This concentration is based on the artist's response to working with adults and adolescents in an acute inpatient psychiatric hospital setting. Inner Face is a study demonstrating the notion that Mia, both artist and art therapist- who emphasizes the importance of self-expression through the arts-practices what she preaches. In working with such populations, Mia has discovered how challenging and intense art therapy is for both patient and facilitator. "It is very difficult to see so much sadness everyday," Mia states. "I care about my clients. To witness such pain and anguish everyday can take its toll on any human being. I also need to release all the emotions that come up for me through art therapy when my workday is over. Any one of them can become any one of us, unless we have the right balance in life." The people that Mia works with are not just patients with mental illness; they are fellow human beings with debilitating illnesses who need coping strategies and an outlet for self-expression. In creating her own personal images of what shows on their faces after looking inside their heads, Mia as the artist is then able to constructively and healthily "get them out of her system," so as to not carry the heaviness around with her emotionally and, ultimately, to prevent burn-out. The Inner Face study also helps Mia as the artist to pay homage to her clients in a most sensitive and profound manner, in terms of how much these people touch Mia's life. "Every client is unique and deserves respect," Mia declares. "There is a terrible stigma attached to people suffering from mental illness. The ignorance is rampant. People fear what they don't understand. The fact of the matter is many people fear what unfortunately can happen to each and every one of us." This study was created in part to educate and remove that stigma and fear, to help people recognize that people with mental illness are all around us. The simple notion of titling each piece with a diagnostic code from the DSM IV helps the artist/art therapist to keep patients' names confidential and anonymous, to maintain respect and ethical practice. The diagnostic code titles also serve as ironic metaphors: As Patrick McGoohan once stated from the British TV Series "The Prisoner," "I am not a number — I am a free man!" This is the last stage of dehumanization turning a person first into a number and then into nothing. Patients are not just numbers or diagnostic codes-they are human beings with rights, entitled to respect like anyone else. Everyone appears to have some traits of mental illness. At least the people that Mia works with seek the help that they so desperately need and face their demons head-on.