eugeneellenberg [at] gmail

Thanks for stopping by and spending some time. I'm an interdisciplinary artist and Substance Use Disorder Professional-Trainee (SUDP/T) through the State of Washington Department of Health. My art practice navigates acceptance, contention, and failure with what it means to be present within the pendulum of mental illness and recovery. I received my MFA from the University of New Mexico, and I'm currently working on my MAAT in Art Therapy through the low-residency graduate program at Cedar Crest College. My present research and service interests focus on developing and incorporating equitable, accessible, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed therapeutic art practices to assist those confronting their substance use disorders through recovery, including individuals reentering society post-treatment 
or post-incarceration. It is my hope that by helping restore a person's autonomy with a positive cognitive identity, revealing empathy for self and others, and nurturing emotional maturity and regulation, we can collaborate on creating strategies for more positive life choices. 
As someone in long-term recovery, my journey has brought me from loss to acceptance to gratefulness, and these personal experiences have shaped my desire to help others realize their own capacity for change, resilience, and ultimately peace. If you or someone you know is experiencing any measure of crisis, click here for inclusive mental health crisis hotlines, including warm-lines.

"Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer. Along with our ability to feel our own pain go our best hopes for healing, dignity and love. What seems nonadapative and self-harming in the present was, at some point in our lives, an adaptation to help us endure what we then had to go through. If people are addicted to self-soothing behaviours, it's only because in their formative years they did not receive the soothing they needed. Such understanding helps delete toxic self-judgment on the past and supports responsibility for the now. Hence the need for compassionate self-inquiry.”

- Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction