Creative Neurocounseling with Sarah Levin

“There’s no real difference between a “mental health” issue and a “physical health” issue. The only difference is, it’s really hard to treat a brain - it’s an astoundingly complex organ!”

Counseling, therapy, art, and neuroscience how are these fields interrelated? Meet Sarah Levin, a licensed professional counselor with an MA in mental health counseling and specialty in art therapy who created Creative Neurocounseling in 2019.

Creative Neurocounseling combines traditional counseling methods with approaches based in neuroscience and expressive arts. Through the use of an integrated model that incorporates evidence-based psychotherapeutic approaches, mindfulness, biofeedback, and creative expression, clients can learn to work with their own brains and hearts, rather than against them. We are thrilled that Sarah has shared with us her personal journey and why she is so passionate about neuroscience, counseling and art therapy and what we could learn about mental health and ourselves! Read more below!

I became a licensed professional counselor in 2016 after obtaining my master’s degree in mental health counseling with a sub-specialty in art therapy. Prior to that, my career trajectory was propelling me into the field of medicine. As an undergrad, I majored in neuroscience; a few years later, I started medical school. From a young age, I always wanted to become a physician, envisioning myself as tropical medicine specialist or rural family doctor - something that would allow me to treat people who weren’t getting properly treated due to environmental or socioeconomic factors. I really just wanted to work very closely with people who desperately needed care.

Unfortunately, I’d also been suffering from a long-standing eating disorder, which worsened significantly under the strain of my medical training. I ultimately withdrew from the program about halfway through - which was pretty devastating in itself, since I’d dedicated about 10 years of my life in pursuit of that dream. I spent the next five years in and out of hospitals and treatment centers, and things looked really bleak for me. I was always an excruciatingly sensitive person, which compounded my troubles; I was not only struggling to make sense of my own traumatic life experiences, but those of all the people I cared about. I sometimes think that starving myself to a skeletal state, as dangerous as it was, provided me with a sense of safety - and containment. A smaller body meant there was less room to hold the burdens of the world I all-too-willingly (though unconsciously) took on.

At some point I tried a couple of new treatment modalities, including biofeedback training and art therapy. I thought these “treatments” sounded absurd and insufficient at the time (ART THERAPY?!?! I was a scientist, for crying out loud!), but I was willing to try anything - mostly because I couldn’t stand hurting the people I loved. I was very privileged to have a family that cared and supported me, and who persisted in holding hope for me when I’d lost it for myself. I always tried very hard for them, but it didn’t “stick” - mostly because no one can recover for another person, as cliched as that may sound. Eventually, I had to try hard for myself. I began to figure out what actually mattered to me (my personal values), and how I could live according to those values. I developed a mindfulness practice (which is basically the foundation of every sound, evidence-based therapeutic technique there is). I made a lot of art, through which I began to process my past trauma in a way that words never would have allowed. Using biofeedback, I trained my nervous system to respond differently to perceived threats. I began to painstakingly arrange all of these puzzle pieces together, which was a slow process. It wasn’t pretty or perfect - it was often a big, sticky mess - but with enough practice and persistence, the puzzle became a whole picture. Sort of a strange-looking one, but a picture nonetheless.

A career shift was the last piece of the puzzle. I matriculated at Naropa University (a Buddhist-inspired university in Boulder, Colorado) one year after my last stint in treatment. This shift helped me to shed a very sad, broken identity as I trained in a field that really allowed me to not only work with people, but develop significant, meaningful relationships with them. I didn’t heal so that I could become a therapist; I healed as I became a therapist - because when I was doing something authentic and meaningful to me, the coping mechanisms I once needed to survive were no longer necessary. I was no longer operating in a dissociative, trauma-driven state; on the contrary, with every connection I formed, my brain was demonstrating its own resilience. Life was imperfect - I still experienced messiness, disaster, chaos, grief, loneliness, heartache, and other turmoil just as consistently as everyone else (if not more so, after all those years of self-abuse). But I finally recognized my innate trust in my ability to weather that turmoil.

