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Dr. Tom Ettinger

Adjunct Faculty

Art and Art Professions

Tom Ettinger, Ph.D.  Tom Ettinger is a NY licensed clinical and forensic psychologist.  He teaches Psychology of the Artist and works with Dr. Acosta on Parkinson’s Disease and Art Therapy in collaboration with the NYU Medical Center.  Earlier projects with Dr. Acosta include introducing art therapy to Jamaica (2010); curating 9/11 Arts: A Decade Later (2011), and organizing the symposium War, Trauma, and Public Art (2012).  Prior to this, he was founding coordinator of the Forensic Psychology specialization within NYU’s MA Psychology Program, GSAS (2006-2009).  His forensic practice ranges from Government work (police psychologist, Port Authority PD of NY/NJ) to the Burning Man Festival (expert witness, on Government Censorship, Festival Arts, and Child Welfare).  Before NYU, Dr. Ettinger held a dual appointment as postdoctoral research affiliate at Yale University and fellow at GeorgiaTech’s Center for New Media (2003-2005). Here, he worked on assimilating Eastern healing imagery into a hybrid Virtual Reality / Biofeedback technology for meditation training and pain management.  In 1998 he became founding editor of APA's Bulletin of Psychology of the Arts (Division 10).  His publications include "Picasso, cubism, and the eye of the beholder: Psychoanalysis and cognitive psychology" (New Directions in Art History, American Imago issue) and "Introduction: Paradigm shifts in 20th‑century art and critical theory" (as guest editor of Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought).  His own arts practice includes assembled still life photography and blues/jazz bass guitar.

Selected Publications

Ettinger, Tom  (Fall 1989),  Picasso: The pictorial structure of Cubism and the bodyimage construct.  Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought,  12:2,  pp. 147263

Ettinger, Tom  (Spring 1996),  Picasso, Cubism, and the eye of the beholder: Psychoanalysis and cognitive psychology.  American Imago, 53:1, pp. 5389.  Special Issue:  New Directions in Art History, vol. 1, Jack Spector, Guest Editor.  pp. 1106.

Ettinger, Tom  (Winter 1999b),  Introduction: Paradigm shifts in 20thcentury art and critical theory.  Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought,  22:4,  pp. 485530.  Special Issue:  Psychoanalysis and Art at the Millennium. Tom Ettinger, Guest Editor,  pp. 485703.  Articles by Kuspit, Csikszentmihalyi, Spector, Rose, Blatt, Erdelyi, and Simonton.

Ettinger, Tom  (Spring 2000),  Art therapy: Creative processes and creative products.  Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts,  1:1, pp. 1970.

Ettinger, Tom  (Spring 2000),  Creativity and psychopathology (part I);  On exhibit at APA: The outsider art of Hospital Audiences International (part II).  Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, special issue, for the occasion of a Hospital Audiences International art exhibit at APA Executive Offices,  Washington DC.  pp. 1-79.  Tom Ettinger, Editor.

Ettinger, Tom (2019),  The House-Tree-Person Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale.  NYU manuscript, Art Therapy Program and Langone Medical Center.   

..... Press coverage on NYU projects noted in my faculty bio:

2010:

      Introducing art therapy to Jamaica.

2011

      9/11 Arts:  A Decade Later

2013:

      War, Trauma and Public Art

 

Programs

Art Therapy

Our MA in Art Therapy integrates psychotherapy and visual arts practice that engages the creative power of art for clinical assessment and treatment.

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