeutic triad between the client, the art, and the therapist, guiding the healing process.
Art therapy enhances self-awareness and insight, addresses emotional conflicts, and boosts self-esteem. It turns emotional pain into meaningful personal growth, empowering individuals to find purpose and direction.
In Canada, art therapists are required to hold a master’s degree or diploma in Art Therapy and complete at least 700 hours of supervised clinical practice to ensure high standards of client care.
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HOW ART THERAPY WORKS?
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Our human experience, thoughts and emotions are not always linear or chronological, thus not always just speaking about our problems or our experiences is enough, emotionally safe or brings full understanding and relief. Additionally, speaking about our complex emotions, life difficulties, experiences or relationships we can realize that very often we can’t find the right words to give full justice to what we bear inside.
Most of our memories and our actions are stored in forms of images and are based on our subconscious. Our subconscious speaks more readily in visual language and nonverbal language. Art therapy with the use of images, symbols and metaphors helps us access these subconscious memories and experiences. In other words, creating art can make our unconscious conscious, giving us precious knowledge about ourselves.
Art therapy is an amazing healing approach because it is a mind and body based approach to therapy. It means that the art making process engages physical activity along with the use of all the senses: seeing, touching, hearing, even smelling. Additionally, during art therapy the right and left hemispheres of the brain are activated. All these factors help reduce stress, provide relaxation, and improve our moods. Involving body movements in creative tasks helps calm us to become more in tune with our bodies, to be present in the moment and to release the past and the future. The act of coordinated movement and feeling with our senses helps regulate our heartbeat, breath and even muscle tone, bringing relaxation.
It’s important to add that art therapy is valuable for individuals with any artistic skill level. Art therapy focuses on the creative process itself not on the finished product and its aesthetic valors. The art therapist guides the client, if it is necessary, by providing purposely chosen art materials or individually tailored directives, supporting the art maker on his/her way towards a therapeutic goal.
In art therapy sessions the client can work with a variety of art materials and creative activities, including: painting, drawing, sculpting, knitting, weaving, writing, woodworking, and creating collages, working with clay and many other visual art possibilities.