LEARN ABOUT OUR
TYPES OF THERAPIES
ART THERAPY
It may look like a craft class, but art therapy is a serious technique that uses the creative process to help improve the mental health of clients. Art therapy can be used on children and adults to treat a wide range of emotional issues, including anxiety, depression, family and relationship problems, abuse and domestic violence, and trauma and loss. Commonly found in hospitals and community centres, art therapy programmes are based on the belief that the creative process is healing and life-enhancing. As they paint or draw, a skilled therapist can use the client’s works of art and their approach to the process as springboards to help them gain personal insight, improve their judgment, cope with stress, and work through traumatic experiences.
ACCEPTANCE & COMMITMENT
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a type of psychotherapy that helps you accept the difficulties that come with life. ACT is a form of mindfulness based therapy, theorising that greater well-being can be attained by overcoming negative thoughts and feelings. Essentially, ACT looks at your character traits and behaviours to assist you in reducing avoidant coping styles. ACT also addresses your commitment to making changes, and what to do about it when you can’t stick to your goals.
COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL (CBT)
Cognitive-behavioural therapy stresses the role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. It is based on the belief that thoughts, rather than people or events, cause our negative feelings. The therapist assists the client in identifying, testing the reality of, and correcting dysfunctional beliefs underlying his or her thinking. The therapist then helps the client modify those thoughts and the behaviours that flow from them. CBT is a structured collaboration between therapist and client and often calls for homework assignments. CBT has been clinically proven to help clients in a relatively short amount of time with a wide range of disorders, including depression and anxiety.
COMPASSION FOCUSED
ECO THERAPY
Eco Therapy is a type of therapy that combines the healing power of nature and art into a joint therapeutic session. Objects found within nature such as dry leaves, pinecones, seashells, seed pods, weeds, flower petals, stones and grass can be used to make an ephemeral natural art creation that is temporary and changes as does nature.
Eco Therapy gives one a chance to slow down and explore issues in a safe and caring environment. This then in turn gives the individual a sense of control over their lives so they can understand and know themselves better, seeing themselves as part of the whole dynamic ecology of the world.
EMOTIONALLY FOCUSED
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is an approach to therapy that helps clients identify their emotions, learn to explore and experience them, to understand them and then to manage them. Emotionally Focused Therapy embraces the idea that emotions can be changed, first by arriving at or ‘living’ the maladaptive emotion (e.g. loss, fear or shame) in session, and then learning to transform it. Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples seeks to break the negative emotion cycles within relationships, emphasising the importance of the attachment bond between couples, and how nurturing of the attachment bonds and an empathetic understanding of each others emotions can break the cycles.
EXPRESSIVE ARTS
Expressive arts therapy is the use of the creative arts as a form of therapy on the basis that people can heal through use of imagination and creativity. Expressive arts therapy would include art therapy, dance therapy, drama therapy, music therapy and writing therapy.
Expressive arts therapy would include: Painting, drawing, sculpture, clay, collage, writing, poetry, photography, textiles, sand tray, movement, music, dance, drama, storytelling… As a way to explore and gain an understanding of ourselves, others, our relationships and life experiences. This can be expressed in the studio space or in nature with E.A.T…
FAMILY SYSTEMS
Family Systems therapists view problems within the family as the result not of particular members’ behaviours, but of the family’s group dynamic. The family is seen as a complex system having its own language, roles, rules, beliefs, needs and patterns. The therapist helps each individual member understand how their childhood family operated, their role in that system, and how that experience has shaped their role in the current family.
GESTALT
Gestalt therapy seeks to integrate the client’s behaviours, feelings, and thinking, so that their intentions and actions may be aligned for optimal mental health. The therapist will help the client become more self aware, to live more in the present, and to assume more responsibility for taking care of themself. Techniques of gestalt therapy include confrontation, dream analysis, and role playing.
INTEGRATIVE
Integrative therapy refers to therapy in which elements from different types of therapy may be used. Therapists ‘integrate’ two or more therapeutic styles (Eco and Art Therapies) to bring about a personalised and practical approach to healing.
Integrative therapy (with a small ‘i’) may also refer to the process of ‘integrating’ the personality by taking disowned or unresolved aspects of the self and making them part of a cohesive personality whole. It reduces the use of defense mechanisms that inhibit spontaneity and allows flexibility in solving emotional problems.
INTERPERSONAL
IPT is a short-term psychotherapy in which therapist and client identify the issues and problems of interpersonal relationships. They also explore the client’s life history to help recognise problem areas and then work toward ways to rectify them.
Interpersonal therapy is not to be confused with transpersonal psychology, which is the study of states in which people experience a deeper sense of who they are, or a sense of greater connectedness with others, nature or spirituality.
JUNGIAN
Jungian or analytical therapy, developed by Carl Jung, seeks to help people access their unconscious to develop greater self-realisation and individuation. Jung, a psychoanalyst, sought to understand the psyche via dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. The Jungian therapist helps the patient find more meaning in their life, with respect for the mysterious nature of the soul.
MINDFULNESS-BASED (MBCT)
For clients with chronic pain, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, and other health issues such as anxiety and depression, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, or MBCT, is a two-part therapy that aims to reduce stress, manage pain, and embrace the freedom to respond to situations by choice. MCBT blends two disciplines–cognitive therapy and mindfulness. Mindfulness helps by reflecting on moments and thoughts without passing judgment. MBCT clients pay close attention to their feelings to reach an objective mindset, thus viewing and combating life’s unpleasant occurrences.
NARRATIVE
Narrative Therapy uses the client’s storytelling to indicate the way they construct meaning in their lives, rather than focusing on how they communicate their problem behaviours. Narrative Therapy embraces the idea that stories actually shape our behaviours and our lives and that we become the stories we tell about ourselves. There are helpful narratives we can choose to embrace as well as unhelpful ones. Although it may sound obvious, the power of storytelling is to elevate the client–who is the authority of their narrative–rather than the therapist, as expert.
