{"id":8990,"date":"2025-10-20T14:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/8990\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T14:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:39:08","slug":"allentown-art-therapist-fights-mental-health-stigma-one-class-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/8990\/","title":{"rendered":"Allentown art therapist fights mental health stigma one class at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

When last we saw Cindy Rodriguez, she was poking among tombstones at Easton Cemetery, looking for wandering spirits<\/a> and even finding a few, if you can credit the findings of the modern ghost hunter\u2019s spectral cameras and other Scooby gang gadgetry.<\/p>\n

Chasing ghosts is only a sideline, though. In daily life, Rodriguez, 54, is a certified art therapist, using far more prosaic tools \u2014 crayons, markers, clay \u2014 to help children and adults uncork moods and feelings and traumas, and spill them onto canvases or shape them into three-dimensional forms.<\/p>\n

Her newest role is resident art therapist for ArtsQuest,<\/a> through which she conducts classes for children at four elementary schools in Bethlehem Area School District.<\/p>\n

\u201cA really nice gig,\u201d she called it, enthusing over the efforts of children who dive into artwork without the least trace of self-consciousness, the creativity-killer that besets so many adults.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez offers public programs, too, through her business, the Healing Palette Art Therapy. This month she\u2019s been conducting weekly 90-minute sessions for all ages at the Soft Machine Gallery in Allentown.<\/a><\/p>\n

On a recent evening Rodriguez sat in the gallery, sporting one of her favorite T-shirts \u2014 \u201cArt Therapist: Like Normal Therapist, Only Way Cooler\u201d \u2014 and musing about the stigma that still seems to hold sway when it comes to mental illness.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a reticence the Allentown resident considers harmful and even dangerous in a day and age charitably described as eventful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s the most normal thing in the world for people to have a therapist,\u201d she said, recounting her own youthful struggles with depression and flirtations with suicide \u2014 troubles she captured in a spoken-word poem performed as part of her art therapy master\u2019s degree thesis at Cedar Crest College.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was 16 I took a handful of pills, my will to live was weak\/Hate my physique\/Felt like my future was bleak\/Depression and anxiety\/Felt like a freak of society \u2026 \u201c<\/p>\n

It has an anthemic tone, capturing the anxieties that beset all young people to some extent. Knowing the children in her elementary classes will reach the churning waters of adolescence in just a few years, Rodriguez said her work has a particular urgency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey may be getting smarter and techier,\u201d she said, \u201cbut they don\u2019t know how to handle their feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a problem that, in the worst cases, can metastasize into violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to see any of these kids on CNN one night,\u201d Rodriguez said, evoking television coverage of mass shootings that has become so chillingly commonplace in the past two decades.<\/p>\n

Not all participants take to art therapy right away, and Rodriguez doesn\u2019t push. Sometimes their enthusiasm is sparked by a change in medium \u2014 a client who turns a cold shoulder to drawing or collage-making might take to clay-molding or painting.<\/p>\n

How well they draw or paint or sculpt is beside the point. For Rodriguez, a lifelong artist who exhibits in galleries, aesthetic achievement is essential. In therapy, it\u2019s secondary to the meditative and exploratory process of making.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m teaching them how to cope and express their feelings through art,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not art for art\u2019s sake. It\u2019s using art when words aren\u2019t enough, when you can\u2019t find the words.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some cases, therapy can turn up unresolved traumas or wounds that need to be explored further. It also can give participants simple tools to reduce stress and ease the distracting jumble of thoughts that accompanies life in modern society.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a release and a bit of reflection,\u201d said John Mortensen, who co-owns Soft Machine with his wife, Eva Di Orio.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mortensen took part in Rodriguez\u2019 first class at the gallery and found particular value in an exercise called \u201c5-4-3-2-1,\u201d in which participants create art inspired by the five senses: five things they see, four things they hear, three things they smell, and so on.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the artist\u2019s version of a deep-breathing exercise, focusing the mind to push away anxiety-provoking distractions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt let out a bit of frustration,\u201d Mortensen said. \u201cI still use it today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodriguez foresees expanding her audience. She\u2019s especially interested in working with the front-line groups \u2014 police, paramedics, soldiers, doctors, nurses \u2014 whose jobs put them at high risk for post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, she is busy with other work, pursuing a doctorate in expressive therapies and marketing fashion and accessories of her own design through her\u00a0Underworld Art Studio<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez said the popularity of art therapy is growing. The best proof of that, perhaps, was last year\u2019s introduction of the Barbie Art Therapy Playset,<\/a> placing the practice squarely in the mainstream of the mental health field.<\/p>\n

It was cheering moment for therapists, whose services are increasingly in demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are not well right now,\u201d Rodriguez said, sizing up the fragmented, digitized and divisive landscape, far more unnerving in its way than the spooky world of her sideline job among the tombstones.<\/p>\n

Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or dsheehan@mcall.com.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 20, 2025 at 7:00 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When last we saw Cindy Rodriguez, she was poking among tombstones at Easton Cemetery, looking for wandering spirits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,182,139,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-8990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}