Meet the Founder

Menekşe Onbaşı (Temenuzhka Ivova Shtereva)

Menekşe Onbaşı is a psychological counselor, expressive arts therapist, and psychodramatist based in the Netherlands. Born in Bulgaria and holding both Bulgarian and Turkish citizenship, she brings a multicultural sensitivity and embodied warmth to her work in education, therapy, and community facilitation.

She holds a double major in Psychological Counseling and Guidance and English Language Teaching from Istanbul University, and completed her master’s degree focusing on self-efficacy in language learning. She received her diploma in Psychodrama from Psychodramath Greece, and in 2022, she completed the Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) in Expressive Arts: Therapy, Education and Consulting at the European Graduate School (EGS) in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, with a specialization in research, leadership and training in intermodal expressive arts.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Menekşe taught Turkish at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has since served as a university lecturer in Istanbul Technical University in Turkiye and beyond, teaching courses in Educational Psychology, Expressive Arts Therapy, and Teacher Education in MEF University in Turkiye. Her academic and therapeutic work combines psychodrama, expressive movement, and intermodal arts practices to support emotional exploration, trauma healing, and intercultural dialogue.

A passionate tango dancer, she weaves the language of the body into her work through Tango-Drama, a method that blends dance, embodied storytelling, and role-play to explore personal and relational dynamics. She views movement as a powerful gateway to emotional insight, connection, and transformation.

Menekşe has extensive experience in leading large group processes across artistic, educational, and therapeutic settings. She has facilitated both home groups and large group sessions within international psychodrama and expressive arts academies, including those held in Crete under the Hellenistic Psychodrama Academy. In Athens, she co-leads monthly Psychodrama and Expressive Arts workshops with themes such as “The Hesitation,” “Roots and Belonging,” “Echoes of the Body,” and “Crossroads of Identity,” creating emotionally safe and artistically rich spaces for deep exploration.

Her work also focuses on immigration, belonging, and cultural identity, working both nationally and internationally with immigrant families and children. Through community art, storytelling, and psychodramatic methods, she supports individuals and families navigating transitions, loss, and cultural adaptation.

She has collaborated with municipalities and local education authorities in providing voluntary teacher training programs, aiming to support educators working in multicultural and inclusive classrooms. In addition to university-level teaching, she has developed and implemented projects in diverse school settings, integrating expressive arts with themes such as mental health, sustainability, creativity in learning, and inclusive education.

Over the past 20 years, Menekşe has led and designed numerous European Union projects focused on inclusion, migration, trauma recovery, and psychosocial support, working with teachers, young people, children and communities across Europe. She is the founder of Artmonia, a foundation dedicated to harmonizing art, therapy, and education.

In all of her work—whether in the classroom, the therapy space, or the dance floor—Menekşe nurtures creativity, presence, and the transformative power of shared expression.

To see her professional background click here.