Juniper Alves, LPC

About Juniper

Before I became a therapist, I taught children with special needs for almost thirty years. During my last few years teaching, several of my students died, to suicide, homicide, or accidents, and I decided I didn’t want to see that anymore. I wanted to support people before that happened. So one of the things I care most about is working with teens and kids who have experienced traumatic things, or who have a different way of being in the world, and being a sounding board for them before something terrible happens.

Besides being a therapist, I’m a practicing artist, and I love painting the environment around me, which is easy here because it’s so beautiful. I also like to hike and spend time outside, work with horses, garden, and spend time with my family.

Juniper’s Approach to Care

My approach is very person-centered. People come in, we get to know each other, we make a plan for how we’ll work together, and then we might do art therapy, or EMDR, or sometimes just sit and be with each other for part of the time. Building that therapeutic relationship is the most important part.

Art therapy is definitely not about making a pretty picture, though people do make beautiful things. It’s often about working from intuition, drawing or painting from a place you don’t plan, where you just experience it. It works with all ages, not just children, and it accesses a visual part of the brain we don’t use in talk therapy, which is exactly why it reaches things words can’t. I use a framework called the expressive arts continuum: if you’re carrying chaotic emotions, I’ll pick a very structured material; if you’re stuck and can’t express yourself, I’ll pick something fluid and harder to control, like paint or watercolor. I’ve watched art release things that had been buried, especially with people who experienced sexual trauma but don’t have clear memories of it. Someone will start drawing intuitively and end up drawing an experience they had, surprised by it themselves, and then we can work with that memory that couldn’t be reached before.

With children, I trust play as their language. We set things up so a child feels secure and connected, and often, mid-play, they’ll drop something big, talk about it for a minute, then go right back to playing. I remember a child carrying medical trauma and a domestic violence situation at home, who wouldn’t talk about any of it. In the sandtray he built a forest, his forest, and went in and fought and fought, then turned to me and said, I’m done. That fight was everything he’d been living, and he came back and built it again, until he was done. I trained in EMDR because, as an art therapist, people so often draw experiences they didn’t consciously know about, and EMDR gives another tool to process that memory and help it fade. I always start with resourcing, and I never push anyone further than they want to go.

Juniper’s education and experience

I’m a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado and a board-certified art therapist (ATR-BC), with a Master’s in Art Therapy and Counseling from Southwestern College in New Mexico. My recent experience includes providing services at a residential treatment center serving Native American men with co-occurring mental health needs, and serving women and children recovering from trauma at a domestic violence center. For nearly thirty years before this career, I taught, specializing in behavioral health and special education in Washington state and Kansas.

Juniper’s license information

Credential: Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC); Registered, Board-Certified Art Therapist (ATR-BC)
State: Colorado