Life & Work with Jacqueline Van Den Bovenkamp of North BOULDER

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacqueline Van Den Bovenkamp

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started my professional career as an actress pounding the streets of New York City. I graduated with an Associates degree from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts after a couple of years studying theater at the University of Iowa. My work study job there had been in their costume shop and working backstage as a dresser for performances in their summer stock program. I then did an internship at The Old Creamery Theater Company in Garrison IA and toured Iowa with them and another acting company as a performer.
I acted in off off Broadway shows, invited agents and auditioned in hopes of playing the big white way (Broadway). I was able to get jobs acting at companies out of town but finally after what I considered the requisite 15 years, I realized there was something else I should be doing.
But what??
A voice came to me (from my higher self I guess) that said “you should do Art Therapy in the schools because they are cutting art programs and school shootings are happening.” This was back in the time of the first school shouting I’d heard of, I thought, kids need to learn coping skills, art humanizes and is so therapeutic that might be a great solution.
I went back to school, taking a few classes at a time to see if I could actually do that in my mid 30s. I’d started working in costume shops and assisting costume designers on shows as my “day job” while I was still pursuing acting, so I took a costume rendering, photography, painting classes along with a psychology class at Fashion Institute of Technology. Then I found that a college in New Jersey (ultimately New Jersey City University though when I started it was Jersey City State College) gave a BA in psychology and Art Therapy. Unbeknownst to me at the time, they were also a teaching school in a town that offered school based Art Therapy!

I didn’t see myself as a teacher, but a teaching degree would have helped with my goal of school based Art Therapy. So as it turns out, though I had an internship in graduate school (originally Naropa Institute, later Naropa University) at an at-risk high school, I have still not achieved the goal of developing a school based Art Therapy program. Fate, or Devine Source had other plans for me.

Throughout my life, rather than push to make things happen and swim upstream, I have tended to follow the currents. Thus, in the interim of all of this, I’d spent three years on a sail boat, cruising up from Argentina across the Rio de la Plata through Uruguay and Brazil, the French Guyanas to the Caribbean.

My undergraduate supervisor knew of my interest in school based Art Therapy but did not get me an internship with a school. Instead, I had one (from an Art Therapy Certificate course at The New School for Social Research), at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, doing in patient Art Therapy on the breast and gynecology ward as well as the bone marrow transplant unit. Then, with NJCU, I interned at a program for homeless persons with, for the most part, severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). So when I came to Boulder for graduate school, I worked at Centennial Peaks and with the Mental Health Center of Boulder (with a couple subsequent name changes-including where I started there at Cedar House/Warner House-now closed due to lack of funding).

I became more and more intrigued with the workings of the mind and it is gratifying to be of service to this population. So, after graduating, I decided to get my LPC and continue in this area rather than trying to get into schools without a teaching certificate or degree in education. I did spend one year teaching at a bilingual school in Mexico which confirmed my not wanting to be a classroom teacher. Blessings to all the teachers, it’sa tough job! I had a class of senior high students (Prepa) and a class of third graders. I decided grades 3-5 might be the best time to do a program of Art Therapy in the schools because it is before they get to set in maladaptive patterns but still never found my way to that endeavor.

After the year off from counseling to teach, I returned to get the job I currently have at a psychiatric hospital in Wheat Ridge called West Pines. Initially I did therapeutic groups as well as case management. Currently, the hospital is going through, not only a name change but a culture change as the umbrella hospital basically sold West Pines to Acadia Health. They are corporate, for profit and have been in the news for several law suits, so I am not following in this move.

Along the way, though not doing as much Art Therapy as I’d like, I have pursued my art. There was another voyage on a sail boat, from Avila Beach CA, down the coast, around Baja, into the Sea of Cortez and down to Puerto Vallarta finally back up to but a property in San Carlos, Sonora Mx where I lived off and on through winter seasons. There, I had a several different Art groups doing plein aire (live, in the moment landscape) painting and found object art.

In the past couple of years, after working in mental health with psychiatrists, using a medical model to treat symptoms, I have become very interested in psychedelic assisted therapy. I’m excited about the possibilities presented in studies that show healing of causes rather than symptoms. I received a certificate from Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI) after a year long study of ketamine, MDMA and psilocybin assisted therapy. Independently, I’ve studied Iboga/Ibogaine treatment as well, through experience, studies and discussions with professionals.

Since Iboga/Ibogaine is established as an effective treatment for opiate use disorder, I’ve also studied addiction counseling and applied for my LAC, licensed addictions counselor registration.

Being a go with the flow kind of person, I am looking for a healing center to work with and hope to work with plant medicine and apply for the DORA certificate in psilocybin therapy as well.

I wish you all spiritual and physical wellness. Namaste.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Ultimately, in my youth in particular, I struggled with life self esteem -not a good thing for an actress. I’d seen an Art Therapist/Hypnotherapist who helped me.
Also, I seek adventure and choose that over work at times which make it difficult to keep my focus on career.
But largely, being one who goes with the flow, it’s been without tidal waves.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Currently I work with persons with mental health issues at a psychiatric hospital. I’m in transition, looking for a healing center.
I also work in theatrical wardrobe at the Denver professional theaters, helping performers change costumes backstage and maintaining costumes.

I have been attuned to Reiki and feel I do channel a higher source which makes me effective as a healer. I am attuned when attending to clients, I offer compassion and empathy. I that my job is as a guide to assist others in finding their inner healer.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Helping others matters most to me because we are all connected.

Pricing:

• $150.00/hour with a Sliding scale

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Jackie Van Den Bovenkamp
• Facebook: Jackie Van Den Bovenkamp
• LinkedIn: Jackie Van Den Bovenkamp

Image Credits
Self