Carolyn Ryan, is a Long Island University: Clinical Art Therapy and Mental Health Counseling (MA),alumni, who currently resides in Long Island, NY where she works as an art therapist, a behavioral health supervisor for the psychiatry department at Stony Brook Medicine, and an emergency psychiatric room clinician. She is also an independent artist and strong mental health community advocate.

As a NY State Licensed and Board Certified Art Therapist (MA, ATR-BC, LCAT), she provides Creative Art Therapy and additional Therapeutic Services to an array of clients ranging from children, to adolescents and adults. Carolyn worked with diverse populations in intern placements throughout her undergraduate and graduate career, ranging from developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, Montessori school aged children with emotional needs, terminally ill children/medically frail, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, mental illness and addiction. Carolyn spent time doing social action internships ranging from Nicaragua to South Korea, where therapeutic interventions were brought across seas to communities in need. Carolyn applies a combination of trauma-informed and person-centered evidenced-based practices including, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Psycho-Education and Solution-Focused Therapy, as well as DBT skills. She has experience working in specialty areas, such as anxiety, depression, mood disorders, eating disorders, personality disorders, addiction, and severe mental illness.

Before being the first to be a part of an expansion for therapeutic services in the county’s psychiatric emergency room, Carolyn was one of the first art therapists to work as a clinician on an ACT team (assertive community treatment) in Nassau County, working with severe and complex mental illness as a way to reduce institutionalization and promote adequate mental health community treatment and advocate for person centered care. Carolyn was selected to speak and present at the NYS conference in regards to her development and utilization of art therapy in the community and the evidence based effectiveness it held with improving and strengthening patient care. Carolyn continues to advocate for the homeless, and assist clients often left behind in regards to the mental health care system.

Carolyn’s philosophy is as followed; “We live in a world where being human makes us susceptible to varying emotions, vulnerabilities, pain but also hope. At the end of the day we choose to become who we are regardless of our lived experiences. We do not have control over the cards we are dealt, but the energy time and focus we put into creating a better future, one that serves us. With years of experience in crisis intervention, and community treatment working with varying populations; the common thread has always remained the ability to regain strength and progress forward. As an art therapist, she’s helped many look at the world through a different lens; by first looking within themselves and exploring these often suppressed emotions to the surface. With the combination of talk therapy; Carolyn utilizes goal oriented treatment to assist clients in pushing toward achieving greater overall wellness.