Lecturer at Lyceum Academy: Training Future Art Therapists
I teach 'Clinical Case Applications: The Elderly' within the Clinical Art Therapy programme at Lyceum Academy in Milan. The course outlines the figure of the elderly person across different care settings — Day Care Centres, Residential Care Facilities, hospice — teamwork, and the relationship with the patient and the caregiver. I bring to the classroom the expertise gained through years of hands-on practice.
Lyceum Academy: The School of Arts Therapies
Lyceum Academy in Milan, in via Calatafimi, is one of the most authoritative institutions in Italy for art therapy training. Accredited by APIArT (Associazione Professionale Italiana Arteterapeuti) and APID (Associazione Professionale Italiana Danzamovimentoterapeuti), it boasts the highest number of graduates in Clinical Art Therapy and Dance Therapy in the country.
It is the school where I trained. Today I return as a lecturer.
My Teaching
I teach the module “Clinical Case Applications: The Elderly” within the three-year Clinical Art Therapy programme. The course addresses the specific features of art therapy work with the elderly population, a field I know deeply thanks to years of hands-on experience.
Course Contents
The module develops along several thematic axes:
- The figure of the elderly person across different care settings — Day Care Centres, Residential Care Facilities, Hospice — with their respective clinical and relational characteristics
- Teamwork: how the art therapist integrates into the multidisciplinary team, communicates with doctors, nurses and psychologists, and contributes to the care plan
- The relationship with the patient: how to build a therapeutic alliance with vulnerable individuals, often with cognitive impairment or in the terminal phase
- The relationship with the caregiver: working with families, supporting the caregiver, processing grief
- Clinical cases: I present real situations drawn from my own experience, analysing the process, the therapeutic choices and the outcomes
From Practice to Teaching
I bring to the classroom the expertise gained through years of work at Istituto Golgi Redaelli — eight years across Day Care Centres, Residential Care Facilities and Hospice — and in other health and social care settings. I do not teach abstract theory: I recount the work in the field, with its successes, its doubts and its daily challenges.
Teaching means giving back. Everything I have learned from my patients becomes a tool for training future art therapists.
For Those Who Wish to Train
The Clinical Art Therapy programme at Lyceum is a three-year course aimed at those who wish to become professional art therapists. The diploma is recognised nationally and allows registration with the APIArT professional register.