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As the founder and director of Crayons and Stuff, I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor, a qualified Arts Therapist, and a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. I love working with different art forms, across all types of materials, and have a personal passion for poetry and fiction as forms of expression. I have a strong understanding of embodied approaches that support us to process how trauma is held in the body.

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I value and seek to learn from the creations, voices, and perspectives of people with lived experiences of systemic oppression, trauma, and significant distress. This includes but is not limited to people with formal diagnoses and other interactions with the mental health system. I am concerned that our experiences of the world, such as racism, sexual/gender identity, family violence, and/or poverty, are not adequately considered in mainstream understandings of trauma and mental health.

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Because our own stories and experiences matter, I draw at times on my lived experience of psychosocial disability and neurodivergence, as a therapist and in public forums. For example, I have shared my story to student therapists to illustrate that trauma occurs within a social context, and that the impacts of trauma may look the same as any of the diagnoses used in the medical model.

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You may also be interested in our Crayons and Stuff Creative Consulting Services. This branch of the practice uses my traditional consulting and facilitation skills alongside my creative toolkit for "doing workstuff differently using creative arts".

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Whatever it is that brings you to this site, I hope you will stay and play a little longer, exploring some of the ways in which we could work together. And, if this is something you decide that you would like to take forward, I hope to meet you soon.

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Alisoun

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