Rachel Baker

Please note I am currently on extended leave and am not taking any new enquiries until February 2025.

In my work  I welcome you into a collaborative and creative partnership to explore, express and reflect on what’s challenging for you and create pathways to meaningful change. Arts Therapy invites you to develop a wider range of ways to understand yourself and your situation – engaging not only your mind but your senses, your emotions, your body, your beliefs and intuitions.

You don’t need to be ‘creative’ to do arts therapy. It can be particularly useful if what you’re up against feels hard to access or unknown. Perhaps you struggle to communicate verbally, long to reconnect with your own creativity or feel stuck trying to ‘figure it out’ mentally?

Working together may look like exploring your experience through discussion, story, metaphor, visualisation, embodiment and imagination. It may also involve different art processes such as painting, writing, movement, sculpture, ritual, craft or engaging in nature. We may reflect further on these processes through discussion, more making or using the body to harvest new understanding.

Arts therapy can help you:

• Identify, explore and express disallowed, difficult or overwhelming feelings
• Build perspective and insight into patterns, relationships and blocks in your life
• Process difficult experiences or trauma
• Find compassion for and value in yourself and your situation
• Recognise and develop your own inner resources to meet life challenges
• Affirm and explore your identity
• Find enjoyment and relaxation
• Feel listened to and valued.

I’ve had experience working in tertiary and creative education supporting people through big life transitions, loss, depression, anxiety, identity formation, gender exploration, LGBTQIA+ questions  and relationship difficulties.

I work to affirm, respect and understand your own experience of gender, sexuality, oppression, culture and spiritual beliefs.