No artistic skills needed.
Just your willingness to show up and see what’s there.
In a private and confidential setting, you use simple art materials like paint, markers, pastels or collage to express yourself. Often, those expressions are a means of communicating that can help clarify inner experiences and emotions.
I love facilitating art-making that becomes a type of symbolic speech to help you understand yourself. No artistic skills needed. Just your willingness to show up and see what’s there.
Debbie Anderson
BA(Hons), dTATI, RP
With over 20 years of experience, I work with those who are ready to explore, heal, and transform. Just the creative process itself can be deeply restorative. My role is to witness your journey with compassion and curiosity, helping you discover the meaning that can emerge.
Some of the many agencies I have worked with include the Gardiner Museum, Universities of Toronto, York, OCAD, Youthlink, Sheena’s Place, Fairlawn Community Centre.
I have had the privilege of witnessing countless moments of growth, healing, and insight. The ability to help people express what words alone often can’t, continues to inspire me.
My training includes
Graduate Diploma in Art Therapy from the Toronto Art Therapy Institute (TATI).
Registered Psychotherapist in Ontario
Professional Member of the Canadian Art Therapy Association
Chair of the TATI Board of Directors
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When our daughters were in high school, I found myself looking for a way to combine my passion for bringing people together for art-making with my desire to help others. A friend suggested art therapy and connected me with a family whose oldest daughter was living with severe agoraphobia. She had been unable to leave the house—or even her bedroom—for months. I agreed to share a current activity to see if it could help.
I arrived with a simple art project: painting garden gloves for a fundraiser. To everyone's surprise, she came into the kitchen, joined me at the table, and spent the afternoon painting and chiming in occasionally. At our next session, I hadn't yet purchased more supplies, so she accompanied me to the art store. For her family, it was a remarkable breakthrough. For me, it was a powerful realization of what creative expression could make possible.
That experience changed the course of my career. I saw firsthand how art could create connection, build confidence, and open doors that had seemed firmly closed. I was captivated by the transformative potential of the creative process and soon enrolled in masters-level art therapy training.
One of my favourite full-circle moments came years later when the young woman's sister graduated as an art therapist herself, inspired by the profound impact that art therapy had on their family.
