Power of language, the words we use, and how we story people: This powerful and important workshop explores and reflects on the words which we use in conversations, in therapy, in notes/recordings, and in places like meetings & client consultations. We look at the words we use to talk about people and describe them; as well as talking with other professionals. We think about how the way we speak can influence and impact

Convenors: Karen Treisman

A creative CPD course exploring death, loss & grief, its implications for therapy work & the importance of self-care. Death can touch on our most primitive defences. On this creative course, you will have the opportunity to safely explore this important aspect of living; reflecting both on client work and on your own feelings and experiences.

Convenors: Sharon Herriot & Bethan Bäez-Devine

Evidence is mounting that patient education can both increase the effectiveness of psychological therapy interventions by strengthening the therapeutic alliance and be a valid brief intervention in its own right. Psychoeducational approaches which are overly academic or cognitively based can be less effective in situations where learning and attention can be compromised by emotional distress or developmental issues.

Convenors: Neil Springham

A key task of the British Association of Art Therapists is to act as the learned society for the profession and the International Journal of Art Therapy is the primary record of this activity. The validity of what appears in the journal rests on sound peer review with the BAAT membership forming the basis of that peer system. The development of art therapy literature that is truly representative of contemporary practice rests on the widest possible involvement of BAAT members.

Convenors: Members of the IJAT Board 

This course is open to qualified art therapists and art therapy trainees who would like to learn more about approaches and methods to use in online art therapy practice. This course introduces ethical considerations for helping create a safe and secure virtual environment, web-based digital art media programs to incorporate into individual and group art therapy work, and how to implement these art-based tools therapeutically.

Convenors: Gretchen Miller

The course will outline the implications for theory and practice of creating art: alongside; with; and for service users. The ethical considerations and appropriateness of these ways of working will be examined and guidance offered for use within art therapy practice. Participants will also engage with experiential work and consider the experience from the perspectives of both service user and therapist.

Convenors: Susan M Carr

This course will introduce you to some basic concepts on how to understand organisations and commonly found dynamics within teams.

Convenors: Valerie Huet

Dyadic Parent-Child Art Psychotherapy is a way of working which focuses directly on the child’s primary attachment relationship. The therapist does not become the child’s therapist or the caregiver’s therapist but the relationship’s therapist. The aim of this two day course is practical: to give art therapists what they need to feel confident and competent to work in this way. It will provide a rationale, basic principles and outline how to put these into practice.

Convenors: Amanda Cyriax & Lizzie Taylor Buck

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a trauma therapy which can be used in conjunction with Art Psychotherapy to help address blocks, phobias, and anxiety. It is well evidenced as effective for PTSD. This course is aimed at those who are not trained in or using EMDR in their practice, yet. The course will provide an insight into EMDR methods and information about trainings.

Convenors: Lee Simmons

Formulation of reasons for and goals of therapy enables co-production of an intervention plan tailored to the individual's needs. Despite formulation becoming a mainstream component of psychological therapy, many practitioners have received little training. As service users may not find verbal approaches the most accessible this course demonstrates the potential of an art therapy approach to formulation with children and adults.

Convenors: Neil Springham & Alex McDonald

This course is designed to support professional art therapists and community artists/artists in residence to create and fund their own projects. You will learn how to deliver your work to a vulnerable community (at no cost to them) whilst being paid for your skills and expertise. We will explain how to partner with existing organisations, assess need, design a project, find potential funders, complete application forms, and how to publicise the work you’re doing.

Convenors: Vivien Gibbons & Sue Hamilton-White

This level 2 dyadic parent-child art psychotherapy training is for art therapists who have already completed the Level 1 dyadic parent-child art psychotherapy training, online since 2020 or those delivered face-2-face in London, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Manchester or Belfast since 2014.

Convenors: Anthea Hendry, Lizzie Taylor Buck, Katie Wilson, Amanda Platt & Amanda Cyriax

Supervisory tasks may include clinical or managerial roles or both and supervisees may be experienced art therapists or students in training. The course will provide theoretical input by looking at different models of supervision.

Convenors: Val Huet & Janet De Heger

Our understanding of psychosis is changing. In 2020 the British Association of Art Therapists published The BAAT Guidelines on Art Therapy for People with a Psychosis-Related Diagnosis, informed by evidence and experts by experience. This course is an opportunity to dive deeply into these guidelines, consider their applicability to your practice, and inform further developments.

