Talk

MPS Art Therapy presents a talk with Mia de Béthune on the importance of touch and full-body artmaking for art therapy as part of its virtual community lecture.

The Importance of Touch and Full Body Artmaking to Art Therapy presents an historical look at touch within art therapy and the prominent sentiment that it’s taboo. The relationship between touch and embodied art therapy will be outlined through recent research including Mia de Bethune’s doctoral study. Several full body artmaking protocols, including one developed by Bethune, will be described and illustrated through case and group examples.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will be able to identify three ways in which touch and full-bodied art making are important to contemporary art therapy practice; as well as historical antecedents.
2. Attendees will be able to identify three ethical applications of touch within art therapy practice including via telehealth.
3. Attendees will gain understanding of and be able to identify three full body forms of artmaking that are current or new art therapy practices.

Mia de Béthune is an artist, art therapist, educator, and writer who has been practicing art therapy since 2000. She is also a somatic therapist with training in numerous modalities: Somatic Experiencing, Integral Somatic Psychology, Inner Relationship Focusing, Reiki, Embodied Meditation, Bilateral Somatic Guided Drawing, Focusing Oriented Art Therapy, and Bilateral Somatosensory Expressive Arts Therapy. 

Bethune received her PhD in expressive arts therapy from Lesley University in 2024 with a focus on embodied art therapy. She is a co-editor of the forthcoming book The Embodied Art Therapist (Routledge, 2026) and has begun work on two new projects: touch and art therapy, and virtual art therapy and embodied practice. She is an adjunct instructor at New York University and Syracuse University and the former secretary of the New York Art Therapy Association.

The MPS Art Therapy Department at the School of Visual Arts is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists. #CAT-0054.

1.5 CE hours available for LCATs.

SVA wants to ensure persons with disabilities have access to this event. If you are a person with a disability who requires accommodations to access or participate in this event, please reach out to the department at arttherapy@sva.edu or to SVA Disability Resources disabilityresources@sva.edu at least seven business days prior to the event.