Tonia Herrero

Tonia Herrero (she/her) is the owner and supervising Art Therapist of East Bay Art Therapy. Tonia is a cisgendered woman with Spanish, Ashkenazi, Irish and Native American (Sac and Fox) ancestry. Tonia is a Board Certified Art Therapist with the Art Therapy Credentials Board and a Licensed Certified Art Therapist in the state of Oregon. She has over eight years of clinical experience in the field of art therapy and specializes in all things adolescent boys as well as adolescents and adults of all genders with substance-use concerns (or in recovery from addiction/alcoholism) as well as dual-diagnosis (substance-use plus mental health diagnosis/es). Tonia has long term sobriety/recovery herself and is passionate about working with folks in recovery or wanting to enter recovery from substance-abuse. For decades, Tonia has demonstrated an innate talent and ability to build positive rapport with adolescents, especially teen boys. Her approach to art therapy is trauma-informed and draws influence from Relational Psychodynamic and Humanistic theories such as Person-Centered, Existential, and Gestalt. She is also trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed. Tonia is a Health At Every Size (HAES) and Intuitive Eating informed therapist which informs her work with clients struggling with their relationship to food and body image. Tonia obtained her Bachelors of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts, an Art Teaching Credential from CSU East Bay, and a Masters of Professional Studies in Art Therapy and Creativity Development from Pratt Institute. Tonia has a long history of facilitating the powerful therapeutic relationship between art and young people. In her first career, she developed and directed an art academy at a public high school in Oakland where she was a full-time art teacher for ten years. Inspired by the healing power of the arts and the relationships she built with her students, Tonia decided to return to her hometown of Brooklyn, New York to pursue graduate studies in Art Therapy. During her graduate program, Tonia furthered her passion for adolescents as she completed various clinical internships providing individual and group art therapy to pre-teens and adolescents with complex trauma, justice-involvement, and other behavioral and mental health concerns in both residential and school settings. Tonia has held various positions as an art therapist at facilities across the bay area such as; residential treatment facilities for teens and young adults, transitional housing for adults with severe mental illness, inpatient psychiatric hospitals, and K-12 public schools. Tonia founded East Bay Art Therapy in March of 2019. Tonia is available to see individuals ages 14 and up at the Oakland office on Wednesdays and Thursdays and facilitates the Young Womens Art Therapy Group. She also works off-site providing art therapy groups at public schools in Alameda County and facilitates arts-based trainings, professional developments, and workshops throughout the SF Bay Area. Tonia is available for consultation services. Tonia supervises all other EBAT therapists. ATR-BC #18-101 (National) LCAT #ART-C-10214083 (Oregon)