Art Therapy

http://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2013/04/29/art-therapy-real-look-autism

My senior year of high school I was in AP Art.  As part of our senior project we were supposed to choose a "concentration" to do a series of final pieces for.  A good family friend of ours is a licensed art therapist (with a lot of other initials and credentials after her name) and is VERY talented and very smart.  The subject of Art Therapy had always been very appealing to me so I talked with her and chose Art Therapy as my concentration.

At the time I applied for colleges I just wanted to get out of Jackson and do something different.  I applied a lot of places, but wasn't focused on long term careers or what I wanted to be when I grew up, so when I got in to the University of Texas at Austin I decided that was the place I would go.  I LOVED EVERY SECOND of being at UT.  I don't regret that decision at all.  BUT when trying to decide on majors freshman year, and really wanting to be an art therapist, I quickly realized UT did not have the programs I would need to be in that profession and if I was going to be an art therapist it was going to take A LOT more graduate school and maybe even more.  I took lots of psychology classes freshman year and volunteered at several places that provided art therapy and then decided I didn't want to spend 10 years in school so changed my major to retail merchandising, which would only take 4 years to graduate.  I eventually put this major to use when I opened a children's boutique with my best friend, Mags and Lulu, but that story if for another day...

Looking back and if I had it all to do over, knowing what I know now, I may have considered looking in to colleges that had art therapy programs and majors...but could've, would've, should've...you can't live life in the past and you can't re-do the past.  Who knows, maybe one day, down the road, I can still go back to school and study Art Therapy.  But in the mean time, I have been looking in to art therapists in the Nashville area to explore with Chase.  When I came across this video tonight it seemed like sign.