What is Art Therapy?
Art therapy can be understood in a number of ways; First, ‘art as therapy’, where making art in itself has therapeutic benefits. And second, ‘art in therapy’, where art is incorporated into a psychotherapeutic session. Art therapy, or arts inquiry, can be engaged in a variety of contexts - education, therapy, community arts and research.
Cocoon Creative Arts Therapies provides safe spaces for inquiry. Your inquiry may be entirely your own, or it may be shared with others in a group or community. In art therapy, we bring our questions into the present moment and engage with arts modalities to explore them with curiosity and awareness.
Cocoon Creative Arts Therapies draws upon a person-centred and phenomenological approach, where your therapist is a companion to your process, providing an accepting and compassionate presence as you navigate your path. Your companion may make reflections and offer invitations, but it is up to you to determine the path of exploration you follow.
Cocoon Creative Arts Therapies acknowledges that we can experience and come to know ourselves in a variety of ways. We can engage our usual thinking processes, but may also find insight through meditation and mindfulness practices, noticing body sensations, or paying attention to our relationship with arts materials or process. Our artistic representations may also offer a door to new knowing, helping us to inquire, reflect and find meaning.
Cocoon Creative Arts Therapies provides safe spaces for inquiry. Your inquiry may be entirely your own, or it may be shared with others in a group or community. In art therapy, we bring our questions into the present moment and engage with arts modalities to explore them with curiosity and awareness.
Cocoon Creative Arts Therapies draws upon a person-centred and phenomenological approach, where your therapist is a companion to your process, providing an accepting and compassionate presence as you navigate your path. Your companion may make reflections and offer invitations, but it is up to you to determine the path of exploration you follow.
Cocoon Creative Arts Therapies acknowledges that we can experience and come to know ourselves in a variety of ways. We can engage our usual thinking processes, but may also find insight through meditation and mindfulness practices, noticing body sensations, or paying attention to our relationship with arts materials or process. Our artistic representations may also offer a door to new knowing, helping us to inquire, reflect and find meaning.
- You don’t need to be an artist to benefit from art therapy
- Your therapist/companion will not ‘interpret’ your art, but will instead ask open questions to assist you in finding your own meaning
- There is no right or wrong way to make art, and no right or wrong way to respond to it
- Art therapy may engage a range of modalities including visual art, clay work, sculpture, collage, dreamwork, installation, sound (particularly voice work), and movement
- Materials may include pencils, soft pastels, oil pastels, clay, collage, paint, textiles, or natural materials
Why Cocoon?
"After many years exploring a variety of healing and therapeutic modalities, I have come to see the metaphor of the cocoon as beautifully resonant with the therapeutic process. When a butterfly or moth enters a cocoon, they are entering a process of transformation. It is a risk, and both curiosity and trust are important values to carry.
In Cocoon sessions we co-create a space of safety, trust and holding in which we can follow our process. We slow down and allow our embodied, moment-to-moment experiencing to guide us. We bring closer attention to what is arising in this moment of lived experience.
This space of patient and compassionate companioning allows your soul's journey to unfold in its own time, revealing each next step as needed. Gradually, new insights and perspectives begin to emerge for your life and a gentle transformation occurs.
When you feel this phase of your transformation is coming to completion, we honour and celebrate the new wings you bear, and the gifts of wisdom you have cultivated"
Michelle Morgan AThR
About Cocoon Creative Arts Therapies Practitioners
Michelle Morgan (AThR)
Michelle has been walking the path of healing and creativity for 17 years. During her first immersion in 'The Artist's Way' (Julia Cameron), she received clear guidance to begin studies in Massage Therapy. This led to Shiatsu, Reiki and Pranic Healing practices and a successful healing-focused business for a number of years.
She then moved into work with the frail aged as an activities coordinator for Austin Health. Further studies in Pastoral (Spiritual) Care and Health Sciences (Public Health) deepened her understanding of the social impacts on health, and the person-centred approach to healing.
After working in health-related research for a number of years, she felt called to a more creative application of her skills, and so launched a business offering community singing facilitation. Michelle has journeyed in women's circle for 15 years, has undertaken individual therapy and also participated in many personal development workshops. She currently works part-time with Meaningful Ageing Australia, writing resources to support staff in aged care to provide spiritual care to older people.
She is passionate about gentle and supportive spaces that allow people to reflect and find insight in their own timing, without external pressure. She recently authored and published 'A Guide to Community Singing Leadership', with Community Music Victoria. During her final year placement at Swell Centre for Spirituality and Wellbeing, she facilitated an eco-print course with members of the Habitat Artist's Studio, engaged members of the community in a collaborative artwork as part of conference, and curated a number of exhibitions.
Michelle has been walking the path of healing and creativity for 17 years. During her first immersion in 'The Artist's Way' (Julia Cameron), she received clear guidance to begin studies in Massage Therapy. This led to Shiatsu, Reiki and Pranic Healing practices and a successful healing-focused business for a number of years.
She then moved into work with the frail aged as an activities coordinator for Austin Health. Further studies in Pastoral (Spiritual) Care and Health Sciences (Public Health) deepened her understanding of the social impacts on health, and the person-centred approach to healing.
After working in health-related research for a number of years, she felt called to a more creative application of her skills, and so launched a business offering community singing facilitation. Michelle has journeyed in women's circle for 15 years, has undertaken individual therapy and also participated in many personal development workshops. She currently works part-time with Meaningful Ageing Australia, writing resources to support staff in aged care to provide spiritual care to older people.
She is passionate about gentle and supportive spaces that allow people to reflect and find insight in their own timing, without external pressure. She recently authored and published 'A Guide to Community Singing Leadership', with Community Music Victoria. During her final year placement at Swell Centre for Spirituality and Wellbeing, she facilitated an eco-print course with members of the Habitat Artist's Studio, engaged members of the community in a collaborative artwork as part of conference, and curated a number of exhibitions.
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