my practice
“We are the beings who make a world out of the fragments of our brokenness… “ Stephen Levine
I began as a counsellor initially and then continued training in both art therapy and expressive arts therapy, working through a social justice lens in a variety of agency settings with individuals across the lifespan; over the years, this has included agencies whose mandates range from family therapy, grief and loss, trauma, and the multiple ways in which violence violates the dignity and integrity of others through an abuse of power. As well, I have worked in schools with students and their families from kindergarten through to grade 12. I believe, as Kurt Vonnegut said, that “… to practice an art, no matter how badly, is a way to make your soul grow.” The arts help us to look at things in a different way, and sometimes entail surrendering to a process that drops us down into a more human rhythm - one that connects with heart, body, soul, mind.
Arguably, everything that we talk about in the context of therapy has something to do with loss (i.e., moving, divorce, break-ups, loss of a dream, a life-changing illness, development of a disability, identity issues, etc.). And with certain losses, such as the death of a loved one, the ground has given way, there is a laceration, a tear in the fabric of consciousness, where the future feels hopeless, the present inescapable, and the past is relentlessly yearned for. We can feel undone, as we experience a destabilization of self and the ambiguity of the body’s boundary in relation to that loss. This is also when we may need support to regulate, to repair and resolve relational wounds and to heal from certain traumas - those that are more recent, or the lingering pains of the past.
It is as if each of us were a web of connection to the things, other people, experiences, activities, and projects we care about… Our life stories, and those of our families and communities are filled with weaving and reweaving of webs of connection, patterns of caring within which we find and make meaning. Tom Attig
counselling art therapy supervision
My practice is based on the needs and interests of the little and big people that I see and is grounded in compassion; it is collaborative and strengths-based, weaving together somatic, relational, and creative experiential psychotherapy with a number of other approaches. These include:
EMDR
Transformational Systemic Therapy (Satir training)
Palliative Care training, Grief and Loss Therapy Training
Somatic Experiencing - I have completed level 1 training for Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and am currently enrolled in Sensorimotor Art therapy training.
Art therapy and expressive arts therapies bring together two parts: the art and the therapy/counselling part. The arts offer us a means through which we can express and explore our emotions, thoughts, behaviours and embodied experiences. No previous art experience is necessary; art therapists and expressive arts therapists hold the belief that the arts are a way of knowing, bridging and linking rational, more linear processes with the imaginal. Art therapy can achieve different things for different people, including a deeper understanding of themselves, reducing stress, improving self-esteem and self-awareness., and nurturing resilience.
I offer clinical supervision to art therapists and counsellors. In my role as executive director of the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute, I have spent many years learning alongside my students and graduates of the program, offering both group and individual supervision. More recently, to enhance best practice elements, I have completed a supervision course designed to enhance the skills of supervisors who provide to therapists working privately, in government and community health agencies; due to my experience working with child and adult survivor of abuse, I have been contracted to work with various counselling teams in the lower mainland and beyond.
