Student Art Therapist:

My Journey

 

I am a current graduate student in Syracuse University's Creative Arts Therapy M.S. program. I am entering my 3rd semester of internship at with a local placement in a hospital system in the greater Syracuse area. I have also interned at a local cultural center serving youth and their families in an open access art therapy program of my design. I am also writing a book aimed for using art therapy in Substance Use Disorder inpatient settings focusing on managing trauma response, PTSD and C-PTSD symptoms.

 

My work primarily lies within the community addressing intergenerational trauma and domestic violence via psychoeducation, in community centers and clinical facilities seeking to uplift youth and adults impacted by trauma.

 

I seek to strengthen our community via community engaged art and open access art therapy and help in bringing equity to our marginalized populations and intergenerational healing to our souls. I do this through teaching emotional literacy-based art classes, and incorporating emotional literacy, existentialist exploration, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy tools, Strengths-Based Therapy, and Self-Care as Community-Care throughout my therapeutic practice.  

 

I also strongly support our community’s need for public access art therapy to address systemic abuse and neglect, marginalization of under-resourced communities, domestic violence and substance use disorders (symptoms of poverty), collective trauma, and PTSD/ C-PTSD. SOAR will be my culminating gift to our community, providing a wide variety of healing arts in a retreat-style setting offered on a sliding scale so that we all may have the same access to these tools for healing and well-being, regardless of income status, for our united ascent.

 

 

When working with people either as an art educator or as a student an art therapist, my first aim is always to highlight the innate and unique beauty of each person I connect with. I am an ever evolving being, continually sifting in new data and intricacies. Seeking to see. I search for strengths and to draw connections which are the manifestations of our own minds and our whole selves, our connection.

 

I also seek to highlight notions of the human condition and the circumstances of life and living, the only constant is change (Anicca); we can’t expect to be happy/ contented all of the time. There is no light without darkness, no true knowledge of joy without suffering. We must expect discomfort and pain along with the good and uplifting, and in that know that both negative and positive will pass. This is the nature of life. 

 

Anicca- S. N. Goenka

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I encourage observation of the self "as it is" and in using that as a tool for insight, growth, and aid in reframing our perceptions, so we so we may better sense what lies deeper within and live our lives via our own authentic self. …Minus shame, stigma, negative self-talk, and narrowed self-worth. I seek to empower one another with tools of self-awareness through self-observation, radical self-care, psychoeducation, emotional literacy, and attuned embodiment. We are all ever evolving beings. I welcome you to share this space.

 

Metta,

        Jessica

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Fine Artist:

Artist Statement

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Jessica McGhee is a conceptual, surrealist landscape painter. She most often creates her Fine Art using mixed medias on found plywood that would have otherwise ended up rotting on the side of the road and filling the soil with man-made resins. She finds that creating immense beauty and purpose out of potentially harmful waste contributes to the appreciation and sustainability of our earth and existence. ​

 

Jessica is a firm believer that art and nature are essential factors for open exploration, inner growth, resilience, and well-being. Much of how people learn is through cause and effect, making mistakes, forming preferences, and realizing the things they never could have ideated were it not for those mistake, thus creating a new journey of exploration, leading to self-actualization.  Consider how many times people faceplant as toddlers, or the dedication required when learning how to drive.

 

Consistent exposure to art and nature create an open canvas for expounding self-expression. Art and nature intermingle with the ephemeral, the tangible and intangible, contrasting positives and negatives of life, and our notions of connection to one another within the world that surrounds our physical existences.

 

Observations of nature and a steady art practice allow us to explore and examine the many experiences presented to us for contemplation. The cause and effect of attending to nature and creative expression create a curiosity for the world around oneself; instilling a continuous desire to explore life’s many terrains and bear witness the many beauties existence has to offer. Exposure to nature and art aids in deciphering one’s own preferences, determining personal values, and navigating the path toward self-actualization. This exposure causes stronger resiliency, the diving board which we bound off of, and launch into life from. It’s all relative.

 

Jessica is also currently launching a nonprofit, SOAR, which plans to provide those suffering with PTSD and C-PTSD with sliding scale access to alternative therapies such as yoga, mindfulness meditation and art therapies in a retreat-style setting. Because we all need a retreat sometimes, but so many cannot access such beneficial practices due to financial barriers.