Adult therapy in Lismore and Northern Rivers
Sensorimotor Art Therapy and Expressive Therapies are just as effective with adults as they are with children.
If you are seeking alternatives to traditional talk therapy, consider a Guided Drawing or Clay Field session with Pip.
There is an important place for professional mental health support in the form of psychological assessment and traditional counselling, and Pip is able to offer face to face or phone counselling support if this is your preference, or else refer you to other services.
For many clients however, telling their story of what happened over and over with each new practitioner puts them at risk of becoming overwhelmed or re-traumatised. For these clients, somatic, body based and sensorimotor therapies can be the best form of support.
With these therapies we do not need to engage in the story of what happened. Because they are based on awareness of sensations, touch and movement, with sensorimotor therapies we are able to gently address traumatic experiences stored in the body and uncouple them from the body-memory, without talking about or re-living the unpleasant events.
They are becoming more and more widely recognised as the best way to integrate and help heal trauma.
How I can support you
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Clay Field Therapy®
Clay Field Therapy is touch therapy, a here and now sensory experience with a large box of smooth clay, a bowl of warm water and a sponge. The focus is on Haptic Perception, the language of the hands, and on exploring a relationship with the clay. It is not image-based and there is no artwork to take home. Find out more
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Guided Drawing
Guided Drawing is a version of bilateral or two-handed drawing, where clients use both hands simultaneously to create marks with crayons, pastels or paint on paper. As in Clay Field Therapy, Guided Drawing is not image based - there will be no artwork to take home, and there is no right or wrong in terms of what is created visually. Find out more.
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Parent Counselling
If your child is having sessions with Pip, we will be in regular communication, and support is offered as part of the child’s therapy. Some parents may wish to have their own separate sessions, as phone calls, zoom meetings, or in person at the Heart’s Light studio.
Supporting parents to understand children’s behaviours through a trauma-informed and attachment-focused lens, can be a game changer for families. Find out more.
Kind Words
Adult therapy sessions with Pip are perfect for you if you:
Are seeking parenting support
Have unresolved childhood trauma
Have witnessed or been exposed to emotional or physical trauma as an adult
Are experiencing grief and loss
Identify as neurodivergent
Have learning challenges, attention deficit, hyperactivity or autism spectrum diagnoses
Are seeking support as you face major life transitions
My approach
My approach to working with adult clients is one of non-judgemental respect for who they are and how they are, when they arrive.
Mine is a client centred, strengths based and trauma-informed approach, and it is 100% relational. There is consistent evidence that the success of any therapeutic treatment is strongly linked to the quality of the therapeutic alliance. I combine this relational approach with my training in Sensorimotor Art Therapy and Attachment Focused Expressive Therapies.
Once we agree to work together and a relationship of safety and trust is becoming established, the natural focus of most adult sessions will be on using sensorimotor techniques which use the “bottom up” approach. Neurobiology and modern neuro-science inform us that this way of working, accessing the lower brain through body awareness and attention to physical sensations, is essential for helping clients recover from trauma, as trauma is always stored in the body.
With an understanding that any behaviour patterns or habits which may now seem problematic will have developed at some stage in the client’s life as useful coping or survival strategies, we will approach changes gently and carefully, using the titration (drop-by-drop) method. This technique, along with pendulation, is drawn from Somatic Experiencing, the trauma-healing method developed by Dr Peter Levine. They guide us to establish safe-place experiences or positive memories at the start of a sensorimotor session, so we can return to these whenever necessary in order to re-orient and experience a sense of safety in the present moment.
Working alongside parents and guardians as they explore, in a self-compassionate way, their own experiences of being parented, and assisting them as they learn more about attachment styles and inter-generational patterns, can provide the understanding and insight they need to move towards creating secure attachment relationships with their own children.
Supporting adults and children to connect with their own healing abilities, the deep inner wisdom of the body, and the inborn drive possessed by all humans towards healing, health and wellbeing, is a privilege.
Helping clients move towards the beneficial and lasting changes that these therapies can produce, is the focus and the purpose of Heart’s Light Therapies.
Book your consultation
Book a session with Pip
Frequently asked questions
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My 2024 session fee is $120.
this covers up to one hour for both adults and children.
For adults - first Clay Field Session, allow 90 minutes - fee is $150.
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During our initial consultation we will discuss your concerns or issues, and work out whether Heart’s Light will be a good fit for you. If so, we then outline a plan for therapy, including which therapeutic modalities are likely to be most useful in working towards your goals, an approximate number of sessions, and whether these will be weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
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Sessions at Heart’s Light Studio provide a safe, welcoming space where you or your child can engage in sensory-based therapeutic practices like Clay Field Therapy and Guided Drawing, or select from the other creative and expressive therapies on offer.
After the first, intake and assessment session and introduction to the studio, each session will be designed to address the issues and goals you identify, working with the tools or modalities that suit you best.
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With parent-child dyadic work the adult is involved in every session.
Outside of this, parents/carers are often included in the first 1 or 2 sessions as the child becomes familiar with Pip and the studio set-up.
In following sessions while Pip works individually with your child, it is still important that adults stay on site. You are welcome to relax on the comfortable covered-verandah waiting area upstairs.
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Child sessions will take anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes.
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Initial Clay Field sessions - allow 90 minutes
Ongoing Clay Field and all other sessions - 60 minutes
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This will vary from client to client depending on the issues being addressed, the goals of therapy and available funding.
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This is an approach to art therapy that is body focused and trauma informed. It is not image based and does not require clients to tell their trauma stories. Rather, the motor movements made by the hands in the clay or in guided drawing, and the sensory feedback received, create a feedback loop which can help settle the nervous system and create new neurological pathways.
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Up until December 2024, the answer to this questions was Yes, if your NDIS plan includes therapeutic support, and you are plan managed or self managed, your sessions may be covered, under “Other” Therapies.
We are currently waiting to see if Creative Therapies will remain as a funded item under NDIS.
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Yes, if invited, Heart’s Light can arrange to deliver individual or group sessions on site.
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Not yet, but Pip is currently looking into further study in order to qualify for this.