Approach
How the work moves.
Trauma-informed, neuro-affirming, somatic and depth-oriented art therapy. We start with steadiness. We go further in when there is room for it, and come back to steadier ground whenever there is not. That is not a detour. That is the shape of it.
Below: where I begin, what informs the work, the braid of regulation and depth you can open step by step, and how the work is built around a neurodivergent nervous system.
You do not need to arrive prepared, or clear, or able to explain what is wrong. Most people cannot, and I have never needed anyone to.
Where I begin
I start with what happened to you, not what is wrong with you.
I want to know what you have been carrying, and what might change if you were not carrying it by yourself. The work is trauma-informed, which in practice means we go at the pace your system can hold and never at the pace of a plan.
The ways you learned to cope got you here. They were not weakness, even if they are exhausting you now. There is a real self underneath all that adapting, and I have yet to meet someone where that was not true.
It usually knows first
Your body often registers something well before you have words for it. We slow down and listen to what it is doing, rather than treating it as a problem to fix.
For when words are not it
Some things do not want to be sentences. Colour, materials, and images give you another route. You do not need to be any good at it, and I am not assessing what you make.
No performing required
You do not have to be articulate, upbeat, or easy to follow, and you do not have to improve on a schedule. I am not keeping score of how well you are doing.
What informs this work
Many threads, one cloth.
I trained in several traditions and I do not keep them in separate rooms. They come in the way threads come into weaving, whichever one the cloth needs that day. What they all agree on is that people make sense once you know what their life has asked of them, and that the body and the imagination get there before language does.
Art therapyCreative process as a way of knowing, not decoration on talk therapy. Nothing you make is interpreted without you.
The thread serves the cloth, never the other way around. If something is not fitting you, we change the method, not you.
Regulation & depth
The two are braided together.
One side steadies you. The other goes underneath. You do not have to pick, and you will not be quizzed on which you are ready for. Regulation runs above the line, depth below it, and we move between them as your capacity actually is on the day.
An unhurried hour, a pace you set, and someone who is not waiting for you to be easier to be around.
- No agenda, and no goal you are supposed to hit.
- We start by noticing how you actually arrived that day.
- If everything is too much right now, staying here a while is the right call, not a delay.
Plenty of sessions hold both. We follow whatever is already moving, rather than what the plan said.
Neurodivergent-affirming care
ADHD, autism, and AuDHD are familiar ground here.
I'm neurodivergent too. I understand how tiring it can be to move through a world that was not built with your nervous system in mind. It can be hard to feel steady, trust yourself, or make room for joy. You do not have to explain or hide that part of yourself here. This is an area I know personally and professionally, and you do not need to be neurodivergent to work with me.
ADHD
We can find ways to support your attention, energy, and follow-through without relying on shame or forcing you to work against yourself.
Autism
We make space for your sensory needs, social energy, and the effort of masking, then look at what a life that fits you could actually feel like.
AuDHD
We can hold the push and pull of both experiences without asking you to choose one side or make all the contradictions disappear.
Most of what gets called burnout here is a nervous system that has been asked for more than it had, for years, by an environment that was never built for it. So we are not looking to make you function more conventionally. We are looking at how your system is carrying your life, and restructuring that.
Your identities, work, relationships, and ways of living do not need to fit conventional expectations to be respected here. I welcome queer, trans, and gender-diverse people, sex workers, and people exploring polyamory or consensual and ethical non-monogamy. You do not have to educate me, defend your life, or make any part of yourself smaller before we can begin.
Areas we often work with
- Burnout, shutdown, and the long cost of masking
- Sensory profiles and what your environment keeps asking of you
- Executive function, without shame or force
- Interoception, when body signals arrive late or not at all
- Rejection sensitivity and the inner critic that rides with it
- Late identification, and grieving the years before it
- Recovery, pacing, and knowing what a full day actually costs
- Being the only neurodivergent person in the room, repeatedly
No diagnosis needed, and no certainty needed either. Self-identified is enough for me. You also do not have to be neurodivergent to work with me, and a worn-out nervous system is welcome here on the same terms.
Not sure where you are with all this?
You do not have to work that out before getting in touch. The first 15 minutes are free, there is nothing to decide in them, and you can email instead of calling if that is easier.