Holistic

Our minds, our bodies and the worlds we are immersed in are not separate entities, but highly interconnected and interdependent in subtle, complex and profound ways. Our wellbeing and our understanding of what wellbeing means to us, is constantly shaped by and shape our individual and collective histories and narratives, our families, communities, cultures, neighborhoods, countries, regions and the world.  

Living in this modern world fraught with stress and uncertainty can bring many challenges to meeting our core human needs such as love, acceptance, security, autonomy, nature, community, and ritual. This is especially so if you belong to a marginalized, oppressed community.

In having a holistic approach, I resist the disease framework that mainstream psychiatry and psychology employs. You are not suffering because you have a disorder. Instead, I recognize that the suffering we face originates in the broken systems and structures where we are treated like machines, and valued for our ceaseless cycle of production and consumption. The distress many of us face, such as depression and anxiety, are the body's natural, evolutionary-based attempt to protect and survive.  

 A therapeutic journey at Greenhouse Art Therapy involves collaborating through art and conversation to make sense of the dynamics and patterns of our worlds, and how we can learn to access various resources and connect to our strengths to accept, adapt, change, or leave and grieve them.   

Eco-centric

Imagine cities with no gardens, parks or trees on the sidewalks, where there are no flowers and plants in our backyards, apartments, offices or cafes. Imagine if we could not drive or fly out to mountains, lakes, rivers and beaches. We would no doubt be anxious, depressed and sick- and to varying degrees, we already are with the increasing amounts of time spent indoors and in front of our screens. Multiple studies have shown that just being in and near nature boosts our health in several ways.  

An eco-centric therapeutic approach emphasizes our deep relationship with Mother Earth and seeks to repair, restore and nourish this relationship. It involves learning to pay gentle and careful attention, to inhabit our body and awaken our senses to the beauty of the more-than-human world we live in. It also involves learning to see nature as an ally, not an object, and ourselves as nature rather than separate from or a mere part of it. Nature holds many metaphors of strength, resilience, growth, stasis and decay for us to draw on for inspiration and healing.  

Eco-art therapy can either be done by having a session together outdoors in a natural space, making art with natural objects and materials indoors, using nature as subject, or the flexible combination of all three.  

Trauma-informed

Trauma is the emotional and physiological response to an experience or set of  experiences that was perceived as dangerous, threatening or overwhelming. War, natural disasters, and accidents can be traumatizing; but so can chronic overwork, emotional neglect and abuse, being bullied, losing your job, or being betrayed by a close friend. As the key word here is perceive, our culture can influence whether events are experienced as traumatic, the meaning of trauma to us and the acceptability of different responses to trauma.  

To borrow a phrase from Gabor Mate, we are all on the trauma spectrum because we live in worlds broken in many ways, and yet many of us are often not aware of it. Trauma can change our brains and bodies, profoundly shaping our perception of ourselves, our relationships, the world, and our future.  

Art therapy can be effective in healing trauma as trauma is often difficult, if not impossible to articulate (the speech centre in the brain is shown to go offline when flashbacks of trauma occur). Being trauma-informed means I value deeply creating a safe space where you feel gently listened to, witnessed and cared for.