Amy Lister

Amy Lister (she/they) is passionate about art therapy and the power of care, creativity and connection to heal. Living and practicing in Tkaranto (colonially known as Toronto), the Dish with One Spoon Wampum agreement guides Amy, as a settler, in her ongoing learning (and unlearning) around striving toward mutual reciprocity in relationship with the land and with all human and more-than-human kin.

Amy brings her experience as a leadership coach, an educator, an organizational development consultant within health care, and as a Work That Reconnects facilitator, to her art therapy, psychotherapy, teaching and facilitation practice. As a FSPM Facilitator, she weaves together art therapy, emotion-focused family therapy (EFFT), Felt Sense Polyvagal Informed Focusing and ecologically-based approaches to her client work. In her private practice, she supports individuals, caregivers and care professionals, to use creative process as a way to tap into embodied wisdom for personal growth and emotional regulation when navigating change, loss and transition across the lifespan. Outside of private therapy practice, Amy is a co-founder of Spiral Center, an online learning centre that facilitates in-person and virtual offerings focused on processing eco-anxiety, climate grief and promoting more life-sustaining ways of living and working in times of local and global crisis. Committed to anti-oppressive practice, she works to create spaces for diverse points of view and ways of knowing to be considered and celebrated within scholarship and therapy practice, promoting inclusion and expanded social and environmental justice.

Amy currently serves on the Canadian Art Therapy Association Board of Directors, participates in several working committees, and is a member of, and/or volunteer with, many other art therapy, psychotherapy and social change oriented organizations locally and across Canada. She was a thesis advisor and instructor for the Canadian International Institute for Art Therapy (CiiAT) and feels especially privileged to be supporting students at the Toronto Art Therapy Institute (TATI) in the capacity of Research Advisor and values being a part of the on-going growth and development of its community. Amy has presented at global events such as the World Art Therapy Conference, UCLA HOPE Series, Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, and the Work That Reconnects Network GAIA Summit.

Amy’s life and work is focused on nourishing an individual and collective sense of belonging within the web of life and an expanded capacity to care for self, one another and the wellbeing of all living beings.

More information: https://amylister.ca/about-amy-lister