Home | Matthew Clark Art Therapy

Welcome to Matthew Clark Art Therapy

I offer private therapy to individuals, supervision to Art Therapists and training therapy to Art Therapist Trainees from my base in Sheffield. In NHS services NICE guidelines mention creative or arts based therapies as being useful especially for those people that struggle to put their thoughts and feelings into words required for more traditional, 'talking' therapies.

Additionally, research had shown that arts therapies might boost self-confidence, self-esteem and concentration, help people gain self-awareness, communicate better with others and reduce feelings of isolation and exclusion.

Studies have also demonstrated that people who have experience of mental health problems often appreciate and enjoy arts therapies.

What is Art Therapy?

Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses art materials as its primary mode of communication rather than words as in a more traditional ‘talking’ psychotherapy. Through the process of art psychotherapy the client can begin to express, recognise and acknowledge those experiences or issues which have given rise to the emotional pain and distress of their present difficulties.

The aim of the psychotherapy is to bring about meaningful change via the dynamic interactions of the image, the client and the therapist through the use of art materials in a safe, consistent and facilitating environment – projecting or channeling thoughts and feelings or depicting your psychological situation. As such, this helps you to objectify those issues experienced inside you outward so that they can be looked at and thought about or talked through in the relationship between you, your therapist and the picture or object.

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Floral Spirals – Ink and wax crayon scored through with spiral patterns using stick

Lost In The Woods – Acrylic paint stippled with round-headed brush

Mixed Media Mandala Flower – Acrylic, glitter, glass beads, dried paint fragments and felt tip pen on black card textured with gesso

Sea Scape Turbelence – Acrylic paint and torn paper bound back together with masking tape then finished with acrylic gloss

About Matthew

I am a Sheffield based registered art psychotherapist who offers private therapy to individuals, supervision to Art Therapists and training therapy to Art Therapist Trainees. I have worked primarily in NHS clinical settings, Palliative and Cancer Care, Learning Disabilities, Child and Adult Mental Health Services as well as private practice with adults with eating disorders. I continue to work in NHS Adult Mental Health Services working with people with complex mental health problems including complex post traumatic stress disorder, abuse, personality / mood disorders, anxiety and depression.

In terms of theory I am primarily influenced by both a psycho-dynamic approach and by Jungian / Depth Psychology theory.

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Accreditations

I am a registered art psychotherapist with the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) and registered to practice with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

To Jung, the purpose of life was to realise one’s own potential, to follow one’s own perception of the truth, and to become a whole person in one’s own right. This was the goal of individuation, as he later called it.

Anthony Stevens

I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.

Carl Jung

Creativity is discontent translated into arts.

Eric Hoffer