Art & Expressive Therapy

What is Art & Expressive Therapy?

Sometimes words are simply not enough.

Art & Expressive Therapy uses expressive modalities to provide alternative ways of communicating and exploring emotions and lived experiences.

An expressive approach to therapy/counselling enhances feelings of safety and is often more resonant with the individuals lived experience than simply talking about it.

A variety of mediums is used including sand, slime making, shaving foam, play dough, nature items, construction and craft, as well as ‘traditional’ art materials such as clay, plasticine, paint and much more!

How it works

By using tactile means to express there is an experience of ‘sensing’ that occurs in the making and creating. This sensorimotor approach is critical to working on difficult feelings by expanding tolerance and increasing capacity for self -regulation.

Art & Expressive Therapy is an embodied way of working that is much more than simply talking about a problem or issue. The body feels and senses through the experience and in this way can integrate or heal. This approach to therapy supports individual strategies and resilience by facilitating positive felt experiences in the expressive processes; themes of mastery and joy support a connection to self and mitigate the impact of trauma.

Anyone can access Art & Expressive Therapy

Critically, you don’t need to be an artist or even like art to be able to engage in Art & Expressive Therapy.

Art making, doing and taking action in a tangible way (through expression) is a tool to create safety, externalise difficult feelings and create a sense of agency and control during feelings that can be overwhelming. The art making/expression is a tool to support the therapy.

Benefits of Art & Expressive Therapy

Art & Expressive Therapy allows us to show what happened, how it felt, to integrate the experience in safety. This allows us to build on, act and shape a way forward that is unique to our needs.

Neuroscience tells us that if we mobilise after a stressful event or threat, this very mobilisation supports the process of healing, integration and increased resilience.

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How to access Art & Expressive Therapy

Private Funding

Individual sessions can be accessed through private funding, and are held at Connected Self’s consulting rooms, or in one of our community spaces in the southern Adelaide suburbs.

NDIS (Creative Counselling)

NDIS-funded support, via creative counselling, is available with our specialist child and youth therapists who have Counselling Membership with PACFA (Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia).

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NDIS Plan (Art Therapy)

NDIS-funded support, via art therapy, can be utilised for our Therapists with Membership with ANZACATA (Australia, New Zealand, Asia Creative Art Therapy Association).

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Connected Self is currently at capacity for this line item. Please reach out to expressivetherapy@connectedself.com.au if you would like to explore other options.

Embedded Schools Model

Connected Self offers on-site Art & Expressive Therapy to provide individual social and emotional support to students through a flexible, dynamic medium. By working collaboratively with the school community, the Embedded Model provides opportunities for shared care and increased school capacity to respond to the individual’s needs in ongoing and sustainable ways.

Click here to learn more about our Embedded Schools model.

Department for Child Protection-Children and young people living in care

Since 2007, Connected Self has privileged the voice of children and young people living in out-of-home care.

Our team of qualified, skilled, and highly experienced child and youth therapists have a proven track record of providing therapy approaches that are ideal for children and young people with lived experience of trauma.

We are passionate about providing services that are engaging, create safety and meet their specific needs. We work collaboratively with both government and non-government stakeholders to provide a holistic approach to therapeutic support and care. We are passionate about supporting positive wellbeing outcomes and good mental health for everyone.

Sessions can be accessed onsite at Connected Self consulting rooms and may also be offered onsite at the child or young person's school; enquire to find out specifics.

Social workers and supports can contact expressivetherapy@connectedself.com.au for more information and a quote to apply for funding.

Children and young people living with complex needs

Our specialist child and youth therapists provide therapy support to a variety of children and young people who: have been voluntarily placed in care due to exceptional circumstances, who are caregivers to siblings or parents and who are able to access therapeutic support from various funding sources.

Connected Self cannot advocate to the various Departmental, Government and non-government bodies for this funding however will take referrals from appropriate pathways.

Workplace Employee Access Program

Connected Self Expressive Therapy team provide an innovative and supportive approach to EAP services. Our EAP partners can access either Psychology Services or Art Therapy depending upon contracted parameters.

For more information on adding Art Therapy to your EAP options please contact expressivetherapy@connectedself.com.au

A bespoke Expressive Therapy approach can be used in multiple settings for staff wellbeing approaches including both individual and group work.

Enquire now for a consultation about your specific agency/workplace needs.

Meet our Expressive Therapists

Bek McGregor-Dey

Georgie Evangelistis

Cath Lappin

Lucy Duncan

Claire Lengs

Trish McLean

How to access our Art & Expressive Therapy Services

To speak to someone at Connected Self please phone 08 8232 2438 or email at expressivetherapy@connectedself.com.au.

Polyvagal Practices

Polyvagal practices aim to enhance physiological regulation, restore a sense of safety, and promote engagement through autonomic nervous system regulation.

This enhances social and emotional learning, including recognising and regulating emotions (from a physiological lens) and developing empathy for others.

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PACE

Developed as part of attachment-focused family therapy, PACE is a trauma-informed approach aiming to create safe, trusting, emotionally connected relationships with children and adolescents who have experienced trauma or attachment difficulties. PACE stands for:

Playfulness

  • Approaching with an open, ready, calm, relaxed and engaged attitude.
  • Not taking yourself/situations too seriously.
  • Diffusing difficult/tense situations.

Acceptance

  • Unconditionally accepting the current state/mood/behaviour.
  • Accepting that there are things unseen that lie below behaviour.
  • Acceptance supports feeling secure, safe and loved

Curiosity

  • Understanding the child gently and without judgement.
  • Supporting child to bring awareness to their inner life.
  • Wondering statements.

Empathy

  • A sense of compassion and understanding for young person’s feelings and thoughts.

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Expression of experience when words are not enough

Art Therapy does not rely on verbal language. It is a therapeutic approach that provides many different mediums for communication. It is a useful mechanism when clients may not yet have the language to express their experiences.

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Contain difficult feelings and build tolerance

Art making holds or contains the difficult feelings allowing them to be felt and experienced gradually – building tolerance to discomfort.

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Promote self-regulation & nervous system integration

Sensory and tactile processes offer rhythmic and regulating experiences as well as embodied ways of processing trauma.

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Create a sense of agency and mobilisation

Sometimes, life throws situations at us where we feel helpless. Through expression, by physically and tangibly “taking action”, clients can experience a sense of agency and control in the face of overwhelming experience, supporting the process of healing, integration and increased resilience. The physical medium of art therapy also enhances a sense of agency by “holding” or “containing” the difficult feelings, promoting clients’ choice in how they physically interact with them. This creates opportunities for participants to decide to approach, interact with or step back from these feelings, as they feel equipped to do so. This sense of agency and choice is fundamental in fostering a sense of psychological safety, supporting participants to build tolerance and foster resilience in the face of challenges.

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Increase social and emotional capacity

The experience of safety in therapeutic relationship and widened window of tolerance support social connection.

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Activate right-brain processes that calm the body

Right Brain function activates the parasympathetic system, supporting regulation of the nervous system.

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Help process and understand confusing feelings

Expression, symbolic work and embodied process supports new awareness and narratives

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Enable scaffolding of language through explorative processes

Therapist supports client with naming the felt sense.

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Sensing through expressive processes increases interoception

By expressing thoughts and feelings in a tangible format, clients can physically observe their experiences, in their own bodies creating opportunities to make meaning, shift perspective and imagine new narratives.

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