José Miguel Calderon
PhD
Biography
José Miguel Calderón is an expressive arts therapist, educator, and supervisor with over 25 years of clinical, pedagogical, and community experience. He serves as Program Director and Senior Faculty of the PhD program in Expressive Arts at the European Graduate School (EGS), Switzerland, where he completed his doctorate with the dissertation Tinkuy: The Encounter between Expressive Arts Therapy and Peruvian Imagery.
He also holds an MSc in Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies from University College London (UCL) and a Licentiate in Clinical Psychology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.
In 2004, together with Judith Alalú, he co-founded TAE Perú, the first Latin American training institute in expressive arts therapy affiliated with EGS. His leadership extends to numerous community-based projects of social transformation in Peru, including initiatives with Save the Children, the Municipality of Lima, UNESCO, and local Indigenous organizations, where he has supported resilience, cultural revitalization, and collective healing through the arts.
José Miguel has published widely in the field. He is co-editor of the book Pain and Beauty: Perspectives from Expressive Arts (TAE Press) and author of multiple chapters and articles, including contributions to Art in Action: Expressive Arts Therapy and Social Change (JKP, 2011), In Praise of Poiesis: The Arts and Human Existence (EGS Press, 2008), CAET: Creative Arts in Education and Therapy (2016), and Poiesis: A Journal of the Arts & Communication (EGS Press). His writings explore the intersections of expressive arts, art based research, Andean world view, psychoanalysis, and community practice.
As a keynote speaker at international conferences—including the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA)—and as a guest lecturer in universities and institutes across Europe, the Americas, and Asia, he has shared his vision of expressive arts as a field that bridges aesthetic inquiry, therapeutic practice, and social transformation.
His primary expressive languages are movement and creative writing, through which he continues to explore the poetic and transformative potential of the arts in contexts of vulnerability and change.