ABOUT THE CENTER FOR DISASTER HEALING RESOURCES EXPRESSIVE ARTS & RECOVERY TEAM
Bridget Steed is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, certified Person-Centered Expressive Arts Therapist, and intermodal artist who divides her time between Mexico and the United States. She is particularly drawn to working with vulnerable and underserved populations, including adults with intellectual and physical disabilities. Bridget has repeatedly witnessed how the use of visual art, music, dance, song, drama, and writing helps foster creative expression, connection, purpose, and self-esteem. She has served as an Executive Committee Co-Chair (ECC) for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA) since 2023 and enjoys collaborating with people from all over the world to help advocate for and bring awareness to the use of the arts for growth, transformation, and healing. Bridget enjoys leading groups through intermodal expressive arts therapy processes as well as offering trainings to graduate students on how to incorporate Art Therapy and Expressive Arts Therapy into their work with clients. She believes that creative expression is one of the most beautiful ways to heal the mind, body, and spirit, and allow oneself to be seen in the world.
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Bridget Steed, MA, LMHC
Person-Centered Expressive
Arts Therapist
Arts & Recovery Team Leader
Reji Mathew, Ph.D., LCSW, REAT
Registered Expressive Arts Therapist
Arts & Recovery Team Member
Arts Reporter
Expressive arts are central to my worldview, work, life, and social activism. Over the past 15 years, I have cultivated a varied work life. I am an integrative, neuroscience-informed, social work psychotherapist; a narrative freelance journalist; a digital artist; and an expressive arts advocate.
As a freelance narrative journalist (ASJA member), I work on a wide range of human-interest issues that focus on health recovery, the arts, and resiliency. Understanding place and context are central values in my writing. My storytelling is informed by my education in academia, mental health, social work, and community advocacy. I have written for PBS: Next Avenue, Coping with Cancer Magazine, the United Brain Association, Post-Polio Health International.
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In my counseling work, my primary worldview is a bio-psycho-social narratology (narrative therapy) lens, inspired by my background in narrative journalism. It is crucial to me to understand people in the context of their environment in real-time (cultural time). My narrative lens is intersectional with a commitment to understanding the complex identities we hold along class, culture, location, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and accessibility. As a street academic, I present in settings ranging from non-profits to hospital settings, primarily speaking on the topic of providing mental health care with culturally affirming attunement.
For my arts-based work, I am an intermodal artist and an expressive arts advocate. I am passionate about expressive languages—movement, visual arts, drama, writing, and music. I am always on the lookout for the narrative thread of how artistic skills enable us to reimagine our lives when facing challenges. My arts specialization explores the use of expressive arts as multi-sensory processing tools for problem-solving, self-expansion, and personal growth.
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WEBSITE: Expressive Arts Advocate
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Contributor
Julie Norton (she/her/hers) is a caucasian, cisgender Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and certified Person-Centered Expressive Arts Therapist. She lives in California, USA and has a tele-health practice online. She supports adults and children facing a variety of issues including grief and loss, chronic illness, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress/growth. She has broad experience assisting youth and couples. Her strengths-based approach to psychotherapy is influenced by interpersonal neurobiology, humanistic and attachment theory, EMDR, and somatic and mindfulness-based theories, as well as her personal experience through many years as a person-centered expressive artist.