Tamara Knapp

I believe in you and your ability to heal. As a counselor, I serve as a guide and companion to help you access what is already within you to help you achieve the life you want. I have particular expertise in using expressive arts to help you find a pathway to what you are seeking on your healing journey. With compassionate care, I accompany clients to the places just beyond their understanding and help them restore wholeness as they grow into the person they aspire to be, cultivate hope, and allow them to feel seen and heard. After many years of teaching and training others in the field of expressive arts, it is an honor to now provide therapy and clinical services to clients and witness their transformations as they restore hope and uncover their own unique, authentic expression of who they are. A little more about me... I hold an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Antioch University and a B.A. in Art and Psychology from the University of Alaska Anchorage. In 2007, I obtained a Certificate in Art and Healing from Ringling College of Art and Design. Prior to that, I received Waldorf Teacher Training at Rudolf Steiner College and acquired a teaching certificate in the state of Florida for K-12 Art and Elementary Education. I have received special training in Creative Drama for Creative Learning provided by the Kennedy Center for the Arts and completed Collaborative Leadership Training in 1998 through Antioch New England. An educator since 1997, I taught in Waldorf schools in Alaska and New Mexico before relocating to Florida. From 2002-2012, I taught art, expressive arts, computer technology, and second grade in Sarasota County School District. I also enjoyed teaching art summer camp at the Art Center Sarasota for five years and have served as adjunct faculty at Ringling College of Art and Design teaching Discovering Creativity for children ages 5-11. Throughout my teaching career, my special interest has always been to integrate the arts and facilitate curriculum connections that broaden the student's understanding of themselves and the world. As an educator, I have always looked for the spaces where healing can occur, which is what led me back to the path toward training in mental health. My first creative love was dance. Throughout my education, I continued to seek dance training and performed with “Voices” Dance Ensemble at the University of Alaska Anchorage for three years. I also performed the duet “Box for a Brighter Side” with Susan Joy Share, a sculptural book binder, for two years. Beginning in 1983, I began learning how to draw and see the world as a visual artist. I have continued throughout my life to express myself and through the arts. At California College of Arts and Crafts in the late 1980’s, I discovered the field of Expressive Arts Therapy and my passion for working with art to help others was born. When I moved to Florida, I met Kathleen Horne and Victoria Domenichello-Anderson in Sarasota in 2001 and began using expressive arts processes like Touch Drawing™ to heal and grow. In 2007, I joined with Kathleen, Victoria, and Elizabeth Bornstein as a co-founder of Expressive Arts Florida. I continue to teach others through our certificate training program in intermodal expressive arts as a Registered Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator (REACE®). In 2020, I earned a master's in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and now have the opportunity to bring expressive arts into clinical practice with children and adults to initiate and support their healing and positive growth. My experience in expressive has taught me how to hold space for my clients and invite them into deeper ways of knowing through the arts, body wisdom, and nonjudgemental witnessing. I am honored to do this healing work and invite you to contact me if you need support on your journey.