Eileen Cheong
Artist, Advocate. Healing Agent.
Eileen is the Founder of Elemental Integrated Healing Arts Designs, a project devoted to offering transformative experiences centered on people of the global majority where they can envision, empower and excel in their dreams. Ms. Cheong is a 200 hour foundation trained yoga Instructor with focus in Hatha, Yin and Qigong, a nationally Registered Art Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor. Their specialties include: mindfulness techniques including guided visualizations and social dreaming.
Using Relational-Cultural and person centered approaches with a focus on transformative justice; youth empowerment, intergenerational programs, LGBTQ identity development, wellness for social justice and health care professionals and mental health awareness. Her artistic concentration is in printmaking, photojournalism, book arts, fiber sculpture and mixed-media painting.
Eileen was born in New York City to parents that immigrated from Singapore, where she grew up among a multitude of cultures and later taught abroad as an ESL teacher in Hainan, China. She moved to Saint Louis to earn her Masters in Art Therapy Counseling from Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville in 2013 and currently remains there post-Ferguson as an art therapist, community activist and yoga teacher.
Using the pseudonym "Remedy," she cultivates art that highlights how important it is that community, social change and creative expression be interwoven. Her studio practice includes the 9/11 memorial postcard project, Alphabet Media filmmaking, the Art Collective of Community Access New York, the Arts & Healthcare program at Barnes Jewish Hospital and upcoming collaborations with Community Arts Training alumni of the Regional Arts Commission.
She specializes in narrative therapy to encourage the artistic process as a catalyst for healing and to envision positive change in our communities. Through her experience as a crisis intervention counselor, she is adept at using traumainformed approaches to counseling and believes in wellness that addresses the whole person along with their worldview. Her experience is mainly working with people of immigrant heritage, LGBTQ youth, seniors afflicted by Alzheimer, families in transition, terminally ill patients and those challenged by long term mental illness.
What is art therapy?
Art therapy is a mental health profession in which clients, facilitated by the art therapist, use art media, the creative process, and the resulting artwork to explore their feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage behavior and addictions, develop social skills, improve reality orientation, reduce anxiety, and increase self-esteem. A goal in art therapy is to improve or restore a client’s functioning and his or her sense of personal well-being. Art therapy practice requires knowledge of visual art (drawing, painting, sculpture, and other art forms) and the creative process, as well as of human development, psychological, and counseling theories and techniques.
Today art therapy is widely practiced in a wide variety of settings including hospitals, psychiatric and rehabilitation facilities, wellness centers, forensic institutions, schools, crisis centers, senior communities, private practice, and other clinical and community settings. During individual and/or group sessions art therapists elicit their clients’ inherent capacity for art making to enhance their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Research supports the use of art therapy within a professional relationship for the therapeutic benefits gained through artistic self-expression and reflection for individuals who experience illness, trauma, and mental health problems and those seeking personal growth.
- American Art Therapy Association www.arththerapy.org