Meet Our Healers in JourneyWorks Collaborative
At JourneyWorks in New Bedford, MA, we offer a circle of safety and arts-based creativity in which clients can heal from suffering, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. We provide counseling, bodywork, ceremonies, and workshops, all with the common aim of generating ease, joy, and resilience.
Jennie Kristel, MA, REAT, APTT
Everyone can find wholeness and the right to have support on the journey.
Since high school, I have known that I wanted to integrate the arts and therapy into my life work. As an artist and therapist, I have evolved my work into an integrated model of expressive arts, Energy work, Reiki, and healing.
I have a Master's in Expressive Arts Therapy and a certificate in Social Ecology. I am accredited as a Playback Theatre Trainer and am a Registered Expressive Arts therapist. I have been in private practice since 2000.
Before this, I worked as a postpartum care Doula and in hospice care. For several years, I was an at-home mom, at times home-schooling my children. I taught at Burlington College for ten years and have been a teacher at Lesley University and internationally since 2003. I am a wife, stepparent, grandmother, and professional artist specializing in printmaking.
I am a practicing Buddhist, a Jew raised in the shadows of the Holocaust, and have had mild Cerebral Palsy since birth. These experiences have profoundly shaped my perspective as well as my work.
About My Work:
Utilizing the Expressive Arts, Ceremony, and Reiki, I will work with you through the path that is right for you.
I offer a cohesive and unique form of therapy that will support you in addressing life challenges, including:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Grief
- Chronic pain
- Spiritual needs
- Recovery from major illnesses
- Trauma
- Life transitions
- Disability issues
In partnership with my husband and colleague, Michael Watson, LCMHC, I offer psychotherapy sessions for individuals, couples, and families, short-term groups, workshops, as well as seasonal ceremonies.
Jennie's Work in Asia
Since 2003, Jennie has been teaching therapists in Asia how to use expressive therapies, often combined with narrative ideas, to improve the lives of their clients. Now, she has been invited to extend her work to Africa, and in the spring of 2018, she taught in Egypt and Kenya.
Expressive and narrative therapies are extraordinarily effective at mitigating the long-term effects of trauma and have become the treatments of choice for many Western clinicians. Yet, these powerful tools are unavailable to many clinicians in "less developed" countries. Indeed, therapists in Asia and Africa often find accessing training in these contemporary approaches to addressing challenging problems (especially trauma) difficult. As a result, they ask trainers like Jennie, from Europe and North America, to come to them.
Such teaching trips are rich learning experiences for both trainers and participants. Jennie seeks to support the students and professionals whom she trains to adapt strategies, theories, and techniques to their unique needs and experiences. In return, her training participants help her expand her vision for what might be helpful and compelling; her training is genuinely collaborative and mutually rewarding.
Jennie feels honored and blessed to have been repeatedly invited to teach, knowing that those she trains will then train others. Yet, these days, there needs to be more institutional support for clinicians to travel and teach. Although participants usually contribute to paying for trips, exchange rate issues mean that trainers must provide the bulk of the funding for projects themselves. Jennie's work in Africa and a return trip to India next summer are no exception.
Michael Watson
Michael Watson, Ph.D., is a practicing shaman. He was trained by the late Ipupiara (Bernado Peixota; Amazonian) and his wife, Cleicha (Peruvian), Susan Grimaldi (Choctaw), the late Joel Bernstein (Siberian), and others.
Ipu initiated Michael into Ure-e-wau-wau shamanism in 2002. Due to the ongoing state sponsored genocide of Amazonian tribes, we believe there are no surviving members of the Uru-e-wau-wau.
Michael is available for consultation
Cheri Weber, MA LMHC, LADC-1
Cheri is an Expressive Arts Therapist, licensed mental health counselor, licensed alcohol drug counselor, Reiki Master, and free-spirited artist.
Working with teens and adults, she incorporates a trauma-focused lens within the Expressive Arts therapies to support persons seeking skills for learning and healing in both group and individual settings. With her own experience and participation in the arts as a therapeutic and curing practice, she pursued an education and career in Expressive Arts. She is now a facilitator in both the medicinal and community forums, along with a private practice.
As an Expressive Arts Therapist, Cheri believes that the arts can heal at a deeper level, as a holistic approach reaching all aspects of the person. Cheri has a rich and diverse background and a passion for working with people of all ages and stages of life and circumstances. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees at Lesley University, with a focus on Expressive Arts Therapy and Mental Health Counseling. She has directed and coordinated programs, both existing and being involved in start-ups. She supports others seeking licensure with supervising professionals in attaining licensed helping credentials. Cheri lives on Cape Cod with her family. And when she is not working or making art, you can find her spending time at the ocean, with her two dogs, in the coop with the nine laying hens, or digging in the dirt of the ever-expanding gardens of her home.
Why wait any longer? Book your healing session today at 774 328-7044.