A little about me
I am a qualified Advanced Drawing and Talking Practitioner and teacher. With a Doctorate in Psychology, I’ve always had an ongoing interest in art, psychology and education,
working for over forty years in the art trade and in education and mental health for
over twenty.
I combined art, critical psychology and mental health nursing models in my PhD,
investigating what best aids mental health recovery. I explored spoken and written
storytelling and how we use metaphor and art work to express our difficulties.
Everyone has a story that needs telling and art can help us to unravel and express our
own personal meanings.
I work with people of all ages from primary and secondary children, young people in
further and higher education to adults. The power of having a space to draw and talk
freely is tremendous. Whether we are struggling with stress, anxiety, bereavement,
exhaustion or whether we just can’t see a way forward or are living with mental
illness, we all need a time and space to ourselves, to step out of our daily life for a
short time.
Drawing can enable us to express and realise in visual form our worries and
preoccupations which we may often not consciously be aware of, it is a safe way to
express these feelings. The process of drawing and talking together with a practitioner
who is receptive to the emotions being expressed activates a powerful healing
mechanism within us.
By Drawing and Talking with an empathic practitioner who observes and listens, over
time we can begin to create a story that helps us to sort things out and find a symbolic
resolution that enables us to move forward. This process can give us a sense of control
over events. Through drawing we can learn to master our stories and approach our
lives with greater confidence in ourselves. When as adults or children we have been
overwhelmed by events and had the feeling of powerlessness it is so important for us
to reclaim a real sense of power in our lives. Through this therapeutic technique old
memories can be stored away safely as past events and we can begin to move forward.