Art Therapy in London
Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses the making of images — drawing, painting, collage, sculpture — as the primary language of the therapeutic relationship, rather than spoken words alone. It is not art classes. It is not assessment of artistic ability. It is a clinical practice in which the images made in sessions carry material from the unconscious that may be difficult or impossible to reach through verbal description alone.
The practice offers individual art therapy and group art therapy from its Central London office, working with adults across a wide range of presentations: anxiety and depression, trauma and PTSD, eating disorders, addiction, bereavement, and difficulties that are hard to put into words precisely because they predate the development of language. Dr Jacquet trained as an art psychotherapist alongside his integrative psychotherapy and Jungian analytic training, and has worked in this modality for 25 years.
Why images reach what words do not
The rationale for art therapy rests on something straightforward: a significant proportion of psychological experience exists in pre-verbal, somatic, or imagistic form. Trauma, in particular, tends to be encoded in ways that are not easily translated into narrative. The same is true for early experiences that formed character before language was available, and for states of feeling that resist articulation — the grief that cannot be spoken, the anxiety that has no clear object, the self-relation that can be shown but not explained.
When a client makes an image in a session, something often appears that they did not plan or expect. A colour chosen without deliberate intention. A shape that prompts an unexpected emotion. A figure that carries a recognition. The therapeutic work is then to be with that material — not to interpret it from the outside, but to attend to it in dialogue with the person who made it.
What art therapy sessions involve
Sessions take place in a studio space equipped with a range of materials: paints, chalks, charcoal, clay, collage materials. No artistic experience is required or expected. The therapist does not direct the making or evaluate what is produced. At various points in or after making, there is a spoken reflection on what has emerged — what the image means to the person who made it, what feelings it carries, what it is doing.
Individual art therapy sessions last 50 minutes and follow a regular weekly rhythm. The consistency of the frame — same time, same space, same materials — is itself part of the therapeutic container. Most individual work runs for a minimum of six months, and often longer. Sand tray therapy and mindfulness are available as related approaches within the art therapy programme.
Presentations it works well with
Art therapy is particularly well-suited to trauma, where narrative approaches can trigger re-experiencing before there is sufficient safety for the material. It works well in eating disorder treatment, where the body and its image are central to the difficulty and where making images of the body or of food can open territory that direct discussion keeps defended. It is effective for bereavement, where grief often resists verbal expression, and for individuals whose emotional vocabulary is limited — not from lack of intelligence but from histories in which feelings were not welcomed or named.
Professional art therapy and CPD
The practice also offers professional art therapy training, workshops, and CPD for clinicians working in related fields. See the professional art therapy page for details.