As an art psychotherapist, I cannot overstate the importance of the connections I very carefully foster with my colleagues and my peers.
These interactions hold vital spaces for reflection are essential for not just for my own personal well-being but for my professional growth and the quality of the care I can then provide to my clients.
Here are several key reasons why I believe these connections matter so deeply:
Professional Development and Learning
Mutually collaborating with other trusted therapists and practitioners, who align with my ethical values allows for congruent professional growth, allowing me to see beyond the lenses in which I view the world. My colleagues can provide and offer alternative perspectives, techniques, and insights, which can be invaluable when facing challenging work. Peer supervision, consultations of cases (confidentially, of course), and even informal discussions and art making spaces, can lead to alternatives when of approaching my work with my clients and my practice. Being connected supports me in accessing research, strengthening therapeutic modalities, and ensuring best practice.
Accountability and Self-Reflection
Being able to share trusted spaces, through words and through art, with my peers who really understand the unique challenges and fine nuisances of working within art psychotherapy, helps to supports me in being aware of my own biases, my blind spots and areas for growth that may present at any given time. Being accountable in maintaining ethical standards, clinical boundaries, and rigorous self-care practices, all support me in offering my clients a safe, held and empowering experience of working within art therapy. The value I place in these spaces, of being a part of a community of practitioners, encourages continuous self-assessment and reflection, which ultimately leads to better outcomes for clients.
Promoting a Sense of Belonging and Community
Therapists can often naturally feel very isolated in their work; client sessions are quite rightly, deeply private and confidential spaces. However, being a part of a professional community helps me to mitigate some of this sense of loneliness, that I sometimes feel. I have found that by connecting with my colleagues, I can share in my triumphs but also in my challenges. These connections remind me that I am not alone in my experiences and that my work is part of a larger collective mission – of supporting those who grieve, to hold their grief in a more known way.
Ensuring Safe Practice
By engaging in strong and empathic regular professional supervision, allows me to more easily identify any potential ethical concerns in my work. Discussing, reflecting and creating artwork in response to my clients’ material, helps to ensure that I am making sound, ethical decisions and that I am not unknowingly violating professional boundaries or best practices. Feeling supported and valued as a therapist and challenged when it’s necessary, all help me in maintaining a therapeutic presence that is both grounded, compassionate, and effective.
In December, I was fortunate enough to have spent a beautiful morning with the wonderful Fi of www.creativebutterfly.com.au – an Australian Art Therapist. It was really enlightening to have been able to learn about some of the mechanisms that hold art therapy in Australia and how there are so many similarities with that of the UK. We made art, drunk tea and deeply connected about our work, about art therapy and of some of the reasons that we had both sought about to practice, within the discipline.
In November, I felt truly blessed to have also spent some time with the wonderful Julie New who is the author of her unique gift books on life alongside her work in grief and sudden loss recovery. Her latest book being ‘The Grief Garden Path’ I was lucky enough to have made some art with Julie whilst sharing some tea by a beautiful Christmas tree while we considered some of the reasons that had both brought us to our work. A deeply shared connection and experiences; ones with different narratives but with the same underlying threads of grief, healing and navigating and living life again.
To conclude, the importance of the connections with colleagues and peers in the therapeutic field is vital for both my well-being and the quality of service that I am able to provide for my clients. The mutual support, learning, and collaborative nature of these relationships contribute significantly to sustaining a fulfilling and effective therapy practice, that I feel very proud of.