I work online or outdoors. Discounts for students/people on benefits. I offer 'standard' or nature-based Art Therapy for adults. Optional addition of nature-based mindfulness.

Explore your innate creativity. No artistic skill or experience needed. Use art-making to express and process emotions. Build a natural mindfulness toolkit to aid wellbeing and enhance future resilience.

Outdoor sessions are held in natural settings in Uppermill or Mossley. If your session is online and you want a nature-based approach, there is no need to be outdoors at the time of your session.

See below for FAQ's and my clinical areas of focus.

Free 20 minute initial phone consultation if needed.
(Any Zoom sessions after this are paid, but with no commitment to continue after the first session).

I know that taking the first step to reach out for support can feel difficult. If you drop me a brief email we can start with an initial, free, casual phone chat. Your first full session will give you an idea of what future sessions will be like, with no obligation to continue if it's not for you.

MY BACKGROUND/APPROACH:

I am an art therapist and nature-based mindfulness guide, drawing on a diverse range of trainings and approaches. My sessions can be a blend of art therapy, eco-therapy and mindfulness or one of these alone. I also periodically offer one-off wellbeing group sessions, as well as longer-term individual therapy.

If you suffer from:

Anxiety, stress, burnout, depression, family problems or work-related issues,

Having a safe non-judgemental space to explore challenges, memories or traumas can help you to heal and move forward. We can start wherever you are, you set the pace.

MAIN AREAS OF FOCUS:

• Anxiety and stress
• Burnout
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Managing change and major life transitions
• Feeling isolated/stuck
• Self-esteem/confidence
• Nature Deficit Disorder
• Eco-Anxiety and Climate Emergency-related mental health issues
• Coping with long term chronic pain
• Coping with long term illness

FAQ'S:

WHAT IS ART THERAPY?

Art Therapy uses your creativity to help you process things, develop new understanding and new ways of relating. Sometimes it can feel difficult to find words to describe emotions or memories, that's where expressing yourself visually can help. It's not about creating masterpieces, it's about self-expression where words fail. There is no need to be 'good' at art, it is not an art class. There is no pressure to make art in every session.

WHAT IS NATURE-BASED ART THERAPY?

Nature-based art therapy offers some unique additional elements. Inviting you to listen to your body and the rhythm of the natural cycles. Your creative participation is invited using whatever you have to hand. This may be pencil and paper, junk from your recycling, old magazines, or fallen leaves, sticks, feathers collected from your daily walks. Whatever you feel drawn to use.

WHAT IS NATURE-BASED MINDFULNESS?

I am a qualified nature based mindfulness guide. We can incorporate nature-based mindfulness and breathing techniques in sessions, offering a toolkit for self-care, calming, soothing, uplifting and focusing our presence in the moment.

Mindfulness involves optimising your awareness of yourself and your current surroundings, often using gentle breathwork, body scans, and tuning into our senses. This works well outdoors with so much natural stimuli  i.e. listening to birdsong, feeling the sun or wind on our skin, touching the bark of trees or softness of moss etc (safely and within Covid guidelines)

HOW ARE SESSIONS STRUCTURED?

Sessions are client-led and can be as verbal or non-verbal as you wish. You are welcome to have the video off or use the chat function sometimes too. Whatever helps you feel comfortable. We are all struggling with an excess of screen-time at present.

We could begin by checking in with each other verbally or using the text function on Zoom, then do some art-making (I might do some too). Perhaps we'll chat a bit during the art making process if you want to / if things come up for you. Then we can look at the art together on-screen and see where that leads us.

For online sessions you will need connection to the internet and somewhere where you feel comfortable and won't be disturbed (as much as is possible).

HOW DOES INCORPORATING THE NATURAL WORLD IN ONLINE SESSIONS WORK?

It might seem counter-intuitive but it can work surprisingly well. I usually lead activities with people sat by a window. Wherever you are whether it's urban or rural windows offer us at least the vastness of the sky and weather to wonder at. We can also do little outdoor excursions online together if outside space and internet data is accessible to you.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PRACTICING REGULAR NATURE CONNECTION?

• Many of us have discovered the mental and physical benefits of time in nature over the last year. It can be soothing for the nervous system, easing stress and anxiety, or uplifting and restorative i.e. birdsong and the vastness and majesty of the sky.
• Deepening connection to nature can increase empathy, joy of being, and presence in the moment.
• This can also help us open towards deeper connection to ourselves and others.
• Exploring our connection to the natural world and its rhythms can lead us into greater wholeness. A feeling of being held within something much bigger than our individual selves.
• Spending time outdoors throughout the year, watching and feeling seasons change, can develop a level of intimacy with the environment which we have sadly lost in our modern age.
• We can often feel inexplicably ''at home'' and comforted by time outside. We evolved to exist in the natural landscape, and our physical evolution has not had enough time to catch up with our technological and cultural evolution.