Vicki schwachter, ma, atr-bc, lpat

Victoria “Vicki” Schwachter is a Board-Certified Art Therapist and Licensed Professional Art Therapist with more than 30 years of experience working with children, teens, and adults. Her professional background includes special education, psychiatric settings, residential care, inpatient and partial-care programs, and schools. She has extensive experience supporting clients with anxiety, PTSD, autism, mood disorders, emotional and behavioral concerns, trauma, and higher-risk mental health needs.

Vicki has spent much of her career working with people who may not always be able, ready, or interested in explaining everything they are experiencing through words. Art therapy provides another way to begin.

You do not have to be artistic to work with Vicki. The goal is not to make something that looks good. Art can instead become a way to notice emotions, express something that is difficult to describe, approach an experience from a different perspective, or simply create enough distance from a difficult topic to make talking about it feel more manageable.

Her decades of experience across clinical and educational settings also mean that she is comfortable working with clients whose needs may be more complex. She understands that behavior often communicates something important and that progress does not always happen in a straight line.

With children and adolescents, Vicki uses creativity to encourage self-expression, flexibility, confidence, emotional awareness, and problem-solving. With adults, art therapy can create opportunities to explore trauma, identity, relationships, emotional patterns, and experiences that may feel difficult to access through conversation alone.

Vicki's approach is trauma-sensitive, accepting, and creative. She wants clients to have a place where they can explore without worrying about getting therapy, or the art, “right.”