Courtney Putnam (she/her)

I am familiar with the multidimensionality of chronic pain as a person with chronic pain myself and from my decade-long work as a licensed massage therapist supporting clients with both acute, temporary, and chronic pain. As an expressive arts therapist, my research into the use of the arts in the management of chronic pain experiences reveals how translating elusive pain experiences into tangible art forms allows for a release of tension and greater understanding and meaning-making.

I utilize a combination of strategies to support clients with anxiety, including mindfulness-based approaches, stress-management tools, cognitive-behavioral therapy, expressive arts therapy, and other somatic practices for nervous system regulation.

I utilize a combination of strategies to support clients with anxiety, including mindfulness-based approaches, stress-management tools, cognitive-behavioral therapy, expressive arts therapy, and other somatic practices for nervous system regulation.

I utilize a combination of strategies to support clients with anxiety, including mindfulness-based approaches, stress-management tools, cognitive-behavioral therapy, expressive arts therapy, and other somatic practices for nervous system regulation. I incorporate guided visualization activities to support clients in managing heightened anxiety and worry.

Utilizing the arts in therapy can be a powerful (and playful) way to process, cope, and experience insight. Expressive Arts Therapy (ExAT) is an approach to therapy that utilizes any art modality or a combination of art forms—writing, visual art, dance/movement, drama/enactment, and music—often shifting from one art form to another to help clients in their process of healing, transformation, and recovery. I have three years of graduate-level training in expressive arts therapy.

I practice holistic therapy by drawing on a variety of approaches in an integrated way to support a client's processing, coping, and healing. As a culturally-responsive therapist, integrating culturally relevant approaches and art forms allows clients to explore their lives with greater alignment and resonance.

At the core, I am a humanistic therapist, and more specifically a person-centered counselor. I am influenced by the work of Carl Rogers who believed in clients as the experts on their own lives and the concept of "unconditional positive regard" for clients that has so impacted the counseling field. I am particularly influenced by Natalie Rogers, his daughter, who brought together person-centered counseling with expressive arts therapy. By nature, humanistic therapy is non-pathologizing.