Expressive Arts Therapy

Drawing used with permission
of Marina Pinto-Miller

The expressive arts therapy program at Hospice Toronto is facilitated by Norma Araiza. Norma provides expressive arts based group programs for children, youths and adults at a wide range of agencies throughout the city.

Hospice Toronto works collaboratively with agencies such as Gilda’s Club of Greater Toronto, Casey House, AIDS Committee of Toronto, St. Christopher House, and several school and community services across the GTA.

Our expressive arts therapy groups are offered to people who are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, as well as their family and friends. Participants can include children, adults, or families who are:

• newly bereaved
• living with a life-threatening illness
• in remission from a life-threatening illness
• a family member or close friend of a person with a life-threatening illness

The groups take place in a safe and meaningful environment where warmth, trust, and non-judgement abounds.

The purpose of these groups is to provide children, adults and families who share a common experience with a safe place where they can express themselves through a variety of art modalities, share their stories, express their grief, and explore their feelings in a non-threatening way.

• remembering the past
• redefining the present
• re-creating the future

Our goals for expressive arts are to:

• enable the expression of fear, anger, anxiety and sadness through the arts
• encourage the expression of deep inner feelings and thoughts
• discover and tell the untold stories
• provide an opening for both present and unresolved losses
• find ways to say goodbye, speak unspoken words
• provide opportunities for sharing memories and experience of loss
• provide support through a non-judgemental environment

For more information, call Hospice Toronto at 416.364.1666 ext. 241, or e-mail expressive.arts.