Art Therapy - Guided Drawing.

Guided Drawing is an experiential body orientated modality; hands on mindfulness approach, immersed in the world of sensorimotor awareness. It is not ‘art making’; rather an ‘in the moment’ tracking of body sensations with bilateral mark-making on the page. Guided Drawing encompasses directive and non-directive assistance as needed. The individual will be guided by an internal awareness or ‘noticing’ and supported by the practitioner to introduce interventions for resourcing to sooth, heal, integrate and express inner material.

Often people who feel ‘stuck’ find the rhythmic movements enable them to become ‘unstuck’ via release of held tension in the body, shift mindsets, gaining of insight/cognitive awareness and reclaiming disempowered parts of self. The bilateral nature of Guided Drawing assists in strengthening the communication between brain hemispheres and also has neurological benefits; of regulation for body and mind, as well as grounding and integration of trauma imprints held in the body.

‘Whenever there is tension, it needs our attention’

-Gabor Mate

Clay Field Therapy.

Work within the Clay Field is entirely relational, the clay becomes a medium upon which our lives can be explored. The Clay Field often becomes enlivened with a force that activates movement towards revelation, integration and healing. Clay Field work can be incredibly transformative; enabling us to experience our personal narrative, unmeet needs with new awareness and impulses to meet these needs via the use of our hands, movement rhythm and the phenomenon of touch.

The Clay Field is a rectangular shallow box filled with clay; the clay is neutral in nature; it will feedback whatever the hands project into it.

‘Imprints made are imprints that reflect me'.

Touch is paramount to early development; ones perception of love & safety are formed by our earliest body memories and form the basis of secure attachment, sense of place in the world and can be the source of boundary violations and injuries. Elbrecht & Antcliff (2014). The Clay Field offers an intervention for integrating, without words or retelling the story, the trauma responses that are often held and incomplete within our nervous system.

* Work at the Clay Field has the potential to bring about the equivalent benefit of 12 months talk based therapy.

HAPTICS

‘relating to the sense of touch, in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects using the sense of touch and proprioception’

POWER OF CLAY

TOUCH

‘Hands are representations of the body in the symbolic world of the Clay Field.’
‘By touching we are touched’
Elbrecht & Antcliff (2014)

IDT - Interactive Drawing Therapy

Interactive Drawing Therapy is a complementary approach to the left brain talking therapies as it incorporates the use of right brain processes of drawing and writing. Working with pages, enables the externalisation of inner content; (which helps us to be separate from) while remaining in relationship with what emerges on the page. Writing and drawing on the paper creates a bridge between ourselves and the counsellor; often building awareness around presenting issues, accessing deep resourceful and wise parts of the unconscious and mapping the structures and functions that can allow us to facilitate change, healing and moving forward. IDT requires no ‘artistic ability’; and it is not used as a diagnostic tool or psychological enquiry. At intervals the page is held up by the practitioner and used as an active mirror or ‘talk back’ so we can be an observer; often seeing with new eyes offering inner realisations to re author our stories with new information.

COUNSELLING