Continuing Education March 27
You are invited to a…
Nazareth University Workshop:
Art, Language, and CBT-Informed Thinking in Art Therapy Practice
Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Time: 9:00am - 11:00am
Where: Virtual class (NOTE: Zoom invite to be shared with registrants on 3/26/26)
Cost:
- Professionals: $20
- Nazareth Faculty: $10
- Students: $5
Register by March 25, 2026: Register Here
Continuing Education: 2 NYS CEUs available for Creative Art Therapists, Licensed Mental Health Counselors, and Licensed Social Workers
Presenter Bio:
Juli Teitler, MA, LCAT, ATR-BC is a New York–based Creative Arts Therapist specializing in integrating art therapy with cognitive and behavioral approaches, including CBT, ACT, and exposure-based interventions. She holds a Master of Professional Studies in Art Therapy from the School of Visual Arts and has completed a certificate in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy from New York University. Juli works at City Center Psychotherapy, where she provides individual and intensive outpatient treatment to adolescents and adults. Her clinical work focuses on embodiment, cognitive processing, and helping clients externalize internal experiences through image-making and structured reflection. She is passionate about supporting art therapists in developing clear clinical language and integrative frameworks that strengthen both practice and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Course Description:
This 2-hour educational webinar introduces art therapy students and early-career clinicians to foundational concepts from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CB) through an art therapy centered lens, with no prior CBT training required.
Participants will receive an accessible overview of CBT, followed by an introduction to top-down and bottom-up processing and how these frameworks relate to art-based clinical work. While art therapy often emphasizes what images can communicate beyond words, this training highlights the important role of language, therapist dialogue, and narrative in helping clients reflect on, organize, and integrate the meanings that emerge through art-making.
Rather than teaching CBT as a standalone modality, the webinar focuses on how CBT informed concepts can support clinical thinking, observation, and guided reflection within art therapy practice. A brief experiential art intervention will b included to demonstrate how art-making, reflection, and language work together in session. The webinar concludes with a summary of key concepts and considerations for ethical, scope appropriate integration.
Objectives:
- Describe the core principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) as an introductory level.
- Explain top-down and bottom-up processing and how these frameworks relate to art therapy practice.
- Identify ways CBT-informed concepts can support reflection, meaning-making, and narrative development in art therapy.
- Demonstrate increased awareness of how therapist language can help integrate art-making with thoughts, emotions, and lived experience.
Workshop Schedule
9:00–9:10 – Introduction & Framework
• Overview of workshop goals
• Integration frame: art therapy enhanced by CBT and ACT concepts
9:10–9:35 – CBT Foundations Through an Art Therapy Lens
• The CBT triangle (thoughts, feelings, behaviors)
• Levels of cognition (automatic thoughts, beliefs)
• Cognitive distortions and behavioral experiments
• Collaborative empiricism and Socratic questioning
9:35–9:45 – Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processing
• Embodied (bottom-up) art-making
• Reflective (top-down) dialogue
• Integration in clinical practice
9:45–10:00 – ACT-Informed Concepts
• Cognitive defusion
• Self-as-context
• Values-based action and psychological flexibility
10:00–10:25 – Experiential Art Intervention
• Guided art directive
• Structured reflection using CBT and ACT-informed questions
• Group integration
10:25–10:50 – Clinical Application & Ethics
• Neutral observation vs. interpretation
• Using Socratic questioning with artwork
• Documentation and interdisciplinary communication
• Scope of practice considerations
10:50–11:00 – Summary & Q&A
Cancellation and Refund Policy:
Written cancellation must be received via email by March 25, 2026 for the full refund of the workshop fee. Please send an email to Colleen Weldgen (cweldge7@naz.edu) if you need to cancel. Programs may be canceled by the Nazareth University Creative Arts Therapy Department based on low attendance. Full refunds will be issued.
Statement of Relationship:
Nazareth University 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 Art Therapists #CAT-0036.
Nazareth University 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 Mental Health Counselors. #MHC-0222.
Nazareth University is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for Licensed Social Workers #SW-0482.
