Clare McCarthy, ATR-BC, LCPC, NCC
Clare is the provider for Greater Chicago Art Therapy, LLC, and has been practicing expressive arts psychotherapy for over 10 years. She is a Board Certified Registered Art Therapist, a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (IL), a Licensed Professional Counselor (AZ), and a Nationally Certified Counselor. Grounded in a strengths-focused humanistic and Gestalt orientation, she works to provide tailored experiential opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds to connect with their innate creativity and expand their psychological resilience to adversity and change.
She understands that a healthy human experience encompasses a full range of emotions, including those that are painful and difficult; she joins with her clients in building secure, accepting, and open-minded relationships where people are encouraged to safely explore and fully express their experiences, and to apply new insights to their lives in meaningful and adaptive ways.
In her therapy practice, Clare draws from her lived experiences as a dancer, musician, and visual artist. Early in her life, she found that intuitive art making was a uniquely powerful tool to help her calm her mind, find self-acceptance, gain agency, and express emotions that she didn’t have the words to articulate. She pursued a career in visual art and art therapy to share these same useful and practical skills with others. Passionate about engaging creativity to bring about transformation and healing, she has worked as a clinical art therapist and psychotherapist in various settings including hospitals, residential treatment centers, juvenile justice systems, and in community private practice. These experiences have shaped her understanding of both trauma and resilience, and helped her develop contextual and systems-focused models for personal change.
She enjoys working with individuals of all ages, and has a clinical focus on adolescents and young adults as they transition into adulthood and explore the intersection of their personal and professional identities. She supports members of the LBGTQIA+ communities, and frequently works with clients who are exploring various aspects of their sexuality and their gender identities and expressions. She holds a Master's of Science in Art Therapy with a concentration in Counseling from Mount Mary University, where she studied with Art Therapy pioneers Dr. Bruce Moon and Dr. Lynn Kapitan. She is an active artist, and finds meaning in her painting practice, in which she visually explores the relationship between the observational and imaginative worlds—all art images included in this website reflect her personal artistic practice. She loves encouraging people to experience themselves as creative and whole, and is dedicated to providing a space where growth and learning is possible for you or your loved one.
