Lucy Rutterford - Creative Therapeutic Counselling and Play Therapy
How I work
How I work really depends on you: every client's process in therapy, child or adult, is unique to them. I aim to provide a confidential and safe space to explore whatever has brought you to sessions.
My approach in some quotes
Violet Oaklander (Gestalt child and adolescent psychotherapist): "I don't fix kids". I am here to be alongside them, however they are feeling or behaving, and to build a strong, safe therapeutic relationship. This space, over time, allows difficult feelings and experiences to be accepted and processed, previously stuck behaviour to shift and a stronger sense of self to emerge. (The same also goes for adults!).
Carl Jung: Often the hands know how to solve a riddle with which the intellect has wrestled in vain. For me, this speaks of what arts and sandplay approaches can offer. The somatic, sensory element of sandplay and also working with clay and how this activates or reaches a deeper level of unconscious process, that can then be known and worked with.
Please click on the photos below to find out more.
Integrative counselling
How does it work?
When we start working together, we will think about what you need from sessions and you might be clear then whether you want to work shorter-term (usually 8-16 sessions) or keep it open-ended. We also agree a regular session time every week. Sessions start where you are at, go at your pace and I bring an understanding that feeling safe in therapy is an important, ongoing part of our work together.
What do sessions look like?
I work integratively which means that I may draw on different models and approaches in our work together. It really is about working in a way that is most helpful to you and knowing that this will shift and evolve during the course of our work together. I am open to exploring spiritual, transpersonal and existential questions and perspectives, all of which can come quite naturally out of creative work. I am influenced by the idea that we are all made up of different parts, who might have opposing views or needs towards the process. I bring compassion and understanding, alongside a commitment to being deeply present alongside you.
Through discussion and reflection, we explore what is going on for you and start to notice patterns and themes that are underneath the surface. I work collaboratively and relationally: what this means is that I am curious about the process, inviting your views about what you need and exploring the here-and-now relational interactions between us as an important part of our work in exploring patterns and perceptions. I might invite a pause for you to notice, and bring curiosity to what is going on underneath the story, perhaps accessing a felt sense, body sensation, or a previously unheard part or perspective. Therapy can be difficult in accessing and processing painful feelings. However, alongside this, we work to reconnect you to your strengths, inner and outer resources and capacity to both deeply know and care for yourself.
Sometimes it can be helpful to incorporate aspects of psychoeducation, perhaps looking at the window of tolerance model or ideas from polyvagal theory. This can help in bringing a human perspective and understanding about how our nervous systems work and have evolved. Mindfulness and creative visualisations can also be a helpful way to work. I am also interested in eco-therapy and am open to discussing working outside in nature. It might be that words alone don't quite reach or articulate deeper feelings and sometimes working creatively can be support the work.
Play and Creative Arts Therapy
How does it work?
Play is not just 'fun' - it is the language of children and through play they learn and develop. Play and creative arts therapy supports children in being able to work through their difficulties in a developmentally appropriate way. Children may not always be able to understand or verbalise their feelings or difficulties and to the untrained eye, it is 'just play - how can this be therapy'? However, children use play and creativity to project, externalise and communicate what is going on inside. Cleat themes emerge and are developed over time. Play is symbolic communication, and I respond to the child within this world of play, symbol and metaphor. This makes it a non-threatening way to explore what may otherwise feel too overwhelming. Play and creativity also accesses the unconscious and a deeper, often more buried level of past experience and trauma. This depth supports children, over time, to safely express what is sometimes too difficult to say in words. And alongside this there is often considerable joy and relaxation in creative play.
What do sessions look like?
Every session, children and young people are given time to play or talk how they want and at their own pace, within clear boundaries around safety and time. I have wide ranging creative arts materials available every session. This includes: sand tray with symbols, art (drawing, painting, collage), clay and playdough, puppets, music, creative visualisation, therapeutic stories, movement and games. As therapy develops and according to the child's needs, some directive activities may support their process. I may also integrate elements of psychoeducation. For older children and young people, sessions move towards an integration of talking and creative approaches.
By building an empathic, and non-judgemental therapeutic relationship with a child, a safe space is developed where the child feels fully accepted. I am there to be fully with the child in their play, to reflect on their responses, notice, validate and understand their feelings and to be curious in the process. This supports children in developing their own self-awareness and confidence in themselves. Commonly parents notice children becoming more in touch with their feelings and more able to ask for support. Over time, children explore new, more empowered and positive ways of being in the world and relating to others.
Sessions are held at the same time, in the same place each week. I start with a 12-week block of sessions, reviewing half-termly. I offer both short-term (12 weeks) and longer-term/ open-ended work with children.
Creative arts approaches
How does it work?
I use my play and creative arts therapy background with people of all ages. Sometimes working creatively can be another way to express what is going on and it can be surprising and powerful in what it reveals. It can externalise feelings or experiences that are difficult to articulate or make sense of in words and can offer new perspectives.
What do sessions look like?
My approach to creativity depends on who I am working with. Children often arrive at drawing, painting or working with clay instinctively and with no direction, and we work with whatever unfolds naturally within this process. With older young people and adults, I may suggest or invite them to further explore a feeling, dynamic, part or experience creatively. This could involve drawing, painting, working with clay, music or sandplay (see below). This is always an invitation and it can help to view it as an experiment or an exploration.
I can't stress enough - artistic or musical ability is not required and it is the process rather than any finished product (if there is one) that is the focus. Mark making, scribbling, colour, shape and line is often what we might start working with. Or it might simply involve working with and exploring an image in words and engaging your imagination. Initially the meaning might not be clear; what I have found is that more meaning and insight can often emerge or deepen later, with new connections, understandings and self-awareness too.
Sandplay
What is it?
Sandplay therapy is powerful and creative work, that is non-threatening and can be non-verbal. It works well with all age groups. For children, young people and adults it can have a still, meditative quality that can feel profound in its depth, expression and ability to bring new insight and perspective.
Children and adults can use sand – and water if wanted – alongside a range of symbols to create a world in the sand tray. The sensory aspect of sand and water supports regulation and connection to self . I have a wide range of symbols (miniatures) – from natural objects such as stones, pinecones and crystals to wild and domesticated animals to humans, fantasy, monster, death, spiritual, religious, and mythological symbols…. everything from the beautiful to the grotesque and it is a collection that keeps on growing.
What does a sandplay session look like?
I hold a safe, steady place for the tray to unfold. Often children’s sand trays can be very experiential and fast-moving as they tell a story in the sand tray; young people or adults may create a more static tray where symbols come together to create a picture. There is no right or wrong way, and I encourage people to go with their instinct and impulse in terms of what to add and where. Working with sand and symbols accesses the imagination to explore new ways of approaching old, stuck problems. After creating a tray, I might invite an exploration of the tray; perhaps reflecting on different symbols and what qualities, feelings or parts they might hold. With children this might happen purely on a symbolic, metaphorical level..
Sand trays enable work at an unconscious level where deeply held memories, feelings and patterns can be brought into more conscious awareness. What may feel utterly overwhelming can be laid out and fully seen and felt within the confines of the tray. I love and am constantly inspired by the depth and creativity of sand trays. I have witnessed it time and time again support people in expressing their story, different parts and feelings and revealing new strengths and hope. Sometimes words are not needed.
