The Create Institute: Centre for Expressive Arts Therapy Education

Escuela de idiomas Hispano Americano

Toronto Academy of Acting for Film and Television
866 The Queensway

We are an Expressive Arts Therapy training school. The images often help the client place their experiences outside of themselves.

The program emphasizes a relational, community oriented, experiential and integrated expressive arts approach to the work of therapy and healing. We offer an intensive 3 year certificate program for those who wish to immerse themselves in the practice of Expressive Arts Therapy, or for those who wish to deepen their own relationship with themselves and the arts. We also offer a 1 year foundations

program for practitioners already working in the fields of health, psychology, community organizing and education who wish to integrate the expressive arts into their practice, classroom, or organization. Expressive Arts Therapy combines client-centred psychotherapy (talk therapy) with the exploration of movement, visual art, music, words, sound, story-telling and play. At the centre of the expressive arts therapeutic process there is an honouring of the client's own innate wisdom. The exploration through the arts combine with therapy to help the client access non-verbal, confusing, and often unconscious material through play with sensation and imagery. These experiences are then reflected back in the imagery, be it visual, body movement, sound, music, poetry or stories. The images are not necessarily a direct reflection or what one might expect and as such can offer insight, a well of resources, and a path towards inner wisdom. The relationship between the therapist, the client and the images helps the client begin to know her or himself more deeply. The aspect of play and shaping in the arts is helpful for reconstructing a healthy attachment experience. In the creative play along side the therapist, the client begins to rewire his or her experience of relationship, to deepen a sense of inner security, to become more embodied and present and to reshape his or her responses to life and the world around. To read an interview with Expressive Arts Therapist Fran Harwood about the use of expressive arts with trauma please visit the Trauma and Attachment Report athttp://trauma.blog.yorku.ca/2011/05/27/316/

Encouraging communities to engage in and explore the expressive arts fosters a space for learning to work together, discovering creative resources and ideas, resolving conflict, honouring rites of passage, holding suffering, and fostering play for celebrating life. The tradition and discipline of the arts has evolved over the course of human history. In all societies up to the present, the arts have played an essential role in enabling human beings to make sense of their world, to live with suffering when necessary and to be able to celebrate the joy of life. Expressive arts in community fosters a reverence for time-honoured traditions that every individual brings to a community, while also creating a space for creativity and surprise to emerge. Facilitating and creating a space that is contained by the structure of the artistic frame has the ability to help transform and sustain the health of communities large and small, and the individuals within them. For a couple of beautiful examples of expressive arts in larger communities go to the Jumblies Theatre website athttp://www.jumbliestheatre.org/jumblies.html on facebook athttp://www.facebook.com/groups/8680082911/ and Clay and Paper Theatre at:http://www.clayandpapertheatre.org/ on facebook athttp://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9134842207

Also check out the Expressive Arts Spring Symposium website for some lovely descriptions and videos of the expressive arts in practice.http://www.artshaping.org/program.php

05/21/2026

The CREATE Institute is pleased to offer this intermodal workshop series in June! Come and find your creative side with these exciting workshops!

'How Do You Attend to the Sacred in your Life & Work'
Explore this and more with our Director Ouida Pilhulyk!

We invite Psychotherapists, Therapists in Training, Social Workers and other Social Service Providers, Front-line Workers, Artists, potential students for the CREATE program and curious community members interested in personal and professional growth, to join us in exploring the process of the Expressive Arts and how they shape us as both creator and witness.

***PLEASE SHARE***

See link to REGISTER below:
https://lnkd.in/exdvZisG

05/21/2026

The CREATE Institute is pleased to offer this intermodal workshop series in June! Come and find your creative side with these exciting workshops!

'Curious about starting your own Private Practise using Expressive Arts Therapy?'
Find out how with Catherine Mellinger!

