Professional Art Therapy

Professional art therapy: training and workshops

The practice offers professional development for clinicians, healthcare workers, educators, and others working in therapeutic or support roles who want to develop their understanding of art therapy and its clinical applications. Workshops are open to professionals without prior art therapy training and are designed to provide both theoretical grounding and practical experiential work.

Who the workshops are for

The workshops are intended for people who already work with others and want to add the language of image-making to what they do, psychotherapists and counsellors looking to broaden their practice, psychologists and psychiatrists, nurses and other healthcare staff, teachers and pastoral staff, occupational therapists, and those working in addiction and eating-disorder services. No artistic training or ability is assumed. What is required is a professional interest in how image-making can reach material that talking alone does not, and a willingness to engage with the process directly rather than only in theory.

What the workshops cover

Workshops combine theoretical input (the history and theoretical frameworks of art therapy, its relationship to psychoanalytic and Jungian approaches, and current evidence for effectiveness with specific presentations) with experiential work in which participants make images and reflect on the process from both client and therapist perspectives. This dual engagement matters: understanding art therapy from the inside, as a participant in the making, changes the theoretical understanding in ways that reading alone does not.

Specific topics available as workshop modules include: introduction to art therapy and its clinical applications; art therapy in trauma treatment; art therapy with eating disorders; Jungian approaches to image and symbol; sand tray therapy; and mindfulness and image-making.

The experiential approach

A consistent principle runs through the training: a clinician who has not made images and sat with what emerges will use art therapy differently (and more cautiously) than one who has. The experiential elements are therefore not an add-on but central. Participants encounter, in a contained professional setting, something of what their own clients will experience, and that direct knowledge informs how they later introduce and hold the work.

CPD and supervision

Workshops are suitable for CPD purposes, and certificates of attendance are provided. Supervision for clinicians incorporating art therapy approaches into their practice is also available from Dr Jacquet, whose 25 years of integrative clinical work span psychotherapy, Jungian analysis, art therapy, and EMDR. Workshops can be arranged for individuals or for teams and organisations; contact the practice for availability and scheduling.