Judy
Weiser is a psychologist, art
therapist, consultant, trainer,
and author interested in the nonverbal and visual
aspects of
communication and behavior at both
individual/familial and societal/cultural levels
-- especially regarding
the "why" of taking, posing for, keeping,
and looking at ordinary personal and family snapshots.
One
of the earliest pioneers of "PhotoTherapy" techniques,
Judy has spent over thirty years developing, teaching,
and providing
consulting and mentoring about these techniques (and
also about the related fields of "Therapeutic
Photography", "VideoTherapy" and "Photo
Art Therapy"), while actively using these to help
her clients during her previous work in her second specialty
area of therapy for the emotional, mental, spiritual, and
cultural issues relating to living with HIV/AIDS (especially
for Native/Indigenous people) -- and training others to
do this.
Director
of the PhotoTherapy
Centre in Vancouver, Canada (which
she founded in 1982 to serve as the world's networking
base and extensive resource library for these fields),
and former Editor of the Journal PhotoTherapy,
Judy has given over three hundred PhotoTherapy
training workshops and lecture presentations in
over fifty cities world-wide*, teaching people how
to use PhotoTherapy techniques to improve their therapy
work with clients (as well as how to use Therapeutic
Photography activities in non-therapy applications
to stimulate personal growth and insight, activate
social change, strengthen communities -- and to assist with qualitative
and community-based research).
* For example, in the past few years she has conducted major professional PhotoTherapy training events, presentations, and public lectures in England, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Scotland, Sweden, Spain, the United States, and Canada (click here for
information about all of these).
In 2004 she gave the Inaugural Address for
the first meeting of the Finnish PhotoTh
erapy Association, and in 2008 she was
the "Invited Opening Plenary Speaker" for the "International
Conference on PhotoTherapy and Therapeutic Photography". In 2009 she founded the "Judy Weiser PhotoTherapy and Therapeutic Photography Educational Society" (nonprofit charity) in order to further the educational purposes of the Centre and prepare its library resource holdings for formal archiving/digitizing and eventual donation for public use (Society website coming soon).
Long
considered the "world authority" on PhotoTherapy,
Judy currently continues to consult, lecture, mentor,
and train professionals in using these
techniques
to improve their therapy or counseling practice. She
frequently accepts invitations to give Keynote or Plenary
presentations, introductory workshops, or longer trainings,
in conjunction with Psychology, Counseling,
Family Therapy, Art Therapy, or other professional
conferences or events -- as well as sharing the uses of these techniques for the general public also.
She continues accepts contracts to
provide training for therapists and counselors at agencies, hospitals, and other locations -- as well as for private individualized
training (on-site at the PhotoTherapy Centre and elsewhere) -- and enjoys sharing these techniques with the public and the media (Media inquiries, please click here).
Currently
a member of the Editorial Board for the Canadian
Art Therapy Association Journal, and an elected
member of both the Canadian
Academy of Independent Scholars and the American
Family Therapy Academy,
Judy has often served on many Thesis and Dissertation
Committees
both
nationally
and internationally -- as well as giving occasional lectures
and mini-courses for a number of Postgraduate Training
Programs in several countries.
Continuing to mentor students
and colleagues upon request, she also is an occasional Adjunct Instructor for both the Toronto and the Vancouver Art Therapy Institutes and served as Consultant
for the American Art Therapy Association's first online
"Photo Art Therapy" Course in 2005.
