About Me

Sharon Strouse,
MA, ATR-BC, LCPAT

A year after her 17-year old daughter Kristin ended her own life; Sharon immersed herself in a creative process involving collage which became the foundation for her book, Artful Grief: A Diary of Healing.

Additional published works can be found in Neimeyer: Techniques of Grief Therapy: Creative Practices for Counseling the Bereavedand Thompson and Neimeyer: Grief and the Expressive Arts: Practices for Creating Meaning Harrington and Neimeyer: : Superhero Grief: The Transformative Power of Loss, DiMaria: Exploring Ethical Dilemmas in Art Therapy: 50 Clinicians from 20 Countries Share their Stories and Gershman and Thompson: Prescriptive Memories in Grief and Loss: The Art of Dreamscaping.

She serves as Associate Director with the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition. Her art therapy private practice and national presentations focus on traumatic loss, specifically parents who have lost of a child, suicide bereavement, and military loss/ Gold Star Families. The theoretical foundations of her work are grounded in meaning reconstruction, attachment informed grief therapy, continuing bonds with the deceased and art therapy creative processes. She is a board member on the Johns Hopkins Medicine: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Sharon is co-founder of The Kristin Rita Strouse Foundation (www.krsf.com) a non-profit dedicated to supporting programs that increase awareness of mental health through education and the arts. In addition to national workshops, she leads weekly art therapy circles and spiritual and intuitive development circles for survivors of loss.


She is a grief and bereavement specialist and workshop presenter for:
  • Portland Institute for Loss and Transition
  • Johns Hopkins Medicine: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
  • Columbia University: School of Social Work
  • The American Art Therapy Association
  • The Expressive Therapies Summit
  • The Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC)
  • The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS)
  • The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP)
  • The Compassionate Friends (TCF)
  • The American Association of Suicidology (AAS)