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Clinical Manager,
Jerilynn Blum, was drawn to the arts as a young
child. It wasn’t until much later in life; however, that she was
able to realize this dream and put her skills to work helping
others. When Blum was a girl, she loved to draw. At that point in
her life art was a gift that she practiced for her own enjoyment.
Another early love of Blum’s was reading the “classics” which
helped to jump-start her first professional career as a high
school English teacher. Later, Blum pursued a graduate degree in
Journalism and took the next step in her career in the
communications field: first at a cancer research center and later
at the corporate headquarters of a national, non-profit health
organization. It was in those years that she became interested in
health and healing. All the while, her career path was orbiting
closer and closer to becoming a healer through combining the arts
and another unmanifest childhood motivation to become a
“counselor.”
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Though successful as a teacher and as a
communications director, she decided in her 40’s to follow her
early dreams and become a counselor and healer. She searched for
and found her dream school in
Santa Fe,
New Mexico, where she studied for her
Masters in Art Therapy. The Southwest also afforded Blum the
opportunity to study with several excellent instructors in
Sandtray techniques based on the principles of
Jungian psychology and on the work of famed British
child psychiatrist
Margaret Lowenfeld. Blum’s training in Sandtray Therapy
included a two-year personal process with a Jungian therapist
trained in the lineage of Sandplay’s guru, Swiss therapist Dora
Kalff.
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Sandtray Therapy allows the client to choose
from hundreds of objects and figures in order to create a sand
tray ‘diorama’ of his or her inner world. Scenes and stories begin
to take shape while the client becomes immersed in child-like
play, allowing inhibitions to fall away and emotional healing to
begin. As a skilled Sandtray Therapist, Blum helps the client work
through mental, emotional, and even physical wounds via their play
process. Further, she has developed her own Sandtray training
process and has taught courses in the
Boise Valley
in order to expand her outreach to others.
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It is believed that all we are and all that
we dream is held like a seed in our souls, and that often we know
those things when we are children. From her own journey to
manifest what she loved from the beginning and from her work over
her years now as an Art and Sandtray Therapist with children and
adults, Blum knows this to be true. She now helps others to heal
what prevents them from growing the seeds they hold within.
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Riverside Rehab Counseling, Clinic, and
Community-Based Services located in Garden City,
Idaho has successfully recruited
Jerilynn Blum,
MA in Art Therapy, LCPC to serve as its
Clinical Manager. Blum brings a wealth of experience in
Sandtray Therapy, Art Therapy, and Psychotherapy to the practice.
She is well-known and respected as a counselor having taught
Sandtray workshops for fellow counselors in the
Boise
area and in the public schools. Jerilynn hopes to continue
to mainstream Art and Play Therapies for children, and to promote
mental health services, including traditional counseling and
medication management, for all ages through her direction at
Riverside.
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So the artistic child grew up to be a
licensed counselor with a Masters in Art Therapy. The Art
Therapist learned to incorporate Sandtray Therapy into her work
helping others to heal. And the healer was able to nurture her
childhood talents and bring these to full bloom to help others –
which turned out, after all, to be her life’s goal-path. |
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Please read more about changes to
Riverside's management team on our News page. |
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