About
Zachary D. Van Den Berg, MA, LPC, ATR-BC (they/he), a graduate of Adler University with an MA in Counseling: Art Therapy and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute (SAIC), has held various leadership roles within the art therapy community, including serving as President of the Adler Art Therapy Student Association, Chairperson of the American Art Therapy Association’s Multicultural Committee, and Creative Director of Expressive Media's Film Library. Dedicated to advancing liberatory queer and trans care practices within art therapy, they founded and serve as president of the non-profit Coalition for Queer Creative Arts Therapies, Inc., and its annual Expressing Pride symposium. They also practice queer world-making art therapy at Community Arts, LLC in Austin, TX, serving LGBTQIA+ individuals and groups.
Publications
Opinion Piece: Addressing traumatic experiences of cis-heterosexism with LGBTQIA+ clients in art therapy
International Journal of Art Therapy | 2023 | Opinion piece article
DOI: 10.1080/17454832.2023.2261542
CONTRIBUTORS: Zachary D. Van Den Berg
UNSTRUCTURED ABSTRACT: A case is made for the value of art therapy in addressing traumatic interpersonal and structural experiences of cis-heterosexist violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) clients. The urgency of developing culturally responsive approaches to art therapy for trauma is highlighted by reviewing research on mental health among sexual and gender minorities (SGM). Interventions are investigated through intersectionality and minority stress theory to provide a preliminary overview of current research and practice-based results for art therapy. These subjective and objective interventions are divided, then related to recent literature on art therapy with LGBTQIA+ populations. Subjective interventions include critical self-reflexivity of art therapists, challenging harmful assumptions, raising awareness, externalizing and self-expression, facilitating positive identity development, supporting the coming-out process, strengthening interpersonal relationships, fostering family-of-origin and peer acceptance, and cultivating resilience and hope. Objective interventions include critically conscious studio audits, affirming media and materials, LGBTQIA+ continuing education and training, community connections and resources, organizational advocacy, workplace advocacy, and political engagement. Overall, these considerations are limited due to the lack of comprehensive and formal research on art therapy for SGM trauma experiences. Implications such as the need for further research and adaptive frameworks are discussed. Clinical recommendations and examples are presented throughout to highlight the nascent and imaginative work that art therapists have done with LGBTQIA+ clients.
PLAIN-LANGUAGE SUMMARY: Art therapy for trauma experiences with LGBTQIA+ persons must be culturally responsive to the unique needs of the community for effective and ethical services. Research has found the harmful experiences of systemic and interpersonal stigma, discrimination, and violence against sexual and gender minorities (SGM) have significant health consequences disproportionately impacting these communities. This paper uses intersectionality and minority stress theory to discuss SGM-related trauma and violence, and offers preliminary suggestions for an art therapy practice with LGBTQIA+ clients. Though subjective interventions are key to managing SGM stress, objective interventions to change harmful conditions are necessary for sustainable and effective mental health care for LGBTQIA+ people. This can be done across various intrapersonal, interpersonal, community, and structural levels of engagement. Attending to the unique aspects across these levels, art therapists can support clients in gaining greater awareness of marginalization and how to use lived experience as a guide towards identifying and embracing their values, aspirations, and queerest parts of themselves. Together, LGBTQIA+ and allied art therapists can come together in the shared pursuit of queer justice and transforming systems of marginalization, beginning within the studio by practicing affirming-care.
Proposing an Ar(t)chive of Queer Forms With Sexual, Gender, and Relationship Diverse Clients
Art Therapy | 2023 | Journal article
DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2023.2240677
CONTRIBUTORS: Zachary D. Van Den Berg
ABSTRACT: Ar(t)chive, a retroactivst technique for queer worldmaking in art therapy, invites sexual, gender, and relationship diverse (SGRD) clients to engage with queer forms from history and construct a continuum of shared lived experiences across differences to challenge misinformation and discrimination, foster resilience, and build community. Phases include: (1) assessment and informed consent; (2) collection and curation; (3) display and artmaking; (4) intersubjective meaning making and synthesis; and (5) closing and reflexivity. A vignette illustrates its application within a queer adult online art therapy group. Resources are offered for adaptive implementation and advocates for the proliferation of more equitable and affirming art therapy practices.
