Individual Art Therapy Sessions

Art therapy is psychodynamic. This means it uses your unconscious memories, and brings them into consciousness helping you to process difficult emotions, life experiences and behaviours. Through being creative we can express what is often stuck in our limbic system, bringing it to the frontal cortex for processing. This is a natural way that our body works to protect ourselves from difficult things. Sometimes we don’t understand why we do certain things, but often art has the answers.

Art therapy can be useful for people of any age and ability. It can be used in schools, hospitals, care homes, almost anywhere. It can be helpful for those with additional needs, behavioural difficulties, dissociative disorders, poor mental health, and those who have suffered trauma, medical traumas and other medical diagnoses. We can come to art therapy for various reasons but the process is still the same. Sessions are usually for an hour at the same time each week and they are led by you. We call this client-led or person-centred. You decide what we do and how we do it, although sometimes there is some direction offered.

A series of sessions starts with an assessment to establish your needs and to check that the therapist thinks art therapy will be good for you. This assessment includes gaining your consent (or your parents if you are younger) and explaining to you that sessions are completely confidential. You can talk about anything knowing this will not be shared unless it is for your own safety or the safeguarding of others.

People usually have many sessions with 6-week reviews to check how things are going. At the end of therapy your therapist will give recommendations.