Creative Interventions with Phiona: A Holistic Approach to Expression and Healing
Creative Interventions is a dynamic and holistic form of therapy that honours the many ways people experience and communicate emotions, especially when words are not enough or feel too difficult to access. It moves beyond traditional talk-based therapy by integrating a range of expressive and sensory-based tools that allow clients to explore their inner worlds in symbolic, intuitive, and embodied ways.

This approach is particularly supportive for children and young people, neurodiverse clients, and people who have experienced trauma,  all of whom may find it challenging to articulate thoughts and feelings through conventional dialogue. In these situations, creative methods offer a non-threatening and engaging way to build trust, regulate emotions, and work through complex experiences at a gentle, individualised pace.

A Multitude of Creative Interventions to Support Individual Needs
 

Phiona brings a wealth of experience and sensitivity to her work, using a variety of creative modalities to tailor sessions to each client’s unique needs:

• Art-making: Using drawing, painting, or collage as a way to externalise internal experiences. Art allows clients to express feelings that may be too overwhelming, confusing, or pre-verbal to articulate. It helps bypass the analytical mind and invites insight through colour, shape, and form.
• Clay work: Working with clay is a deeply tactile, grounding activity that supports sensory regulation and emotional processing. It engages the body and the imagination, allowing clients to create, destroy, reshape, symbolising control, transformation, and repair.
• Nesting dolls: These symbolic tools are especially powerful in exploring identity, family dynamics, and parts of the self. Clients can visually represent layers of themselves or the people in their lives, facilitating conversations around boundaries, roles, and emotional containment.
• Sandtray: This non-verbal, experiential approach involves creating miniature worlds using a tray of sand and a wide selection of figures and objects. The scenes clients create often reflect internal processes and can reveal deep subconscious material, making this an effective intervention for trauma, grief, and complex emotional issues.
• Storytelling and metaphor: Through the use of narrative therapy, puppets, and imaginative play, clients (especially children) can express their feelings through characters and storylines. This indirect expression helps reduce anxiety around difficult topics and fosters a sense of safety and control.
• Found objects and nature-based materials: Incorporating natural elements or everyday items into therapy encourages sensory connection and spontaneity. This can be particularly grounding for neurodiverse clients or those struggling with emotional regulation.
• Creative journaling and collage: For teens and adults who enjoy working with words, images, or mixed media, these practices offer an outlet for emotional release and meaning-making, often leading to insight and self-awareness over time.

Why Creative Counselling?
 

For many, especially those who are neurodivergent, have developmental trauma, or simply feel stuck in traditional therapy models, creative Interventions can feel more accessible, empowering, and attuned to their way of experiencing the world. It meets clients where they are, whether they communicate through movement, image, metaphor, or symbol, and respects the uniqueness of each person’s healing journey.

Creative interventions is not about artistic skill. It’s about using the creative process to make sense of experience, reconnect with the body, and find new ways of expressing and integrating difficult emotions. In Phiona’s practice, these interventions are used with great care, guided by trauma-informed principles, and adapted to the sensory, emotional, and developmental needs of each client.

Whether sitting quietly with a tray of sand, shaping something unspoken out of clay, or telling a story through a puppet’s voice, clients often find that creativity allows them to move through pain and into a place of empowerment, self-discovery, and healing , at their own rhythm.

Adults:

IInitial assessment from £90 (up to 90 minutes)

Ongoing sessions for teenagers (14 yrs plus) and adults from £75 for up to 50 minute sessions

Children up to 14 years old:

Initial assessment from £90 (up to 90 minutes with parent or carer)

Ongoing sessions for children up to 14 years  from £65 for  up to 30 -45 minute sessions.