I knew when I first launched my art therapy practice that I needed to gain the trust of those coming into my space and allowing me into their experiences before they even met me. One way to achieve that would've been to tell you all the things I strongly believe in and hold firmly from the get-go.
But here’s the thing, values are one of those findings you discover along the way and hope to grow into. The more relationships I built and the more connections I was introduced to, the clearer the virtues I reached out for to better serve you as a companion.
So, now that I've had a chance for some discovery, here are the values that guide my practice and my presence with you.
Community
To come into deep knowing of how we are in the world is to have an awareness of how we are affected by the systems our life is embedded in, and how we feed back into them with our behaviours and actions. Doing the work in solitude is different from doing so in isolation. You are not the only one experiencing what you are, or feeling the way you do. My hope is to encourage you out of isolation and ‘undo aloneness’ within spaces where we can be witnesses to and co-creators of our healing and strengthening.
Questioning
At the root of what I do as an Art Therapist is to be curious about the stories we tell ourselves, questioning and discovering them alongside you in ways other than your rehearsed expression of it. It is through the questioning that honesty can be invited and possibility generated.
Why do you prop the piece of clay upright every time it falls over?
What is the story you tell yourself whenever this happens?
Why did you think it would always have to be this way?
In this space, we are both explorers.
Imagination
Reclaiming a space once consumed by fear, guilt or doubt is one of the biggest leaps into reimagining a self that aligns with how you want to be in the world. To construct a different way of being means to break away from the present, while daring to move into an abundant vision of our future selves and lives. It's a process that needs rebellion to be nurtured within us, against the narratives that stifle the transformations we need and are capable of. I want to bring space for this imagination to breathe, be supported and strengthened before you take it into relationships outside the therapy room.
Awareness - before ‘fixing’
The self-inquiry process is not a swift one and nor should we burden the process, and ourselves, with that expectation. With patience, the therapeutic process can widen a capacity for clarity and transformation within ourselves and in our relationships with others. Uncertainty might rush to fill up the silence. Shame might whisper 'Fix it now'. Productivity, as we know it, might be raging 'What's the next step?'
But sometimes, the next necessary step is in the stillness and the 'not-knowing’ of here.
Unlearning
My commitment to your wellbeing doesn’t mean you’ll be the only one doing the work. Ensuring your safety guides my care in approaching your health holistically. This can mean setting up a comfortable environment, encouraging rest or providing nourishment during our sessions. It also means recognising my own biases, unlearning colonised influences and misappropriations, and unpacking assumptions that might impact my practice and my relationship with you coming into my space.
Meeting You As You Are
We’re all at different stages of our self-knowing and inquiry.
The experiences that shape each of us, how they govern our behaviours and the needs that emerge from them, will vary from one person to another. As your companion, meeting you where you are – as you are – with compassion, non-judgement and curiosity is my guide to being present with you in your experience.
Befriending the New
Things reveal themselves differently when you approach them differently. The process of art-making encourages you to immerse yourself into your experience beyond a single form of expression and provide a richer understanding of it. What you once defined as ‘good versus bad’ with words, might reveal itself as deeply interconnected in sculpture form. Staying open to the surprises and befriending new perceptions of how you are in the world is part of the exploratory attitude.