Holding Space: An Expressive Arts Workshop on Professional Roles and Boundaries for Clinicians

Dates:
📆 Friday March 20, 2026 | Registration deadline: March 17th
📆 Tuesday September 22, 2026 | Registration deadline: September 18th 

Time: 8:00am–10:00am Pacific Time
Location: Online
Available CEs:
2 – This training meets WA state’s Professional Roles and Boundaries training requirement
Facilitator: Courtney Oliver, PhD, LMHC, SUDP
Cost: $99.00 

Boundaries are not barriers—they are dynamic, living spaces that define how we connect, protect, and remain authentic in our professional work. This experiential expressive arts workshop invites clinicians to explore the nature of professional boundaries through metaphor, imagery, and embodiment.

Participants will engage in art-making, reflective writing, and movement-based activities that deepen awareness of their professional roles and self-care practices. By creatively examining their “professional container,” participants will gain insight into the balance between empathy and over-extension, cultivating healthier and more sustainable ways to hold space for others.

Washington State requires mental health providers to complete two hours of continuing education in Professional Roles and Boundaries every two years per WAC 246-809-630. This training fulfills that requirement. 

Learning objectives

1. Participants will be able to identify personal metaphors that represent their professional boundaries and roles.
2. Participants will be able to explore how expressive arts can reveal emotional and relational boundary dynamics such as over-extension, enmeshment, or distance.
3. Participants will be able to reflect on practices for maintaining compassionate presence without burnout.
4. Participants will learn to apply expressive arts techniques to supervision, self-reflection, and/or client work to enhance awareness of boundaries.

Required Materials

• Large drawing or mixed-media paper
• Colored pencils, markers, or watercolor
• Magazines for collage, scissors, glue sticks
• Journal or notebook
• Optional: Access to music

Northwest Creative & Expressive Arts Institute Cancellation & Refund Policy

Earning Continuing Education Credits

To receive a CE Certificate for completion of this workshop, you must officially register, attend the workshop/program in its entirety and complete an evaluation form after the workshop/program. The evaluation form is emailed from NWCEAI. After completing & submitting the evaluation form, a CE Certificate will be emailed to you within 5-7 business days.

Who is eligible to receive CEs?

• Nationally: Approved NBCC Provider for Mental Health Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Licensed Social Workers (you are responsible for confirming that your organization/state will accept NBCC credits.)
• New York Licensed Creative Arts Therapists (LCATs)
• Washington State School Counselor/Teacher (OSPI) Approved by the Washington State Office of Public Instruction as a “Washington State approved clock hour offering workshop.”
• If you are outside of Washington State, we advise that you check with your state licensing board to confirm that they accept NBCC Approved CEs. 

Northwest Creative and Expressive Arts Institute is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists. #CAT-0123.

Northwest Creative & Expressive Arts Institute (NWCEAI) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7104. Programs that do no qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Northwest Creative & Expressive Arts Institute (NWCEAI) is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.