Queer Worldmaking in Sex-Positive Art Therapy: Radical Strategies for Individual Healing and Social Transformation
Art Therapy | 2023-04-24 | Journal article
DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2023.2193660
CONTRIBUTORS: Zachary D. Van Den Berg; Mikey Anderson
ABSTRACT: Queer worldmaking (QWM) in art therapy offers liberatory sex-positive interventions and modes of critical inquiry that affirm the lives, imaginations, and pleasures of all who enter the studio. The authors provide three major strategies for QWM in art therapy. A queer ethos of care decenters cis-heteronormativity by embracing the diversity of sexuality and gender identity and expression as valuable ways of knowing. A radically inclusive studio prioritizes queer and trans pleasure in establishing physical, psychological, and imaginal safety. Facilitating critical connections with(in) art and the community centers LGBTQ + historical strategies of care for healing and social justice. Art therapists can unite in the shared pursuit of making queer(er) worlds for individual healing and social transformation.
The Humble Chair: Fostering Culturally Humble Collaborations
Art Therapy | 2023-02-21 | Journal article
DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2023.2171241
CONTRIBUTORS: Deanna Barton; Zachary D. Van Den Berg
ABSTRACT: The authors recount a collaborative art-making journey centered on self-reflexivity to sustain a partnership across racial, social, and cultural differences. The image of a chair, re-imagined as a Humble Chair, was a symbol to anchor critical inquiry. The authors’ explorations provide a pragmatic and artful approach to fostering cultural humility.
Specters of whiteness: Radical care for ghostly matters in art therapy
The Arts in Psychotherapy | 2022-09 | Journal article
DOI: 10.1016/j.aip.2022.101932
CONTRIBUTORS: Zachary D. Van Den Berg; Pat B. Allen
ABSTRACT: The specters of whiteness in art therapy have continued to haunt the field since its formal foundation in the early 1970 s. The authors propose a radical care ethic for these ghostly matters in art therapy that centers the creative process as a critical method for white art therapists to develop the capacity for sincere antiracist work. The social and material conditions of neoliberalism are haunted by the specters of whiteness and colonialism, which, until recently, have been deliberately veiled within art therapy. The authors re-envision the studio as a critical site for intra-community antiracist practice and reclaiming of histories for a justice-to-come.
Edith and Me
Art Therapy | 2021-01-02 | Cover art
DOI: 10.1080/07421656.2021.1887683
CONTRIBUTORS: Zachary D. Van Den Berg
Features Overview
Interview: On Being a Social Change Agent at any Stage of Your Career
May 24, 2023 | The Creative Psychotherapist Podcast (Season 2 Episode 14) with host Reina Lombardi, ATR-BC, ATCS, LMHC-QS
Black History in Art Therapy: A Living Reference & Resource Guide
February 10, 2022 | Compiled by Deanna Barton, MA, ATR-BC & Zachary D. Van Den Berg, MA, ATR-P, LPC-Associate
We have compiled an art therapy specific resource guide, Black History in Art Therapy: A Living Reference & Resource Guide. In it, we share powerful stories documented in blog posts, newsletters, interviews, presentations, videos, and publications. Our aim is to highlight the heterogeneity of Black aesthetics across theory, praxis, pedagogy, and research in art therapy’s past, present, and future. These materials are not only rooted in Black aesthetics, but also (re)circulated and cited by the Black art therapists themselves. Many of the citations listed were gathered by reviewing the references lists of publications by Black art therapists.
In Honor of Black History Month: Centering Black Aesthetics in Art Therapy Past, Present & Future
February 10, 2022 | Deanna Barton, MA, ATR-BC & Zachary D. Van Den Berg, MA, ATR-P, LPC-Associate
In February, we celebrate Black History Month by honoring the labors and contributions of Black art therapists towards their clients, the profession at large, and the world. Let us use this month of national recognition to center Black histories, voices, experiences, and ways of knowing as a catalyst for continued inspiration and visibility in art therapy year-round.
In Honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Centering Memory, Dignity, and Justice in Art Therapy
January 27, 2022 | By Zachary D. Van Den Berg, MA, ATR-P, LPC-Associate & Pat B. Allen, PhD, ATR
As we critically position the history of art therapy against our remembrance of the Holocaust, we can elucidate the range of effects that internalized anti-Semitism of White Ashkenazi Jewish art therapists had on the subordination and erasure of the role and impact of practitioners of color on the early development of the profession. By understanding how our past informs our present and identifying what conscious choices can we make together to support our future is part of the work that the profession and association are engaging in now. As we continue to explore the historical record, may we critique with compassion and reinvent with courage an art therapy centered in justice.
In Honor of MLK Day: Dr. King’s “Creative Maladjustment” and Our Role as Art Therapists
January 17, 2022 | By Zachary D. Van Den Berg, MA, ATR-P, LPC-Associate
Today, we honor the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose nonviolent activism became central to the Civil Rights Movement. For art therapists, it is critical to note that Dr. King addressed the role of social scientists to assist the civil rights movement at the American Psychological Association’s 1967 Annual Convention. He called racism and its effects “gigantic in extent, and chaotic in detail.” And he urged social scientists to play active roles in challenging discrimination, white supremacy, and racial injustice—and “reaffirm our belief in building a democratic society” and “participate in the beauty of diversity.” […] As art therapists—given our dual roles as both therapists and artists—we have a unique opportunity to address issues of injustice and discrimination, and in Dr. King’s words, to “tell it like it is.” We can use our practice, knowledge, art, and our humility to craft and sustain opportunities for restorative action and radical healing across our areas of influence. And, we must continue to affect institutional and social change and not fall into performative gestures of solidarity.
For Justice, In Solidarity: A Response from Two Emerging Art Therapists to the Rise of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Violence
March 22, 2021 | Elisha-Rio P. Apilado, BFA, RBT and Zachary D. Van Den Berg, BFA
Two related but equally concerning trends have emerged during the Coronavirus pandemic in the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community: the rise in violence and the rise in mental health care needs. This response blog post is a plea for art therapists to intervene and recognize that our services can have life-or-death consequences, especially for the AANHPI community.
Illuminating ‘Invisible Histories’ of LGBTQ+ Art Therapists
November 16, 2020
Chicago Campus Master of Arts in Counseling: Art Therapy student Zachary D. Van Den Berg (he/him/they/them) recently created a video project, titled Invisible Histories: The Lives & Works of LGBTQ+ Art Therapists. Van Den Berg shares why he wanted to combat the “historical erasure of our community’s presence and contributions to the field of art therapy” by archiving the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ art therapists.
AATA Featured Member: Zachary D. Van Den Berg
July 15, 2020
There is an inherent lack of competency in our nation in cultural humility, providing us an inadequate view of humanity's breadth. Unfortunately, it took countless innocent lives to bring this awareness to the broader population. I hold myself accountable to be a part of addressing this discrepancy in the hope that the lineage of brave architects of color, such as Cliff Joseph, Georgette Seabrooke Powell, and Lucille Venture will be more widely recognized, and that as an association we can empower and support the next great generation of BIPOC pioneers in the field.
ITA Says Hello to a Spring Administrative Intern: Meet Zak!
February 27, 2018
ITA is thrilled to have so many talented interns work with us each year. Through our administrative internship, students learn more about the creative arts therapies and what it takes to make a busy non-profit run. These interns are invaluable members of our team and we’d like to introduce you to our newest!
Invisible Histories:
The Lives & Works of LGBTQ+ Art Therapists
Invisible Histories: The Lives & Works of LGBTQ+ Art Therapists brings visibility to these brave practitioners courageously voicing their lived experiences, reclaiming their space within art therapy discourse, and promoting resistance against heterosexist assumptions within arts-based mental health care.
Painting Series:
Becoming
These process works are responses to the journey of cultivating my professional identity as an art therapist.
Selected Works.
Painting Series:
Family Portraits
In this body of work, I attempt to represent the queer family unit through traditional family portraiture. It is trying to shift who is represented in the institutional space, as well as who can participate in collecting such works. Each portrait will be donated to the family portrayed.
LGBTQ Artist Gallery Opening Announcement at Center on Halsted
Selected Works.
Contact
For more information, please email zachary.vandenberg@gmail.com.
