WHO IS ISABELLE RIZO?
Isabelle Rizo is a Chicago-based Medical Art Psychotherapist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, where she works across acute care, the pediatric intensive care unit, neurology, and psychosomatic medicine with medically complex pediatric populations.
Her clinical framework — medical syncretism — integrates neuroscience, art psychotherapy, and ethnographic inquiry through the lens of Two-Eyed Seeing (Etuaptmumk), centering both biomedical and cultural knowledge systems as equally valid sources of clinical insight. She holds an MA in Counseling and Art Therapy from Adler University and a BA in Visual & Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Isabelle speaks and writes at the intersection of pediatric medicine, trauma-informed care, cultural psychiatry, and medical humanities. She has presented her medical syncretism framework at Lurie Children's Hospital and has upcoming speaking engagements at a chaplaincy conference and a creative arts therapies conference.
Her Romanian and Transylvanian heritage, diasporic background, and grounding in Eastern European folklore and ritual inform a clinical sensibility that takes culture, symbol, and embodied knowledge seriously — not as supplement to medicine, but as medicine itself.
MY TRAINING & EXPERIENCE
15+ years of community facilitation, consulting, and International Exhibiting
MA, Counseling & Art Therapy — Adler University
BA Visual & Critical Studies — School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Medical Art Psychotherapist, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital
Member American Art Therapy Association
Speaker: Art Psychotherapy, Medical Syncretism, Romanian & Diaspora Experience
Contact
Whether you are interested in speaking, consulting, or research, please use the form below, and you will receive a prompt reply about moving forward together.