(HS Haywood 031729 2025) Art Therapy, Trauma, and Neurodiversity: Reaching Further Safely with Tailored Creative Approaches

Course overview

Neurodivergent people say that art therapy is one of the therapeutic supports they are most likely to engage with (Benevides et al., 2020), and that they have good experiences in art therapy of working with images, art materials and creative processes (see Hallett & Kerr, 2020; Haywood, 2024; Wright, 2023). Art therapists have been supporting traumatised people since the very beginnings of the profession in the mid-twentieth century. Research suggests art psychotherapy helps because it is an embodied practice that supports service users to express complex and ambivalent feelings, put their internal experiences outside of themselves, and make sense of difficult-to-verbalise experiences (de Witte et al., 2021). In this workshop we'll explore what art therapy is, what it isn't, and how creative processes can support a phased approach to trauma support and recovery. We'll consider how art therapy can be 'neuroqueered' (Walker, 2021) to better support the needs and preferences of innately neurodivergent people who have experienced trauma. This workshop aims to build your confidence in using creative approaches within your own modality, and to support your capacity to work safely and effectively with mark-making and images.