Integrate Somatic Practices with Expressive Arts

Join Us for a 15 Hour CE/PD Live Webinar Series Beginning in January 2026

This five session live webinar series highlights how expressive arts therapy strategies are essential to "bottom up" strategies that emphasize the senses and body-based approaches.

This course is designed to support practitioners (psychotherapists, counselors, facilitators, coaches, and more) in using expressive arts therapy and sensory integration approaches to address stress and traumatic stress, emotional challenges, and attachment problems. We always include neuro-affirming concepts because expressive arts therapy lends itself to work with neurodivergent individuals and groups.


Core Principles in this course include: the MSSS Model of Expressive Arts Therapy; the Circle of Capacity and Restorative Embodiment through expressive arts practices;  S.A.G.E.--Synchrony, Attunement, Grounding, and Engagement in supporting healthy attachment; and the Expressive Arts Therapy Autonomic Wheel, emphasizing the importance of capacity-building experiences in therapy that reinforce joy, enlivenment, mastery, self-agency, and creativity as restorative experiences.

You can apply this course to the Restorative Embodiment Practitioner Certificate and Bilateral Movement Desensitization and Resensitization Certificate, and of course, EXAT or EXA-CE designations.

Course Meeting Dates:

Jan 27th

Feb 3rd

Feb 10

Feb 17th

Feb 24th  

Course meets each date from 12 noon -- 3 pm Eastern (New York City) Time Zone. You can join us LIVE each time schedule and/or catch the replays on the course site if unable to make the live zoom session! Remember, "you do you!" There are replays of lectures, experientials, and slide presentations posted to the course site each week and available to you for one year after the course meeting.

Each session includes presentations on theory, practice, and research. 

This course also provides strategies for combining and complementing methods found in somatic approaches to health and wellness. These include, but are not limited to, principles of Bilateral Stimulation (bilateral movement, drawing, sounding, and more); sensory integration and sensorimotor expressive arts; body maps and body mapping; principles related to Somatic Experiencing and other current mind-body practices; and the autonomic nervous system, vagal network, and restorative approaches to wellness and resilience.

Continuing Education Information

Counselors. National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC). Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6557. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC are clearly identified. Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. 

Art Therapy Credentials Board [ATCB]. The ATCB recognizes a variety of CEC activities, including those in the areas of professional and mental health counseling. These activities are clearly outlined in their recertification standards provided to all ATR-BCs in their recertification year and on their website. A minimum of six CECs must be earned in the area of ethics each cycle. If you are licensed as an art therapist in your state, please check with your state board to verify what types of CEC activities are acceptable for license renewal.

California Marriage and Family Therapists, Social Workers and Professional Counselors. As of July 1, 2015, the State of California /Board of Behavioral Sciences [BBS] amended its regulations for continuing education providers to include National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as a "board-recognized approval agency." If you are licensed as a marriage and family therapist, social worker, educational psychologist or professional clinical counselor in California, NBCC Approved Continuing Education Providers are recognized by the BBS to fulfill continuing education requirements. As of July 1, 2015, required CE hours can be accumulated through self-study and distance learning. 

International Expressive Arts Therapy Association [IEATA]. Many participants go on to apply for the REAT or REACE credential with IEATA and use our expressive arts therapy coursework to do so. Please check with IEATA to make sure you are meeting their current requirements for registration and let us know if you need additional information to help you qualify.

Psychotherapy and Counseling Fedration of Australia [PACFA]. Many of our Australian participants indicate that these hours are accepted by PACFA---Psychotherapy and Counseling Federation of Australia. Please check with PACFA to verify this and let us know if you require any additional information for this organization to qualify your professional development hours.

Canadian Counseling and Psychotherapy Association [CCPA]. Many of our Canadian participants indicate that these hours are accepted by CCPA for certain professional development requirements. Please check with CCPA to verify this and let us know if you require any additional information for this organization to qualify your professional development hours.

CPD hours [Professional Development] are currently in the application stage. We also welcome teachers to this course; please contact us for additional information.

Credentialing boards in Canada, Europe, and Australia accept our courses for professional development. Please check with them to verify that this course applies to your goals for credentialing or renewal of registration, certification, or licensing.

What You Will Learn...and Practice!

Our webinars are always supplemented with an extensive course site of downloadable articles, resources, summaries, and infographics. You can go back at your convenience and review the materials and films for a year (and ask us for access after that should you need to).

Participants in this five session live webinar series will learn and practice the following:

Apply at least five Sensorimotor Expressive Arts Therapy interventions, emphasizing bilateral-focused movement, sounding, and mark-making, in your work;

Create "sensory maps" to support and explore the eight senses--touch, sound, smell, taste, sight, interoception, proprioception, and balance;

Learn at least three creative ways to help individuals express interoception, body-wise and emotion-focused;

Practice and explore "micro-embodiment" to safely introduce body-focused interventions through expressive arts and sensory processing;

Define why rhythm and attunement are central to supporting restoration, somatic approaches, and sensory integration and emotional stabilization;

Explore mark-making with yourself and individuals through body-based experiences-- wrist, shoulder, standing, and more-- and identify how these positions support embodied cognition and the regulatory network;

The role of visual body mapping, scans, and maps of subjective feelings in somatic approaches to expressive arts therapy; 

Learn why an "expressive and embodied" Internal Family Systems activity can be a powerful somatic pathway to embodied transformation;

Culture, privilege, and oppression and the ethics of applying embodiment and somatic practices in psychotherapy, coaching, and education;

Supporting clients/patients capacity to be "arts-based researchers" in their own progress, restoration, and recovery through bilateral work.

