This therapist is not yet taking online appointment requests. To schedule an appointment, call 615-510-4551, or email admin@tnmentalwellness.com
Licensed Professional Art Therapist
$165 per 50 minute session
Rebekah Near is a Licensed Professional Art Therapist. She specializes in helping children, adults and families work through grief, conflict, depression and anxiety, through experiential art therapy.
Are you looking for something different? Art therapy aims at getting to the authentic root of issues with individuals and groups through the arts using the arts as its basis for discovery and change. Art therapy integrates the visual arts, movement, drama, music, writing, play and other creative processes to foster personal transformation.This unique therapy style assists in coping through major life changes and helps to increase self-care and mindfulness. In our art therapy sessions we will engage the full range of emotions associated with life’s obstacles.
No artistic skill is needed, just a willingness to be open to the process. The creative process of generating art during a traumatic time offers an opportunity for transformation and making connections. The real work in healing does not come when we merely tell our stories. They need to be seen, to be experienced. The arts help us to find a greater range of play and bear witness to what emerges(Near 2009). There is no way to do it wrong.
Art therapy is hands-on and experiential, using simple, accessible tools and materials. The expressive arts are designed to promote self-discovery and support moving through day-to-day life’s joys and challenges with a bit more grace and comfort. Activities are tailored to the individual needs of participants. Engagement in mindful and creative tasks can help us find the “flow” state, where we can let go of past and future worries, and just be in the present moment. This connection helps rewire our nervous systems and create accessible pathways to a relaxed state. These creative tools can also offer a surprising change of perspective and allow for new self discoveries.
The expressive arts allow us to enter our grief, building bridges between our emotions and intellect. The act of creating crystalizes an individuals story allowing them to see it in a new light (Near 2012).
Art Therapy Specialties
Grief & Loss
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•Life threatening illness of self or loved one
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•Death of a loved one – bereavement
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•Death of a pet
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•Perinatal Loss
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•Transitions – postpartum mothers
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•Separation due to;
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✴ Divorce
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✴Military deployment
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✴Sibling separation in life threatening illness- hospitalization stays
Wellness/ Self-care
Anxiety/ Depression
Who can benefit form expressive Art Therapy
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•Individual for children and teens (ages 5 – 21years of age)
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•Adults
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•Group
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• Healthcare professionals
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•Community support
Other Session Offerings
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•Pet Therapy is offered in conjunction with expressive arts coaching
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•Walk and Talk
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•Nature-art based
Rebekah Near, CAGS, LPAT, is a certified expressive arts coach, licensed professional art therapist, artist, author and educator. She has worked for several years in the hospice and pediatric palliative care arena, integrating expressive arts into the field of Thanatology. Rebekah is an international and national presenter on the expressive arts and grief. She has also taught the expressive arts at Bard College, Saint Rose College, New York Expressive Arts, and Sumner Academy. Rebekah believes that unlike any other method the arts offer unique ways of understanding ourselves and the world around us.
Consultation
Rebekah consults on integration expressive arts theory and techniques into a variety of settings: hospitals, pediatric palliative care, hospice facilities / homecare, clinics, and schools.
Supervision
Rebekah offers clinical supervision for individuals seeking licensure under the Licensed Creative Arts Therapy in New York State as well as art therapists and expressive arts therapists for ATR/ REAT.
PUBLICATIONS, LECTURES, MEDIA
Near, R & Thompson, B. (2020) The Superpower of the Expressive Arts. In J. Harrington & R.A. Neimeyer (Ed.) Superhero Grief The Transformative Power of Loss. New York: Routledge
Broken Pieces: Transforming Grief Through Pottery, Presenter, 2019
National Association for Death Education and Counseling, Presenter: Creative and Imaginative Restorative Retelling of Our Grief Stories, 2019
National Association for Death Education and Counseling, Presenter: My Womb, Now Your Tomb: Life, Through the Arts after a Miscarriage, 2019
National Association for Death Education and Counseling, Presenter: Exploring Grief Through the Expressive Arts, 2018
Expressive Therapies Summit, Presenter: The Opening: Exploring Grief Through Intermodal Expressive Arts, 2018
Near, R. (2012) Balden Town: Transforming Grief Through the Arts. Documentary on the use of expressive arts therapy in grief counseling
Near, R. (2012) Intermodal Expressive Arts. In R.A. Neimeyer (Ed.) Techniques of grief therapy. New York: Routledge
Near, R (2012) Expressive Arts with Grieving Children. In C. Malchiodi (Ed.) Art Therapy in Healthcare. New York: Guilford Publishing Company
National Association for Death Education and Counseling, Presenter: Balden Town: Transforming Grief Through the Arts, 2012
Expressive Therapies Summit, Presenter: Transforming Grief Through the Arts: How Expressive Arts Therapy helps children/ adolescents and their families in the grieving process, 2011
International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, Presenter: Uncertain Life: Exploring Grief’s Multiplicity Through the Expressive Arts, 2011
Association for Creativity in Counseling- a division of The American Counseling Association, Presenter: Exploring clinician’s own thoughts and bias about death, and grief through the expressive arts, 2010
Wood, D.D & Near Lancto, R (2010) Using expressive arts when counseling bereaved children. In C.A.Corr & D.E. Balk (Eds.) Children’s encounters with death, bereavement, and coping. New York: Springer Publishing Company
National Association for Death Education and Counseling, Presenter: Telling the Stories Through the Arts, 2010
Society for the Arts in Healthcare, Presenter: How 2 pARTner with Kids: the use of expressive arts in pediatric palliative care, 2010
Hospice Palliative Care Association for New York State, Presenter: Transforming Grief Through the Arts, 2009
HealthDay News for Healthier Living, Interviewed for: Mourning Death of Loved One Raises Your Risk of Dying, 2007
MSNBC Today In New York, Guest Interview: Grieving Through The Holidays, 2007
National Association for Death Education and Counseling, Presenter: Creative Forms of Treatment: Viewing Grief as an Opportunity for Growth, 2007
This therapist is not yet taking online appointment requests. To schedule an appointment, call 615-510-4551, or email admin@tnmentalwellness.com