Convenors:

Guided Drawing is a body-focused drawing technique providing an archetypal structure that applies the philosophy of Jungian Depth Psychology to universal, formal elements such as a line or a circle or a square. Adults draw with closed eyes and both hands, using chalk crayons or finger paints on large sheets of paper. Drawing rhythmically with both hands does not use imagery, but the direct expression of one's Felt Sense.

Convenors: Cornelia Elbrecht

Power of language, the words we use, and how we story people: This powerful and important workshop explores and reflects on the words which we use in conversations, in therapy, in notes/recordings, and in places like meetings & client consultations. We look at the words we use to talk about people and describe them; as well as talking with other professionals. We think about how the way we speak can influence and impact.

Convenors: Karen Treisman

This course will support your understanding of what you need to consider in order to set up and begin facilitating Art Therapy Groups with Primary aged Children.

Convenors: Lotte van Kouwen

This course is for anyone who would like to expand their self-reflection and challenge their limits in order to open up the therapeutic space. Specifically, the course is about how to better serve our LGBTQIA+ service users, but most importantly, we will see how reaching this goal helps us better serve all of our users.

Convenors: Rebecca Rivkah Hetherington

Stop-frame animation is a powerful medium to use in clinical settings allowing participants to tell difficult and traumatic stories. This course will give you a foundation into using animation and story-making from an experiential, theoretical and practical perspective. We will explore the idea of embodied narrative, how animation involves making things, how it can help order chaotic narratives and how it give participants directorial control.

Convenors: Tony Gammidge

This introductory course will provide an insight into EMDR methods and signpost to qualifying training pathways. Specific relaxation techniques and coping strategies will also be demonstrated to enable practitioners to help calm people in immediate distress and teach them to self-soothe. These techniques can be used to help individuals and groups, clients and staff, adults and children.

Convenors: Lee Simmons

This course is open to all qualified art therapists who want to work safely, ethically and effectively with children who are looked after, on Special Guardianship orders, in kinship care or adoption. The aim is for participants to gain knowledge of current good practice in this field and be familiar with the specific contribution’s art therapists can make when working with complex trauma.

Convenors: Anthea Hendry & Katie Wrench

This course is open to all suitably qualified and trainee professionals and aims to equip practitioners with an understanding of how cultural bias can affect psychological therapy. The course will allow a safe space to explore why #BlackLivesMatter is not just a hashtag through consideration of insights and examples of cultural indifference, as viewed from the perspective of a Black British Art Therapist.

Convenors: Jacqueline E McKoy-Lewens

This workshop presents content for art therapists to consider when creating and maintaining a strong digital presence using social media professionally, ethically, and creatively. Digital boundaries, e-Professionalism, the impact of one’s digital footprint, introduction to ethical frameworks and strategies for promoting a presence online aligning with one’s work, passions, values, and career interests will be examined.

Convenors: Gretchen Miller

This training draws on the attachment, loss, stress, and trauma theory base, however, with a focus of translating the findings into day-to-day child protection and children in care case work and practical tips. Once theory and context have been established on day 1. Days 2 and 3 will discuss and try out a range of creative and expressive techniques and tools. These are mainly from the bestselling book the “Therapeutic Treasure Box for Working with Developmental Trauma”.

Convenors: Karen Treisman

At birth, a baby’s brain is a quarter of the size of an adult brain. This doubles in the first year and is 90% formed by age 5. A new-born has all of the neurons required for the rest of their life, but it is the connections between these cells that make the brain work. This course will explore child development from a trauma informed, biopsychological and attachment perspective. It will examine the crucial and unique role that art therapy can play in both pinpointing and reworking poorly nego

Convenors: Mary-Rose Brady

This introductory course will provide an insight into EMDR methods and signpost to qualifying training pathways. Specific relaxation techniques and coping strategies will also be demonstrated to enable practitioners to help calm people in immediate distress and teach them to self-soothe. These techniques can be used to help individuals and groups, clients and staff, adults and children.

Convenors: Lee Simmons

Supervisory tasks may include clinical or managerial roles or both and supervisees may be experienced art therapists or students in training. The course will provide theoretical input by looking at different models of supervision.

Convenors: Val Huet & Janet De Heger