Featured Art Therapist: Chelsea O'Neil Karcher

Liberation for all minoritized people! 
We are celebrating National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month by featuring Art Therapists who work in the name of Social Justice and Liberation.



Meet Featured Social Justice Art Therapist,
Chelsea O'Neil Karcher!

Chelsea O'Neil Karcher, MA, LPC-IT

pronouns: she/her/hers or they/them/their

Madison, Wisconsin

www.arttherapymadison.com - Art Therapy Practice

www.chelseainkstudio.com - Fine Art Website

chelskarcher@gmail.com

Tell us about your work!

I graduated from the Naropa Art Therapy program in 2011 and since then I have been primarily working in the non-profit sector incorporating my artist/art therapy identity into my work as an advocate and educator for sexual health and reproduction, racial justice, and community organizing. In 2017 I returned to seeing clients in a formal art therapy setting when I co-founded the Center for Community Healing in Madison, WI where I provide art therapy and counseling to LGBTQ people across the lifespan. My partner and I started the organization because we were becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of high-quality, culturally informed care available for LGBTQ people in the midwest. We currently serve 95% LGBTQ people, 90% of them identifying as transgender or gender non-comforting and 30% identifying as people of color.  Many of my clients have multiple marginalized identities as LGBTQ people who are also immigrants, people with disabilities, veterans, working class, etc.  It is my privilege and honor to partner with them as they work toward authenticity and freedom and find what it means to be healthy and thriving in their unique context and body.  I also provide education and mentorship to organizations, particularly healthcare and community service providers, interested in becoming more culturally competent and inclusive to people of all identities through education, reflection and strategic action.  I present in classrooms, facilitate group processes, and help organizational leaders develop realistic and timely strategic plans to incorporate more socially just practices. 

What does social justice mean to you? How do you center social justice and liberation in your work?

As an art therapist and counselor I approach social justice in three ways: Internally, Relationally, and Systemically. I believe mental health professionals have an ethical responsibility to conduct a thorough examination of their own cultural identity, development, and unaddressed unconscious material in order to serve clients more thoroughly. Without this examination, a therapist may continue to operate without a conscious integration of suppresses aspects of self, relating to their cultural identity in a way that adversely affects the client and perpetuates harm. Harm to the client can manifest by inaccurate mirroring of their experiences, continuing to devalue their experiences of marginalization and oppression, or perpetuating pre-existing power dynamics in relation to societal privilege. I continually strive to better understand my own relationships to power, privilege, and implicit bias and pursue opportunities for deep reflection and education so that I can be as prepared and equipped to meet the needs of my client as possible. As an activist, I do not want to just attend to the pain of my clients in therapy. I want to attend to the systems which continue to harm them by interrupting racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. This has taken the form of speaking out at a city council meeting on behalf of queer youth, attending a Black Lives Matter protest, presenting at conferences, organizing fundraisers for immigrants rights, and volunteering my time and energy with community organizations that are strengthening marginalized communities locally and nationally.

 The art therapist as a social activist incorporates an awareness of the interconnectivity between individual and collective, between a person's suffering and social imbalance, as well as an active commitment to personal and social transformation through advocacy for those aspects of individuals and society that are disenfranchised. Often the intent of therapists is to heal that which has already been wounded, the trauma or emotional damage of what has already occurred. Taditional modes of therapy are often failing to attend to the climate that continuously wounds and re-wounds, traumatizes, and cause damage continuously over time. I believe there is a sever lack of training around social and cultural critical analysis. There also needs to be greater emphasis on assisting clients in coping with and adapting to unjust social systems.

As art therapists we are uniquely equipped with the tools of imagination, creativity, and courage. These are the tools for the liberation I seek and I am always centering the possibility for community and connection through art in an effort to make the world a better place both individually and collectively, I have spent much of my adult life working to stop violence against women and LGBTQ+ people, providing allyship education, organizing for racial justice, and advocating for reproductive rights. This is the foundation of my therapeutic practice and I vow to treat all of my clients with dignity and respect.

Artwork by Chelsea O'Neil Karcher.

Chelsea O'Neil Karcher creating art.