And how to work from this model of Expressive Arts Therapy and the Autonomic Nervous System to support individual restoration and resilience: 



Institute Faculty Cathy Malchiodi PhD

Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPCC, LPAT, REAT is a research psychologist, a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist, and a licensed mental health counselor and licensed professional art therapist. She is the executive director of the Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute and is an investigator with the US Department of Education, integrating trauma-informed expressive arts into classrooms. She has also worked with the Department of Defense since 2008 to bring expressive arts therapy programming and psychotherapy to combat military and their families and Veterans with posttraumatic stress and traumatic brain injury. Dr. Malchiodi studied with Francine Shapiro and is qualified in EMDR Level I and Level II. Cathy has assisted more than 500 agencies, organizations, and institutions in developing trauma-informed programming including the United Nations, Department of Defense, Kennedy Center, Harvard, MIT, and Johns Hopkins University. An international presenter and workshop leader, she given over 750 invited keynotes and workshops throughout the US, Canada, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. She has authored 21 books, including the bestselling Trauma and Expressive Arts Therapy: Brain, Body, and Imagination in the Healing Process and Handbook of Expressive Arts Therapy. Her books have been translated in over 20 languages. A life-long learner, Dr. Malchiodi's latest research and practice includes sensory processing and neurodiversity affirming models of psychotherapy to address trauma through expressive approaches to intervention.

Institute Faculty | Supervisor AriAnna Carroll, LMHC, REAT, EXAT

Ari is a licensed mental health counselor, registered expressive arts therapist, and an EMDR certified provider. She is a certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator and is working towards completing all levels of training in the Oaklander Model of Gestalt Play Therapy. Since graduating from the Expressive Arts Therapy Program at the University of Louisville in 2004, she has supported groups and individuals of all ages in a variety of settings including schools, residential care settings, in-patient treatment centers, rehabilitation programs, and out-patient mental health therapy settings. Ari is currently in private practice, the first in Iowa to put expressive arts therapy at the heart of client care. She specializes in providing youth and family-based services, in addition to working with adults that have an interest in resourcing expressive arts. Ari offers technology-assisted supervision for those working towards the EXAT, EXAT-CE, and REAT (registered expressive arts therapist), encouraging growth through supportive dialog, inquiry into theory and approaches, and active practice of expressive arts modalities. As a life-long percussionist, she has a special interest in integrating rhythm and sound oriented approaches into therapy. As parent to a neurodivergent child, she is invested in continued learning relating to neurodiversity affirming practices and advocacy. She enjoys exploring the relationship between expressive arts therapy, neuroscience, and sensory-oriented insights, and how this informs practice that encourages wholistic engagement, integration, and healing. Her accomplishments include creating community-oriented therapeutic expressive arts programming for adults and youth, supporting those with interest in private practice development, certification in Rhythm 2 Recovery, a therapeutic method that integrates rhythm and reflection for social emotional health, and partnering with schools in support of neurodivergent children and families, serving as co-creator and facilitator in presentations and support groups for parents/caregivers of twice-exceptional youth within her community. Ari creates harmony between practice and play with her family, pursuing outdoor adventures and shared creative outlets, appreciating the journey ahead of the destination.

Institute Faculty | Supervisor Emily Johnson Welsh

Emily Johnson Welsh, LPAT-S, LPCC-S , ATR-BC, EXAT, REAT, has over 17 years’ experience providing expressive arts therapy support and developing resources in trauma-informed approaches and integrative wellness. She is a graduate of Lesley University’s Expressive Arts Therapy and Mental Health Counseling program in 2008 and is a licensed and board-certified art therapist/supervisor, licensed clinical counselor/supervisor, expressive arts therapist/ trauma-informed, and registered expressive arts therapist. As faculty for the Trauma-informed Expressive Arts Therapy Institute for over 12 years, she brings a current knowledge of expressive arts and body-based approaches that focus on building resilience and community. She provides technology-assisted distance supervision for those working towards the EXAT / EXA-CE, REAT (Registered Expressive Art Therapist), ATR (Registered Art Therapist), and LPAT (Licensed Professional Art Therapist in Kentucky). Emily’s accomplishments in the field include presentations at conferences for the American Art Therapy Association, Buckeye Art Therapy Association, Kentucky Association for Play Therapy, and International Expressive Art Therapy Association; authoring and co-authoring chapters in the book Art Therapy and Healthcare (Guildford Press, 2013) ; co-designing and co-facilitating the online artmaking workshop “Art Therapy + Happiness Project;" being awarded "Cure Champion" by the American Cancer Society for my accomplishments in bringing expressive art therapy and yoga programming to families fighting cancer. Most recently, Emily enjoys balancing her expressive arts therapies private practice, Art Yoga Love, LLC, serving children, families, and adults, with yoga studio ownership and teaching! She is also nourished by wonders of parenting, being outside, loving on her fury friends and plans to never stop finding gratitude in these simple daily adventures.

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