BETHEL — Joy Cromwell believes that creativity is important in our lives and she uses creative expression as means to help people coping with anxiety, depression, or trauma.

“Too often we treat creativity as something supplemental,” Cromwell says. “But being in touch with your creativity helps you get in touch with your feelings in a way that is needed to deal with mental health issues.”

Her office, located in the Wiley Block at the top of Main Street, Bethel, across from Northeast Bank, opens the first week of March and will offer individual and group therapy.

Cromwell has worked as an elementary school counselor, also teaching art and music, as an integrated position in Milan, NH. She also interned at Community Mental Health in New Hampshire but wanted to open her own space in order to provide more unconventional techniques, like an expressive arts space and animal therapy.

“I want to help people who are doing OK but not thriving,” she says. “Using art to access the subconscious mind, instead of just talk therapy, and animal therapy is also subconsciously soothing.

Her specialty is in trauma work, and she welcomes people 16 years old and up, LGTBQ+, people dealing with trauma, or with depression and anxiety – people who want to better their lives.

At the first intake, Cromwell says she asks a lot of questions, to get an overview, to find out what’s troublesome. From that, they can choose what they want to work on, determine what they want to get better at.

“I also ask what creative outlets someone likes, something that is very comfortable,” she says. “Later, we can add different modalities to go deeper, to look at the issue from another angle. It’s important to take the time to spend with certain parts of yourself and allow that feeling to be felt, learn to be comfortable with it, learn about it. ‘What is this anxiety about?’, ‘Where does it come from?’”

Some forms of expression work better for some people than others, whether that’s movement, visual art, or music. Some people like to write or do poetry or play an instrument, but those are all avenues to examine what’s going on in the subconscious mind, she says.

“Expressive arts are more about the process than about what you make, or improving your technique,” she explains. “It’s about allowing yourself the space to look at your feelings in a less direct way, taking the time to check in with yourself, to ask, ‘How does this feel?’”

Although she plans to offer group sessions that might meet for six weeks, or single workshops where people could just drop in, she wants to build a relationship with her clients and is looking for “a commitment to meet a set of goals that we come up with together.”

“My belief is that everyone should have a counselor, the way they have a primary care physician,” Cromwell says. “You have someone who knows you, so if a crisis happens, you have someone you can go to.”

Every other week for an hour works for most people, she adds, but some might come once a month. It takes a few sessions just to get to someone’s story and to set some goals, she says.

White Mountain Expressive Arts & Counseling will offer after-hours appointments, to better accommodate people’s work schedules and accepts a variety of insurances. (A full list is found on the Facebook page.) She also offers a cash rate of $100 for an individual counseling session without insurance.

For more information go to whitemountainexpressivearts.com, call (207) 808-0373 or email joy@whitemountainexpressivearts.com.  It can also be found on Facebook.

 

 

 

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