Therapies

Art Psychotherapy

Art Psychotherapy, contrary to popular belief, helps words come where sometimes previously they would not.  It is a shift away from the purely verbal, which aids and abets expression in a special way. Service users have often commented how they felt a kind of release that enabled them to speak much more than they had felt able to in counselling.

No art skills are required for anyone seeking art therapy or art psychotherapy.

The safe reflective space encourages insight and facilitates change. It can sometimes have an immediacy about it hence the thorough training (good full time honors degree and a further 2 years full time).   Art Psychotherapy/Therapy is the only Professionally Regulated Psychological Therapy in the UK to date.   We are also Allied Health Professionals.   Art Psychotherapy has the ability to distance and objectify, and conversely, to get below the surface.  “A picture is worth a thousand words” is often bandied about and this is particularly so in a safe, therapeutic space – the therapist facilitates the process rather than making interpretations.

Art Psychotherapy can help you with everything that you would seek a conventional counsellor or psychotherapist for plus more serious mental health issues:

  • Self esteem

  • Bullying

  • Anxiety

  • Stress

  • Seeking change

  • Anger

  • Relationship issues

  • Bereavement

  • Feeling incompetent

  • Eating disorders

  • Dependencies generally

  • Depression

  • Managing change

  • Sexuality

  • Abuse – sexual, physical, emotional

  • Rape

  • Self harm

  • Trauma

  • Illness

  • Family breakdown

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

  • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

  • Emotional problems

  • And other significant mental health issues

Please note that users of this service do not need art skills.

Supervision has included a psychiatrist + psychoanalytic psychotherapist of over thirty and a head of an art psychotherapy department within a psychiatric hospital with even longer experience. 

My experience working in this field has included 4 years placement in a psychiatric hospital (1990 onwards) working with the sharp end of mental illness and mental health and from then,  27 years and many thousands of hours direct therapy for a very wide range of presenting problems. This includes numerous referrals from GPs, the social work department as well as child and adolescent referrals via the education department.