Creating Insights Art Therapy
Hello and welcome! Thank you for landing here. To me, ‘creating insights’ sums up the experiences of myself and my clients when making art and meaning of our work, world, circumstances, challenges, realisations, strengths, and so forth, together. My lived experience very much informs the way I work and build relationships with my clients.
“It’s not what you make, it’s how it makes you feel.” Louise Weston
Art Therapy is a gentle, self-paced, self-directed practice. It is rich in its ability to provide a person-centred approach for achieving self-awareness, healing, and growth throughout the lifespan, acknowledging trauma, mentalisation, and overall relationships.
As opposed to talk therapies, Art Therapy adopts a bottom-up approach, accessing clinical frameworks such as the Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC), Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and so on.
The Expressive Therapies Continuum – unique to Expressive Therapies- works on the triune brain to inform what’s not only beneficial to the client’s needs, but necessary to assist the trajectory of their growth.
ART THERAPY is a form of psychotherapy involving the encouragement of free self-expression through painting, drawing, or modelling, focusing on the creative art-making process itself, as therapy, or on the analysis of expression gained through an exchange of patient and therapist interaction. Art therapy involves the use of creative techniques to help people express themselves artistically and examine the psychological and emotional undertones in their art. What’s more, it is:
- Beneficial for all ages, presentations, and stages of life
- Guided and companioned by a trained and qualified Art Therapist
- Explore emotions, improve self-esteem, relieve stress, manage anxiety & so on
- Requires no prior experience or art-making skills
Art Therapy offers clients a chance for free expression and self-exploration in a non-judgmental manner. Through support and encouragement, art therapy can help build skills such as resilience, confidence, and self-regulation.
Art Therapy for me combines my two favourite things, art and self-growth. I have always sought ways to improve my own mental wellness to navigate my own challenges. In fact, followed this path to help myself and others. We all have our own story, and with the right support and tools, I believe you can make the best out of any situation you have encountered. What’s more, you can take that experience and grow from it.
Art Therapy uses many different creative and expressive modalities to access all abilities and offers an expansive opportunity for self-discovery and healing.
With regular exposure to Art Therapy, clients can tap into their feelings and state of awareness so much that they can self-direct themselves through their own healing. To me, it’s like unlocking their inner strengths and a wonderful privilege to witness and companion.
Art has been my friend and go-to since I was a toddler. My very patient Mother allowed me to be in creative bliss (mess) freely till my heart’s content, and I have in turn done the same for my children and now others through my expressive workshops and individual therapy.
I believe there is great benefit in being in the right headspace, free from critical thinking, to truly and freely create. READ ON
- “Inside you, there’s an artist you don’t know about.” Rumi
- “The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow.” Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- “Creativity cannot flourish and reach its deepest potential without the participation of its demons as well as its angels.” Shaun McNiff
- PACFA Clinical Member 30647
- ANZACATA Professional Member 55812777
*Images used with permission and good intentions. If you have any queries over image use please contact me directly. All Images remain the property of Louise Weston.