#13 On art therapy and trauma: Palestinian therapist Tasha Matar on how art can help communicate the unspeakable

Third Culture Therapy

This week’s conversation is with Palestinian-Polish @thehumanitariantherapist, Tasha Matar.

Tasha is therapist living in Canada who specializes in generational wounds, including struggles with belonging, diasporic grief and complex trauma.

Raised in Canada to a Polish mother and a Palestinian father, Tasha understands the third culture life and its challenges well!

She draws on her own cultural awareness and a decolonial perspective to connect with her clients - many of whom are Palestinians - using an eclectic approach that includes Sensorimotor, DBT, Internal Family Systems and Art Psychotherapy.

Tasha’s experience as an intersectional therapist has been invaluable in the wake of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and she regularly post videos on her social media channel on a wide range of topics that I’ve find very compassionate and thought-provoking.

How to be self-compassionate during a genocide? How to deal with survivors guilt? How to stop intellectualising trauma? How to sit in our grief?

All difficult but critical questions to ask and to have some compassionate answers to.

On this episode you'll hear Tasha speak about:

• How art therapy can help bridge the brain's divide
• How to practise ‘good’ therapy during a genocide
• Why self-compassion and boundaries are key
• What decolonising therapy actually means, and how existing practices could benefit from doing it

Podcast Host

Instagram: @LaylaMaghribi

Podcast Guest

Instagram: @the.humanitarian.therapist

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