MysticMag chats with Toni-Cara Stellitano, LCSW, CIMHP, a holistic psychologist and artist known for her unique approach to healing and creativity. After two decades on antidepressants, she transitioned off medication in 2016, facing a diagnosis of Neurological Lyme Disease that affected her right side. Turning to art with her left hand, Toni-Cara found solace in creative, non-linear expression, discovering its therapeutic value for emotional trauma. Her writings on Holistic Healthcare and Self-Acceptance have been published in Creations Magazine, and her poetry has been featured in Bards Annual Poetry Anthology. She holds a certificate in Trauma Informed Creative Arts Therapy from SUNY ALBANY and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in New York and Florida, offering counseling services for children, teens, and families. Her art, exploring deep personal meanings, can be found on Fine Arts America as well as on her website, and she shares her client work and art therapy practices on her Facebook, Instagram and TikTok pages.
Toni-Cara, you’ve experienced a profound personal journey from antidepressants to holistic healing. How has this journey influenced your approach to psychology and art therapy?
My journey coming off of antidepressants has influenced my approach to psychology and art therapy in profound ways. It has solidified my faith in the triumph of the human spirit, and my belief in the body’s ability to heal itself. It has also shown me that if I can heal myself, then we are all capable of healing ourselves… that my clients are all powerful healers too, that I am not the magic healer, and that there is not a magic pill. This was such a potent and grounding realization for me, to come to that place of humility and honoring of the self and the other as being equally as powerful in the therapeutic container.
Your journey includes a diagnosis of Neurological Lyme Disease, which affected the use of your right side. How has this experience influenced your perspective on the mind-body connection and the role of holistic approaches in healing?
I researched the spiritual implications for certain bodily afflictions, including autoimmunity, which is the category that Lyme Disease falls under. What i discovered was that the psycho-spiritual aspects of autoimmunity are connected to certain beliefs, and are about anger toward “the other” turned toward the Self. So essentially, this diagnosis was about repressed anger and emotions that needed to find their way out of my body. I quickly got connected with an emotional release therapist who helped me express the anger and resentments I was holding on to in my life up until that point and I started making art with my left hand because my right side was too weak to hold a pencil. Mind you, at that time, I was already a skilled artist and clinical social worker, working at the top Psychiatric Hospital in New York, while also growing my private practice. It was so humbling and scary, and also such an amazing opportunity to change everything I believed to be true about mental health and the way that our emotions impact our physical bodies. Later on, when I pursued a certificate in Creative and Expressive Arts Therapies, I learned that left-handed/non dominant art creation accesses and stimulates the trauma centers in the brain (limbic system) in a way that right handed art and processing cannot. So this experience quantified the value of the expressive arts in the therapeutic setting which was something I had known intuitively for years, but that I now had data to substantiate.
Your art and writing explore themes of self-acceptance and healing. How do you integrate these themes into your therapeutic work with clients?
This all goes back to the same thing for me, if we can understand ourselves and take responsibility for our own healing , then there is an opening to accept who we are without judgment.. who we have been and what beliefs have brought us to where we are now. This is NOT about self blame! It is about personal accountability, and when we acknowledge our role in our own suffering, we also acknowledge that we can make tangible change happen in our lives. So, for me, shining a light on where my client’s can make shifts, and (gently and humorously) holding them accountable for their role in their suffering… all while seeking to compassionately understand certain behaviors and/or afflictions, is the way to bring self-acceptance into this work. I am always gearing my eye toward the shadow that fuels behaviors and afflictions, while normalizing and holding space for the vulnerability and shame that rises in the process of being deeply seen in that.
In your practice, you emphasize the importance of creative non-linear self-expression for healing emotional trauma. How do you navigate the balance between encouraging exploration and ensuring a safe therapeutic space for clients?
I think this is where it is really important to have a foundation and solid training in traditional psychotherapy treatment modalities. These provide the structure and strong container for clinical safety and assessment, and can also ground the more creative non-linear work that I do. I think that is the beauty and the value of a holistic approach, the ability to draw upon all modalities that you have access to and intuitively moving from there.
Your work encompasses various therapeutic modalities, such as CBT, EFT, and Reiki. How do you tailor your approach to meet the unique needs of each client?
I think the perfect answer to this is the quintessential “ meet the client where they are at” and “trust your intuition.” Most of my work /sessions begin with a more traditional approach of psychotherapy or cognitive therapies, to get a sense of what is active and what the client is wanting to process during our time together and then trusting my intuition and feeling into which intervention may creatively assist their process best. For example, a client may share something that reveals a negative belief about themselves, and I may invite them in to do a few rounds of EFT (tapping) to rewire that belief, or i will suggest an art image that could be created to help bridge or access feelings that the client may be evading because of trauma, or limited access to any one feeling sensation. Some people don’t always want to take a more creative approach, maybe they are fearful of what is going to come up, maybe they want to just continue with the talk therapy session, maybe there this is just they way their emotional resistance to change is rising. In those cases, I will almost always encourage a client to do an art or movement process or tapping exercise between sessions on their own ( because sometimes being witnessed in creative expression feels too vulnerable) . Giving the client the freedom to explore something privately can be a way to get them more comfortable with a new modality. Art is vulnerable stuff! Healing is vulnerable stuff! The client has to be open, and I have to intuitively trust the process and trust that ultimately, they are the ones who steer the ship of their individual healing journeys.
If you would like to find out more about Toni-Cara Stellitano, please visit https://www.tonicara.com/
