Betty Parsonage
Betty is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who has helped hundreds of clients experience the healing value of the Expressive Arts. She has worked with clients individually and in group settings deal with substance abuse, cancer and other health issues, stress management, and mental illness. She recently received an Award of Excellence for Creativity and Innovation.
Her academic record includes a Bachelor of Science degree from Prescott College in Human Development and Expressive Art Therapy and a Masters of Arts Degree from Ottawa University in Professional Counseling with a concentration in Expressive Art Therapy. She is also a Guided Imagery Therapist.
Betty is founder and facilitator of an Art for Healing program offered to individuals living with serious illness as well as a previous volunteer in the Florida Hospital Artist in Residence Program where she worked bedside with children and adults dealing with serious illness. Betty also taught a stress reduction class to Florida Hospital nurses and staff. She was an instructor in the Yavapai College Community Education program where she taught Expressive Arts for Healing and has recently been a Hospice volunteer at the VA Hospital in Prescott, AZ. Betty is an accomplished artist and has authored two expressive art workbooks.
Betty has learned through her own life experiences the inherent healing value of the Expressive Arts and has a passion for sharing this knowledge with others. She is a member of the American Counseling Association, the Professional Writers of Prescott and Mountain Artist Guild.
About Creative Journeys Book
Creative Journeys: The Healing Powers of the Expressive Arts is a book designed to help you work through topics relevant to the issues we face every day. Reading the material and completing the exercises will help bring awareness to how “your past may be your present.” Often these buried issues create a negative effect on our current health and happiness.
The topics are presented in a way that the understanding derived from one activity will support the learning that follows. Each will have an art activity to help you access the emotional right side of your brain where your memories are stored, followed by a writing activity to help give you even greater clarity of your unearthed emotions. Writing or documenting the brief, Personal Reflections, that follow each activity will provide an ongoing record of the “ah ha” thoughts that are sure to surface.
The goal of the Creative Journeys workbook is to help you become aware of some of the less than ideal ways we deal with life. Awareness is the first step and often requires a little digging and unraveling to have it surface. The digging, exploring, discovering, and clarifying are what the expressive arts are all about—the Creative Journeys workbook is your guide.