START Creative Arts Therapy

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West Islip, NY
START Creative Arts Therapy

Offering in-person, telehealth therapy services across NY state. Your mental health journey STARTS here!

Our West Islip office is home to a dedicated group of licensed clinicians now accepting new clients.

06/03/2026

Not all stress is the enemy.

The pre-performance buzz before you go on stage? Good stress. The push before a deadline that helps you finish? Good stress.

Toxic stress is different. It doesn't lift. It doesn't pass. It just sits in your shoulders, your jaw, your stomach, and your sleep, and refuses to leave even when the source is long gone.

If you're trying to figure out which one you're dealing with, ask yourself: does this stress eventually let me go, or am I starting to wear it like a second skin?

05/30/2026

Final seats: our May 31 workshop on disenfranchised grief in substance use recovery is tomorrow.

Sunday, May 31 | 6 Ð 9 PM | West Islip, NY
3 CEUs | $120 | Capacity 10
For LCATs and creative arts therapy professionals.

Register on our CEU Programs page. If this date doesn't work, additional CEU workshops are on the calendar.
https://www.startcreativearts.com/ceu-programs

05/29/2026

That out-of-nowhere reaction? The one where a tone of voice or a song lyric levels you for the rest of the day?

It's not you being dramatic. It's a clue.

Triggers are your nervous system pointing a flashlight at something old. Something that didn't fully process the first time. Your body remembers what your mind worked hard to move past, and when something brushes that memory, it speaks up the only way it knows how.

The goal isn't to stop having triggers. The goal is to listen to what they're telling you, and finally give that wound the attention it's been asking for.

05/26/2026

Multidisciplinary by design. Our May 31 workshop on disenfranchised grief in recovery is led by four creative arts therapists working across complementary modalities:

Jessie Leete, LCAT, ATR-BC - art therapy and visual processing
Marianne Franzese Chasen, LCAT, RDT - drama therapy and embodied work
Christian Cotumaccio, LCAT - recovery and harm-reduction practice
Nadia M. Rayhan, MS, LCAT, MT-BC - music therapy and somatic engagement

Designed for LCATs and allied creative arts therapy professionals.

Sun, May 31 | 6 to 9 PM | West Islip, NY | 3 CEUs | $120 | Capacity 10

Registration on our CEU Programs page.
https://www.startcreativearts.com/ceu-programs

05/19/2026

For the LCATs and creative arts therapists asking what's actually covered: here are the six learning objectives for our May 31 grief and recovery workshop.

1. The relationship between grief and substance use, including impact on relapse and recovery
2. Identifying ambiguous, disenfranchised, and cumulative grief
3. Clinical rationale for creative arts in grief work
4. Practicing 2-3 creative arts interventions for grief processing
5. Applying trauma-informed and harm-reduction principles in facilitation
6. Creating emotionally safe and culturally responsive therapeutic spaces

3 CEU cfredits. In-person, West Islip NY. Capacity capped at 10. Registration on our CEU Programs page.
https://www.startcreativearts.com/ceu-programs

05/18/2026

Disenfranchised grief is the loss that doesn't get acknowledged. In substance use recovery, it's pervasive: lost relationships, lost identities, lost years. And most clinicians weren't trained to hold space for it.

We're offering a 2-CEU workshop for LCATs and creative arts therapy professionals on integrating art, drama, and music therapy into grief work in recovery contexts. Trauma-informed and harm-reduction centered.

Sunday, May 31, 2026 | 6:00 to 9:00 PM | West Islip, NY | $120

Led by Jessie Leete, LCAT, ATR-BC; Marianne Franzese Chasen, LCAT, RDT; Christian Cotumaccio, LCAT; and Nadia M. Rayhan, MS, LCAT, MT-BC.

Capacity is capped at 10. Register through the CEU Programs page on our website.

https://www.startcreativearts.com/ceu-programs

05/13/2026

That conversation you keep replaying in your head? The one where you didn't say the thing, or said the wrong thing, or froze entirely?

It's stuck on repeat for a reason. Your brain is trying to resolve it.

Here's something you can try from drama therapy: reimagine the scene.

Stand up. Say the words you wish you'd said. Out loud. Change the ending. Give yourself a different script.

You're not rewriting history. You're giving your brain a version of the story where you have agency. Where you're not frozen. Where you get to be the lead.

Drama therapy at START helps people do exactly this. Step into roles, explore new perspectives, and take back the narrative.

Curious? Reach out. We'd love to tell you more.

05/12/2026

Get loud. Get messy. Get moving.

The Expression Lab is back, and registration is officially open.

It's a 6-week creative studio experience for kids ages 5–8. Six Saturdays of art, music, and movement, led by our creative arts therapists in a space designed for play, not pressure.

Not every kid needs therapy. But every kid needs a space to express. That's what this is.

Saturdays, May 23 to June 27
3:00–4:30 PM at 248 Higbie Lane, West Islip

Sign up for the full 6-week series for $210, or drop in for individual sessions at $40 each. Only 8 spots per session.

Register here: https://www.startcreativearts.com/the-expression-lab

05/06/2026

"You're too sensitive." "You're too much." "Why can't you just relax?"

Sound familiar?

After hearing it enough times, you start to believe the problem is you. That you need to tone it down, shrink yourself, take up less space.

But here's the thing: you were never too much. The spaces you've been in just weren't big enough.

At START, we help people stop apologizing for who they are. Through creative arts therapy, you get to express the parts of yourself that words alone can't capture. The intensity. The depth. The fullness of everything you carry.

You don't need to be less. You need a space that's actually built for you.

Address

248 Higbie Lane
West Islip, NY
11795

Telephone

+16318672501

Website

https://www.startcreativearts.com/

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