The Art (s) of Traumatic Loss and the Work of Mourning: Art-Making, Collaboration, and the Journey from Bystander to Empathic Self-Witness with Donna Bassin, M.P.S, Ph.D

Drawing from personal experiences and collaborations with those who have endured traumatic loss, she investigates art as a relational reparative force that can mitigate trauma’s lasting impact, foster self-witnessing and community support, and transform absence into presence. She highlights the power of art to communicate psychological states that resist verbal language, create dynamic memorials, and cultivate spaces for healing, resilience, and post-traumatic growth.

Donna Bassin, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst, art therapist, artist, filmmaker, and author. A graduate of IPTAR, she serves as an associate professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She has published work on gender, motherhood, community activism, and mourning; exhibited her art-based photography in museums and galleries; and screened her two award-winning full-length documentaries, Leave No Soldier and The Mourning After, at professional conferences and international film festivals.

She served as a consultant for the New York City Department of Mental Health after September 11 and co-founded Frontline Arts, a community for veterans involved in art- making. Her solo exhibition, Portraits of a Precarious Planet, is currently on display at the Newport Art Museum in Rhode Island. You can view her artwork at www.donnabassin.com.