The term “Neurocounseling” in my practice implies a combination of traditional theories of counseling (“talk therapy”) with a foundation in the neurobiological roots of our thoughts, behaviors, and actions. I firmly believe that a little education can go a long way in reducing the shame and stigma associated with, for instance, addictions and eating disorders and depression and anxiety and all sorts of other “mental health” issues (that are actually not “mental” at all, because they are all the result of, or the cause of, distinct biological changes on a molecular level). There’s no real difference between a “mental health” issue and a “physical health” issue. The only difference is, it’s really hard to treat a brain - it’s an astoundingly complex organ!

The other term in the name of my practice, “Creative,” refers to how I may emphasize the use of creative expression in a patient’s therapy. Artistic expression demands us to use different areas of our brains that don’t get nearly enough attention, at least not in a culture driven by verbal communication. It helps us access pre-verbal memories, enhance our abstract reasoning skills, discover new ways to solve old problems, and basically just harness our innate potential as humans. I could’ve talked to therapists for years, trying to explain why something as “simple” as eating a sandwich was so threatening for me - but I would’ve been dead by that point! Creating art sped up my recovery exponentially, and I still dedicate time to it nearly every day.

“If we, as a population, develop and nurture qualities that enhance our resilience - such as compassion, empathy, and vulnerability - we can shift from a survival state to a thriving state, even in the context of traumatic experiences. And if we’re thriving, everyone around us has a better chance of thriving too.”

I am currently working as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation counselor at a residential facility, in addition to seeing patients in my private practice. The work really jazzes me, because I have so much hope for my patients...when most of them are feeling absolutely hopeless. I see people recover, and maintain their recovery. The statistics are still pretty dismal...but they were dismal for me at one point, and I’m still kicking. This field needs people with energy and drive, and now that I have both of those things, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else.

These days, I am extremely interested in the field of epigenetics, which is going to make a huge impact on our ability to treat all sorts of conditions. In my work, epigenetics is changing the horizon very rapidly. We know things now that we didn’t know even 10 years ago. For instance, let’s say your father struggled with severe alcoholism for many years. Let’s say he went to treatment and got sober and became the dad you always wished you’d had (but didn’t because he was drinking too much, leaving little room for an authentic connection between you two). You might’ve inherited your father’s genetic material that predisposes him to alcoholism...in which case you might be thinking, “I’m freaking doomed!” But now we know: you’re absolutely not doomed. If he recovers - and, importantly, if you maintain a relationship with him - you will also inherit his recovery. His recovery means just as much as that genetic material...because our environment dictates how genes are expressed, quite literally on a biological level. If he stops drinking (not an easy task for an addicted brain - that would be another blog post) and starts pursuing meaningful experiences, he will pass on all of his hard work, which can be protective against the genetic mechanisms he didn’t have control over when he had children.

My background in the biological sciences allows me to understand this on a molecular level (which is kind of rare for a therapist, but just means that we need to expand counselor education!). It’s very complicated but mind-blowing stuff...and it’s what helps me jump out of bed in the morning when other aspects of my job hit me like a ton of bricks, such as when I hear stories upon horrific stories of abuse, or when I hear about a former patient who’s relapsed, overdosed, or died. Or when I read the news and feel the pit in my stomach when I read about people losing their livelihoods, killing each other over face masks, attacking others because they have dark skin, grieving loved ones who died of COVID, and all of the other horrible scenarios we are seeing constantly in this era. We can sit in hopelessness, or cultivate hope through dedicated action.

Ultimately, all of this can be tied together: people come into the world as incredibly complex organisms, and only become increasingly complex throughout our lives. We pass on our genes if we have children, but equally (perhaps more?) importantly, we also pass on our experiences - and our resilience. We can pass this onto everyone around us, not just our children. If we, as a population, develop and nurture qualities that enhance our resilience - such as compassion, empathy, and vulnerability - we can shift from a survival state to a thriving state, even in the context of traumatic experiences. And if we’re thriving, everyone around us has a better chance of thriving too.

I think Viktor Frankl, the Jewish psychiatrist who survived years of imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, said it best in his timeless book, Man’s Search for Meaning:

“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph; to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.”

We asked Sarah to share some of her favorite books in this subject matter so that others who may find neuroscience, therapy and art interesting can dive more into it. Below are some of her suggestions!