PERSON-CENTRED
Person-centred therapy uses a non-authoritative approach that allows clients to take more of a lead in discussions so that, in the process, they will discover their own solutions. The therapist acts as a compassionate facilitator, listening without judgment and acknowledging the client’s experience without moving the conversation in another direction. The therapist is there to encourage and support the client and to guide the therapeutic process without interrupting or interfering with the client’s process of self-discovery.
PLAY THERAPY
Generally for children ages 3 to 11, play therapy is a form of counselling that relies on play to help therapists communicate with children and understand their mental health. Because children develop cognitive skills before language skills, play is an effective way to understand a child. The therapist may observe a child playing with toys–such as playhouses and dolls–to understand the child’s behaviour and identify issues.
SANDPLAY
Sandplay therapy establishes a safe and protected space, where the complexities of the client’s inner world can be explored. Often young children, clients place miniature figurines in a small sandbox to express confusing feelings and inner experiences. This creates a visual representation of the client’s thoughts and feelings and can reveal unconscious concerns that are inaccessible. The therapist does not interpret, interfere with, or direct the client’s sand play but maintains an attitude of receptivity and acceptance, so the client can bring unconscious material into consciousness without censure.
SOLUTION FOCUSED BRIEF (SFBT)
Solution-focused therapy, sometimes called “brief therapy,” focuses on what clients would like to achieve through therapy rather than on their troubles or mental health issues. The therapist will help the client envision a desirable future, and then map out the small and large changes necessary for the client to undergo to realise their vision. The therapist will seize on any successes the client experiences, to encourage them to build on their strengths rather than dwell on their problems or limitations.
STRENGTH-BASED
Strength-based therapy is a type of positive psychotherapy and counselling that focuses more on your internal strengths and resourcefulness, and less on weaknesses, failures, and shortcomings. This focus sets up a positive mindset that helps you build on you best qualities, find your strengths, improve resilience and change worldview to one that is more positive. A positive attitude, in turn, can help your expectations of yourself and others become more reasonable.
TRANSPERSONAL COUNSELLOR
The Transpersonal approach is one where the whole being is taken into consideration, the body, mind and spirit. The counsellor takes the holistic approach where the clients life, life experiences are part of the process of spiritual development. It takes the client to a deeper level of awareness and healing, where it comes from within the individual, accessed through the intuitive language of images, feelings and thoughts, which is explored at one’s own pace and emergence. The role of the counsellor is to build resonance with the client and be the facilitator and witness to their process, where they build their own access points and connections within to their own authentic self.
Through the processes and accessing this inner knowledge people can face their own fears and have a spiritual death and emergence with a rebirth of their authentic identity of who and how they wish to be in this world, especially if they are facing life and death situations in their everyday, they will find an inner peace and knowing that will be their own guide and purpose for the work they are doing. When one’s own impulse for purpose flows through one, one no longer has a purpose but are the purpose, and when we trust this it then carries us through life and the challenges that present.
TELEHEALTH CREATIVE ARTS
Is the use of telecommunication technologies such as real-time video conferencing, phone or email to provide creative arts therapy to clients.
- Your concerns and goals will be explored with your therapist through artistic or creative means such as drawing, painting, drama, writing or visual art
- Your therapist may also offer suggestions or themes for you to explore. You may include a support person with you, as you might in a face-to-face consultation
- You are not permitted to video or audio record the consultation, unless your creative arts therapist gives you permission to do so
- For live video consultation you will require a computer, tablet, or smart phone with a camera and microphone and good internet connection
- A safe and private space where you will be free from interruptions during your session. Using headphones aids confidentiality
- Some basic art supplies such paper, pencils, textas or pastels as discussed with your therapist.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
YOUTH THERAPY
Art is a form of communication used for personal expression externalizing thoughts and feelings. When done in a safe environment with an art therapist, it can bring self-awareness with positive changes and healing. It is an experiential and creative process. Art therapy gives one a chance to slow down and explore issues in a safe and caring environment. This in turn gives the youth a sense of control over their lives so they can understand and know themselves better.
Neuroscience has proven that by using our ‘Frontal Cortex’ of cognitive processing, gives us time to think and to not react when coming from the reactive ‘Limbic’ brain; which controls our emotions, memory, motivation and learning. By using the creative arts will increase blood flow and neural pathways between the two areas, giving our brains better plasticity, reducing stresses, improving our mental and emotional health.
This is especially important in our younger years, where their brains are still growing and changing naturally. By the time, we reach 25 the brain will stop forming many new neural pathways, therefore we become more set in our ways, making it harder to change habits and attitudes. (Swart, 2018)
When a child has suffered trauma in the early years there is greater chance of them being stuck in patterns which then lead to less executive functioning and less brain flexibility. By improving their executive functioning this in turn will help the youth to self-regulate when their emotions are dysregulated.
Therapeutic changes occur through artist expression, as per Maslow’s hierarchy of needs whereby once a person feels safe and their needs are met then their chances of esteem increases, motivation increase and there is room for growth. This is especially essential for youth to be able to express themselves without judgement and in a safe space as they are at their optimum age for growth and self-awareness and actualization is at its height in their teenager years. The benefits their social and emotional wellbeing.
Student counsellors have used art therapy as part of their skill set, however as much of their time is in assessments than prevention therefore having an art therapist on hand for the students, teachers and youth workers to refer directly a student in need, frees them up to do their job and the student is dealt with in an effective and therapeutic nature. This could become part of the student’s wellbeing support program where they could participate individually or in groups, so no stigma was associated. This can be done individually and in groups depending on the needs of the child.