We invite Psychotherapists, Therapists in Training, Social Workers and other Social Service Providers, Front-line Workers, Artists, potential students for the CREATE program and curious community members interested in personal and professional growth, to join us in exploring the process of the Expressive Arts and how they shape us as both creator and witness.

***PLEASE SHARE***

See link to REGISTER below:
https://lnkd.in/exdvZisG

05/21/2026

The CREATE Institute is pleased to offer this intermodal workshop series in June! Come and find your creative side with these exciting workshops!

'How much do you Care for Self?'
Explore with Trisha Sai-Chew!

We invite Psychotherapists, Therapists in Training, Social Workers and other Social Service Providers, Front-line Workers, Artists, potential students for the CREATE program and curious community members interested in personal and professional growth, to join us in exploring the process of the Expressive Arts and how they shape us as both creator and witness.

***PLEASE SHARE***

See link to REGISTER below:
https://lnkd.in/exdvZisG

05/21/2026

The CREATE Institute is pleased to offer this intermodal workshop series in June! Come and find your creative side with these exciting workshops!

'Wanna Dance and Move?'
Explore the Poiesis of the Body with Ayana Spivak!

We invite Psychotherapists, Therapists in Training, Social Workers and other Social Service Providers, Front-line Workers, Artists, potential students for the CREATE program and curious community members interested in personal and professional growth, to join us in exploring the process of the Expressive Arts and how they shape us as both creator and witness.

***PLEASE SHARE***

See link to REGISTER below:
https://lnkd.in/exdvZisG

05/08/2026

Photos from The Create Institute: Centre for Expressive Arts Therapy Education's post

05/08/2026

This June, curiosity gets a studio pass!

The CREATE Institute invites you into our Summer Xpressions Workshop Series. This collection of experiential workshops provide spaces to create, reflect, connect, and explore the expressive arts in ways that are embodied, imaginative, and deeply human.

Across 5 unique workshops, participants will experience a blend of online and in-person offerings facilitated by expressive arts therapists and professionals working at the intersection of psychotherapy, creativity, and arts-based facilitation.

Whether you are a helping professional, artist, educator, student, or simply someone craving meaningful creative exploration, Summer Xpressions offers a glimpse into the heart of what we do at The CREATE Institute.

Workshop Offerings:

June 6 - Inter-modality in EXAT: Understanding the Clinical Framework of Intentional Shifts Between Modalities

June 13 - Poiesis of The Body: Dance and Movement in EXAT

June 20 - Enhancing Self-Care Through the Expressive Arts

June 27 - Attending to the Sacred: Spirituality and Expressive Arts Therapy

June 27 - EXAT: How to Start A Private Practice

***Welcoming spaces for reflection, expression, and discovery***

Come for one workshop or immerse yourself in the full series.
Think of it as opening the door to a living studio where art, process, and community meet.

• Workshops begin in June

• Online + In Person

• Registration details and Questions, contact: [email protected]

04/27/2026

SAVE THE DATE!
30 hr Supervision Intensives at The Create Institute: Centre for Expressive Arts Therapy Education
COMING THIS JUNE!
Email us for more information…More details to come
[email protected]

04/15/2026

WE ARE ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS for SEPTEMBER!

What if your creativity wasn’t just expression… but a pathway to healing?
At The CREATE Institute, applications are open for our 3-Year Expressive Arts Therapy Training post graduate program — a space where art, psychology, and human connection meet in powerful, unexpected ways.
In a world that asks us to move faster, this work invites you to slow down, listen deeply, and create meaning intermodally through image, movement, story, sound and more.
This is learning that lives in the body.
This is growth that ripples into community.
This is training for those called to make a difference.
Curious? Reach out and begin the conversation:
[email protected]

04/10/2026

Save the Date! This June, our Summer Xpressions workshop series is on!

Please leave your email address if you are interested.. More details to come.

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Location

Toronto

Telephone

+14165399728

Website

http://www.thecreateinstitute.org/

Address

Toronto, ON

The Create Institute: Centre for Expressive Arts Therapy Education

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