Alex Kulikowski Brings Professional Reflections on Mental Health to World Health Day
On April 7th, ITA’s Art Therapy intern, Alex Kulikowski was a guest lecturer at the University of Chicago‘s World Health Day. University of Chicago’s Department of Public Policy held a day of presentations, discussions, and workshops focused on mental health and more specifically depression. The student body came together to discuss personal reflections of mental health, share ways the school and the study body can assist you, and attend workshops related to the prevention of depressive symptoms. The Art therapy workshop included a brief introduction to the benefits of art therapy and the intervention, Walking through the Valley. The art intervention used challenged the students to look at positive and negative points in their life and express them creatively. While focusing on these life points, you concentrate on the positive as opposed to dwelling on the negative and discuss how these positive points overpower the negative ones, which functions to reframing one’s negative thoughts similar to the approach taken in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.