Elena Kaiser
Clinical Professional Counselor, MA, ATR-BC, LCPC
Office
When Elena isn’t assisting children and their families, she enjoys running, biking, hiking, and gardening with her three children, husband, and dog. She loves healing foods and yoga, appreciates nature’s limitless beauty, and finds time to paint and draw.
Visit Elena’s Art Gallery Site Here at Elena Kaiser
Elena’s Approach
General Approach
Elena G. Kaiser studied painting at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her passion for art and healing led her to pursue a Masters Degree in Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute – Rush Medical School in Chicago. For twenty-five years, Elena has been helping clients move towards greater health and happiness.
Art therapy is especially effective with children, teens and young adults. Elena has provided art therapy to her clients in private practice. She was also hired by the Niles Township School District to provide art therapy in seven schools to children with special needs. Clients paint, draw, and even play with Lego blocks. While her clients are busy creating, Elena engages them in conversation. Clients who might be uncomfortable simply sitting in a chair across from a therapist find comfort in the creative process. Once at ease, Elena’s clients open up and begin sharing their concerns. Elena is able to contact her clients’ feelings and concerns. She helps them imagine happier selves in paintings, drawings or sculptures.
Eager to find other tools to help her clients, Elena was drawn to an audio and tactile therapy referred to as EMDR. In EMDR therapy, a client is given audio, visual or tactile cues. The cues in combination with Elena’s skilled guidance allow a person to revisit a traumatic event and reprocess their response to the event. Clients who have suffered for years with the after shocks from a traumatic event report remarkable benefits from EMDR. Persons for whom traditional talk therapy alone has been ineffective often find that EMDR in conjunction with talk therapy enables them to heal.
Elena is effective working with children, teens, adults and couples. Whether using EMDR or art therapy, Elena brings a warmth, wisdom and humor to her work. Elena is a licensed clinical professional counselor, a Board-certified Art Therapist, and a certified EMDR therapist. She has been married for twenty-three years and has a son (21) and two daughters (17, and 15).