Lakh Elana

Dr. Ilana Lakh joined this year as a senior lecturer in the art therapy program, after twenty years of teaching in the veteran art therapy program at the branch of Lesley University in Israel, and continuing at the Academic College of Society and Arts. Ilana is an art therapist-senior instructor, psychotherapist and Jungian analyst, member, teacher and instructor at the Israel Institute By Erich Neumann.

Ilana specializes in transformative teaching and has developed many courses based on learning from art to theory, connecting the experiential experience of creating with the theoretical conceptualization of the art therapy profession.

Ilana serves as the chairman of YHT - the Association for Therapy through the Arts in Israel. As part of her role, she promotes the regulation of the profession in legislation, the professional development of the therapists through the arts in Israel, the public understanding of the profession and also the multicultural discourse within the association, which refers to the social reality in Israel and the role of the therapists through the arts within it.  Since the events of October 7, Ilana has been a partner in Yahat's safe studio project, and in other projects.

Ilana maintains a private practice of therapy and training in art therapy and Jungian analysis in Jerusalem, after working for many years in inpatient and rehabilitation settings in the field of mental health as well as therapeutic boarding schools, and in the settings of the Ministry of Education. Ilana specializes in the treatment of survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and teaches the subject in various places around the world.  She believes in the healing power of art as a central basis for therapy, and in the importance of personal experience in creative and mental processes in becoming a therapist.

Ilana's doctorate was written as part of the first cycle of the program for psychoanalysis and hermeneutics at Bar Ilan University, and was published in the book: The Sources of Evil in the Human Soul - A Jungian Reading of World Creation Myths (Carmel, 2017). The hermeneutic branch of her research deals with a Jungian understanding of social phenomena, texts and myths.

Ilana's research interests are varied, and deal with clinical issues related to the practice of art therapy, pedagogical issues related to the special type of teaching in the field, the history of art therapy in the world and the use of paintings as a hermeneutic tool to describe mental states and to study trauma. In the last year, following the events of Shiva in October, a large part of her research work is dedicated to the Safe Studio, a community model operated by Yahat for the evacuees, the survivors and the public in general. Being a clinician specializing in the treatment of survivors of sexual abuse, a branch of her research deals with the crossing of sexual boundaries by therapists in the framework of treatment, and other areas concern the secondary trauma of the therapists engaged in the treatment of survivors of sexual abuse, as well as the power of art in processing the secondary trauma.

Ilana presents her work at many conferences around the world, in the field of art therapy, and in the field of Jungian theory and analysis.

Research topics:

The origins of evil in the human soul - a Jungian reading of world creation myths.

Clinical issues related to the practice of art therapy

Pedagogical issues concerning the special type of teaching in the field, the history of art therapy and the use of paintings as a hermeneutic tool to describe states of mind and to study trauma.

Following the  7/10 events , a large part of my research work is devoted to the safe studio, a community model operated by Yahat for the evacuees, the survivors and the public in general.

As a clinician specializing in the treatment of survivors of sexual abuse, a branch of my research deals with the crossing of sexual boundaries by therapists in the framework of treatment, and other areas concern the secondary trauma of the therapists engaged in the treatment of survivors of sexual abuse, as well as the power of art in processing the secondary trauma.