Reji Mathew, PhD, LCSW, REAT is an award-winning intermodal artist, mental health educator, and neuroscience-informed psychotherapist whose work centers the expressive arts as a pathway to healing, meaning-making, and social change. A Registered Expressive Arts Therapist, Dr. Mathew integrates movement, sound, story, visual art, and imagination into both clinical practice and community-based education, grounded in a narrative and trauma-informed worldview that honors identity, culture, and lived experience.

Educated at New York University in social work, cultural studies, and community health, Dr. Mathew specializes in evidence-based approaches including CBT, DBT, ACT, IPT, mindfulness, positive psychology, and EMDR. Her therapeutic philosophy emphasizes the “intermodal invitation”—supporting individuals and communities in discovering how they access their inner world when language alone is insufficient. Through aesthetic distance and expressive play, the arts become tools for self-expansion, resilience, and integration of mind, body, and spirit.

As an intermodal artist, Dr. Mathew creates installations and performances across visual art, animation, writing, spoken word, movement, and music, exploring themes of wonder, adaptability, and expressive freedom. Her work is informed by her lived experience with disability and a deep commitment to accessibility, drawing inspiration from music, percussion, improvisation, and movement-based models such as Dance for PD.

Dr. Mathew presents widely as a “street academic” in hospitals, nonprofits, and community settings, teaching culturally affirming mental health coping strategies through expressive methods. She currently serves in leadership and advisory roles with multiple arts, health, and disability organizations and is an Arts Reporter with Disastershock’s Arts & Recovery Team. Dr. Mathew’s mission is to help people cultivate inner artistry as a practical, creative tool for navigating life’s challenges—one improvisational moment at a time.