“My mom and dad were born and raised in Dayton,” Horwitz said. “And my grandmother on my dad’s side was born in 1917 in Dayton. Anytime we were doing things as a family, it was always in Dayton.”
Horwitz’s mother was an art teacher and her father, Jeffrey, was an ophthalmologist with a thriving practice in Dayton.
“My whole family appreciated the arts,” Horwitz said. “I used to love to write stories and take visual arts classes.”
As a fifth grader, Horwitz applied to and was accepted at the School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati. Her older sister, Jennifer Hayden, attended the same school and lived with a relative in Cincinnati for a year.
By the time Horwitz applied, her parents had discovered the Warren County Transit system, which provided transportation to and from the school. Eventually, Horwitz’s younger sister and brother both attended.
“I was a really shy kid, but the arts and writing really helped me a lot,” Horwitz said. “I also majored in vocal music because I love to sing.”
Horwitz’s interest in creative writing led her to Kenyon College, where she majored in English. She discovered she loved teaching as well and took a summer job as a counselor at Camp Kern in Oregonia.
When she graduated from Kenyon College in 1997, she thought she’d be a teacher.
“I ended up teaching outdoor education and took an assistant director job at a summer camp in Michigan,” Horwitz said. “Then I decided to apply for an Americorps program called Teach for America.”
The program placed Horwitz in the Baltimore City Schools system in 1998. She had never had experience with inner city schools prior to this placement.
“That year of teaching informed me so much more about trauma and racism and how it affects kids,” Horwitz said. “I was teaching around 40 kids of all different levels and needs.”
One of Horwitz’s core memories of that time was discovering how music can change everything and really helped her students focus. But the year she spent teaching in Baltimore left her feeling burned out and ready to try something different.
Though she had left Ohio and never thought she’d return, a job with the Joy Outdoor Education Center in Clarksville piqued her interest.
“I ended up getting a position at Joy for the 1999-2000 school year,” Horwitz said. “I loved it and made some of the best friends of my life there.”
Horwitz’s experiences led her to continuing her education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. The school offers a master’s program in expressive therapies — using music, art and dance in therapy sessions to help people recover from trauma.
“By the time I left Joy, I was ready to move to Boston,” Horwitz said.
And she did just that in 2001. She was placed in an internship at an alternative high school for kids with behavioral issues. But the first day of her internship was September 11, 2001.
“When trauma hits you, it’s hard to put your feelings into words,” Horwitz said. “I learned how to help people process trauma and how important this is to recovery.”
She graduated in 2003, and her first counseling job was at a private high school in Boston that focused on kids dealing with trauma. Then toward the end of that school year, Horwitz found out about an after-school arts program in north Boston that was looking for an expressive therapist. She was hired and worked at Raw Artworks for nine years.
Also in 2003, Horwitz met her husband-to-be, Bradley Backer, who is also an artist and musician. The couple married in 2009 and remained in Massachusetts while Horwitz opened her first private practice in 2010.
“One of the reasons we really wanted to move to Colorado was that we have a lot of family there,” Horwitz said. “My parents divorced while I was in high school and my mom, my brother and my sister moved to Colorado.”
Her son Ben was born in April 2013, and Horwitz loved the flexibility of having her own business. And when Ben was 20-months old, the family moved to Golden, Colo.
Horwitz ramped up her private practice in Colorado. Without a website, she relied heavily on referrals and ended up getting them. By 2015, she had a part-time caseload, and within two years, she had increased to full-time.
“From the beginning I decided to do therapy based in nature,” Horwitz said. “I did my thesis in college on ways to integrate nature and arts to help people.”
Since the pandemic in 2020, Horwitz has shifted to mostly working outdoors. Horwitz discovered that simply taking people outside makes a significant difference in mental health.
“I am maintaining a small case load,” Horwitz said. “I’ve learned to take better care of myself, too, so I can do more in the community and be there for my son.”
Have a personal journey to share? Contact this contributing writer at banspachwriter@gmail.com.
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