Academic History

August 1981 Master of Arts in Behavioral Sciences, Psychology with special
emphasis on Art Psychotherapy, University of Houston at Clear Lake,
Texas, USA.

August 1978 Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, The George Washington University,
Washington, D.C., USA.

Spring 1984 Research participant in a study for the prevention of sexual abuse of
children. Harbor General Hospital – UCLA Medical Center.

1982 – 1983 Work in psychology laboratory for Learning Disabilities at University of
California Los Angeles.

Spring 1990 Conducting seminar at Bogasici University, Istanbul, Turkey. History,
psychological significance, relevance, and application of Art Therapy.



Highlights of Clinical Work

  • 2000 – 2004 Work as psychotherapist and art psychotherapist at mental health clinic in Cairo, Egypt, affiliated with mental hospital.
  • 1997 – 1998 Individual Art therapy at school for juvenile delinquents in Germany.
  • 1995 – 1996 Group Art Therapy with population with adjustment problems in daily life and work in Germany.
  • 1995 – 2002 Group Art Therapy seminars to prepare hospiz workers for their work with cancer patients, palliative care and terminally ill patients in Germany.
  • 1982 – 1984 Internship in Art Psychotherapy at University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center, Harbor General Hospital, psychiatric ward and Crisis Resolution Unit.
  • 1976 Work as a student the first time in a mental hospital in Munich, ward for chronic mental illness.

 

Eventually special interests within psychopathology crystallized as the corresponding experiences accumulated:

Adult disorders as a result of mental, physical and sexual abuse,
Reactive depression,
Sexual deviance,
Eating disorders,
Some personality disorders,
Therapy with cancer patients and palliative care workers,
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
Adjustment Disorder.

Throughout my therapeutic work I have encountered clients (or patients) that lived in a culture different from their own. I have always focused on them with great interest. In addition, I shared this fate with my clients in the USA, Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Thus, the data that I had accumulated empirically in the field and clinically in innumerable therapy sessions dealing with the problems of not belonging, identity change and readjustment, became the stimulus which resulted in my book “Far Away from the Brewery”. This book can also be understood as a tribute to those that suffered through the task of culture change, loss, new beginnings, and ambivalence in terms of personal identity.



Presentations

Throughout my professional years I conducted innumerable presentations and art therapy workshops for students and colleagues in foreign countries:

Presented at California State University in Long Beach about art therapy history and techniques,

Presentations to the American Art Therapy Association about self mutilators and sexual abuse of children,

Repeated presentations and workshops in Cairo, Egypt, regarding psychological and social adjustment to foreign cultures, as well as early and late teenage sexual developmental issues, presented to parents.

Several presentations for the International Networking Group of Art Therapist regarding art therapeutic issues when working in foreign cultures, presented at the American Art Therapy Association Conferences in Denver, Colorado and in San Diego, California.

Presentation to the psychiatric staff at the Sheik Kalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, about the use and application of art therapeutic methods to a psychiatric population.