Michael Fogel

Mike Fogel, MA, ATR-BC, LPC, an art therapist and licensed professional counselor, is passionate about children, parenting, and playfulness in therapy. Inspired to create a better world, Mike innovated award-winning child therapy programs and businesses: The Art of Friendship Social-Coping Program® (2000), Child and Family Art Therapy Center (2007), Camp Pegasus (2013), and the BetterWorld Affordable Art Therapy Program (2019), and Philadelphia Art Therapy Associates (2000). In 2006, he received the “Innovative Application of Art Therapy Award” and opened The Child and Family Art Therapy Center (CFATC) the following year.

CFATC provides the ideal environment for children and adolescents to participate in his person-centered, or humanistic, therapy. Its comfortable, compassionate staff allow all participants to relax and trust they are in good hands. Mike’s work is supercharged by heartfelt faith that every person has the innate capacity to heal, grow, and progress toward their vast personal potential, and his parents and children “get that.”

Since 1995, Mike cultivated a specialty in social skills group therapy with neuro-diverse children with High Functioning Autism, ADHD, and learning differences. The unique needs of this population stimulated Mike’s creation of a comprehensive program for teaching social and emotional coping-skills. As it turns out, most parents and professionals who learn Mike’s techniques and social-coping skills language say that everyone, adult and child, can benefit from these lessons!

His year-round social skills group therapy work is enhanced by his intensive therapeutic social skills day camp, Camp Pegasus, in Philadelphia’s suburbs. The camp’s social skills curriculum originated from the clinical practice and research of the Art of Friendship Social-Coping Program, the Philadelphia region’s original social- and emotional-coping skills training program. Mike’s warm, joyful style engages even the most reluctant child, and his training style presents complex concepts in clear and memorable ways.

Mike was an adjunct professor and clinical supervisor in Drexel University’s graduate art therapy program for 15 years. You can find him at conferences and workshops around the country, where he is a popular presenter on creative and visual ways to help children and families overcome challenges and thrive. He has served in volunteer positions on the board of directors of the Asperger & Autism Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Art Therapy Association. Presently, Mike is thrilled to fulfill his dream of sharing his loving and creative lessons worldwide through publication and presentation.