Professor Johanna Czamanski-Cohen, PhD ATR-BC, is an Associate Professor and head of the Laboratory for the Psychosomatic Study of Art Therapy and the MA Art Therapy program at the University of Haifa's School of Creative Arts Therapies, and a member of the Emili Sagol Creative Arts Therapies Research Center. A registered and board-certified art therapist with clinical training from New York University and doctoral studies from Ben-Gurion University, she also holds a research affiliation with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona School of Medicine. Her research is grounded in a psychosomatic medicine framework and seeks to bridge clinical practice and empirical science by examining both the effects and the underlying mechanisms of art therapy,  spanning psychological and physiological dimensions. 

Professor Czamanski-Cohen is the co-developer of the Bodymind Model of Art Therapy and the Drawing-based Emotional Processing Scale (DRAWEP), theoretical and measurement tools now integrated into training programs and research studies worldwide. A primary focus of her work is women's health and psycho-oncology: she served as Co-PI of the NIH-funded REPAT study,  a landmark mechanistic clinical trial of art therapy for breast cancer survivors,  and continues to lead research exploring how emotional processing, heart rate variability, and cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathways mediate symptom reduction in cancer patients. Her scholarship, which spans over 50 peer-reviewed publications and has garnered more than 1,800 citations, reflects a deep commitment to culturally sensitive research, including studies conducted with Arab and ultra-orthodox women in Israel.

Chapter 3: Neuroscience in the service of art therapy: Transcending classic approaches and advancing our understanding through principles of embodiment

Johanna Czamanski-Cohen and Juliet King

You can connect with Johanna for consultation, supervision, etc. by emailing her at  joczamanski@gmail.com.