About Me

Through art making and subsequent discussion, I help facilitate self exploration and healing for my clients. I specialize in the treatment of eating disorders, using the art process to challenge distorted thoughts and express repressed emotion. I use a meaning based approach, grounded in existentially oriented therapy.

I am a Board Certified Art Therapist through the Art Therapy Credentials Board and the first Licensed Clinical Professional Art Therapist (LCPAT) in the state of Maryland. I am a strong advocate for art therapy and introduced the LCPAT to the 2012 MD General Assembly, to increase the range of art therapy services in Maryland. I previously sat on the board of the American Art Therapy Association and the Maryland Board of Professional Counselors and Therapists.

I currently teach with the International Institute for Existential and Humanistic Psychology, and serve as a thesis advisor for art therapy masters students. I am also on the advisory board for Towson University's Berman Center for Tolerance, Humanity, and Holocaust Education.

I am a scholar of the art and artists of the Holocaust, and have interviewed numerous surviving artists who created in Nazi captivity. I regularly lecture and lead workshops on this topic at professional conferences and community centers. In my research I have found that the act of creating art within the Holocaust provided victim-artists with a sense of meaning, which I grounded to Viktor Frankl's concept of finding meaning in suffering. My research informs my clinical work.

Education

DAT, Art Therapy, Mt. Mary University

MPS, Creative Art Therapy, Pratt Institute

BFA, Art, Carnegie Mellon University

PUBLICATIONS

Hlavek, E. (2025). and Art Therapy. The Wiley Handbook of Art Therapy, 197-204.

Hlavek, E.H. (2022). A meaning-based approach to art therapy: From the Holocaust to contemporary practices. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hlavek, E.H. & Feldwisch, R. (2022). Humanistic Approaches in Art Therapy. In Rastogi, M., Scarce, J., Pate, M., & Feldwisch, R. Foundations in Art Therapy: Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Elsevier.

Hlavek, E. (2022). A Review of “DBT-Informed Art Therapy: Skillful Means in Practice” by Susan Clark, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 325 pages, $37.95, ISBN-13: 978-1787752085.

Hlavek, E., (2020). A phenomenological inquiry into the art of the Holocaust. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2020.1780095

Panillo, C., Hlavek, E., & Ferrara, A. (2018). Neurobiological Impact of Trauma. In Hunter, A., Heise, D., & Johns, B.H. Art for children experiencing psychological trauma (pp104-113). New York, NY: Routledge.