Art Therapy and Neurodiversity

February 21-22, 2026
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Day 5, February 21, 2026

Expressive Arts as Neurodiversity and Neurodivergent Affirming Practices

Expressive Arts as Neurodiversity- and Neurodivergent-Affirming Practice explores how honouring lived experience and supporting strengths can transform what happens in therapy sessions. Drawing on her personal experience of living with ADHD and the protective impact of supportive parenting, Dr. Cathy Malchiodi invites participants to reconsider common “fixing” approaches that unintentionally push clients toward neurotypical expectations. Instead, she demonstrates how an affirming lens emphasizes capacity, creativity, and self-knowledge—helping clients build confidence, regulation, and a sense of belonging as they are.
Through clinical insights and practical examples, this presentation highlights ways expressive arts can validate different ways of thinking, sensing, and communicating. Participants will learn how shifting from “correcting” behaviours to collaborating around strengths supports autonomy, self-advocacy, and meaningful connection. The session offers concrete, compassionate strategies for working with neurodivergent children, adolescents, and adults while fostering environments that respect difference, reduce shame, and promote thriving.

Learning objectives
By the end of the presentation, the participants will be able to:
1. Define neurodiversity-affirming practice in expressive arts therapy and distinguish it from deficit-based approaches.
2. Apply a strengths-focused lens to identify and support neurodivergent capacities through expressive arts interventions.
3. Design at least two concrete, affirming strategies to increase belonging in sessions and in the broader therapeutic environment.
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Dr. Cathy Malchiodi PhD, LPCC, LPAT, ATR-BC, REAT

Cathy Malchiodi PhD, LPCC, LPAT, ATR-BC, REAT is the executive director of the Trauma-Informed Practices and Expressive Arts Therapy Institute, works as a consultant to the Department of Defense, and an investigator on a five-year grant with the US Department of Education, integrating trauma-informed expressive arts into classrooms.
A popular presenter and workshop leader, she has given over 700 invited keynotes and workshops throughout the US, Canada, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. She has authored 20 books, including the bestselling Trauma and Expressive Arts Therapy: Brain, Body, and Imagination in the Healing Process and Understanding Children’s Drawings. Her publications have been translated in over 20 languages.

Presenter's site: www.cathymalchiodi.com

Make Studio, a Progressive Art Studio

This presentation will explore the transformative possibilities that exist when art engagement with disabled individuals is approached from a space of acceptance, self-determined goal setting, and authentic expression of self.  Make Studio, a progressive art studio located in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, will provide a model for discussion of professional art studio practice for disabled adults.  At Make Studio artists work in studio to deepen their practices at their own pace and in their own direction.  They are given access to robust opportunities for exhibition and sale of their work as well as to professional roles in community, such as teaching artist. As an Art Hive, Make Studio also provides ongoing open art making opportunities in community for the advancement of radical inclusivity and much-needed third spaces. And art therapy services are included within Make Studio’s model, providing client-artists opportunities to explore personal art making and to collaboratively identify, navigate, and strengthen behaviors associated with personal and vocational success. 

Learning objectives
Participants will be able to:
1.  explore the model of progressive art studios, including Make Studio’s engagement of a disability justice framework and imperative of artist agency
2. differentiate art therapy with neurodiverse and disabled individuals from the practice of disabled professional artists within the progressive art studio model
3. consider how engaging practices of self-determined goal setting, interdependence and independence, and acceptance within a professional arts practice or a therapeutic relationship promotes agency and deeply meaningful growth.
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Cathy Goucher, MA, ATR-BC, LCPAT, LCPC

Cathy Goucher is a licensed art therapist and counselor in Maryland, USA. She has been professionally working within disability-serving settings for thirty years, including decades within non-public special education settings, Kennedy Krieger Institute Schools and St. Elizabeth School. In 2010, Cathy joined two professional colleagues, Dr. Jill Scheibler, LCPAT, and Stefan Bauschmid, in founding Make Studio, a non-profit, progressive art studio for adult artists with disabilities. As Associate Director, Artist Services and Outreach Coordinator, Cathy directs art therapy services within the organization, responds to studio artist and associated team needs, and maintains community partnerships that provide artists with impactful career development opportunities.   Cathy is also the Founding Director, now Chair, Undergraduate Program Director, and Field Coordinator, for the art therapy programs at Notre Dame of Maryland University (2018).  She received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 2025.  The department includes an undergraduate major in art therapy and a CAAHEP accredited MA in Art Therapy graduate training program.  The graduate program, the only in Maryland, has over thirty licensed art therapist alums to date and prepares clinicians to give back to and meaningfully serve their communities through delivery of culturally attuned, social justice forward, inclusive practices.  

The Power of Art and Connection for Late-Diagnosed Autistic Women

What happens when late-diagnosed autistic women come together in a space that 
celebrates who they are, without masks, without judgment, and without the need to censor 
themselves? What unfolds when creativity becomes the language through which they connect, explore, and heal? Often described as the “lost generation,” late-diagnosed autistic women are too frequently overlooked in research and support services. This presentation shares insights from Gabrielle`s doctoral study, which followed a ten-week social empowerment art therapy program ending in a group art exhibition for autistic women with a late diagnosis. Through art-making and shared creative experiences, participants discovered new dimensions of identity, confidence, and belonging. This presentation will further explore how the art therapy group experience fostered empowerment and emotional well-being, and share practical recommendations for creating neuroaffirmative art therapy spaces that truly support autistic women.

Learning objectives
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Understand the importance of a neuroaffirmative approach in art therapy with late-diagnosed autistic women.
2. Explore how art-making and the sharing of artwork can strengthen connection to self and others, and identify conditions that facilitated these outcomes.
3. Evaluate the role of social identity, self-esteem, and empowerment as key mechanisms for 
promoting well-being in neurodivergent populations
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Gabrielle Gingras, MA, PhD(c), RCAT

Gabrielle  Gingras is a doctoral candidate in psychology (scientific-professional) at the 
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). She holds a Master’s degree in art therapy from 
Concordia University and is a licensed member of the Canadian Art Therapy Association 
(RCAT) and the Quebec Art Therapists Association (AATQ). She is a full-time professor at the 
Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT). Gabrielle’s research focuses on social 
empowerment through art therapy, particularly with marginalized populations. Her research 
further explores the role of the therapeutic relationship in art therapy and the integration of art 
within supervision, guided by the Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC) framework.
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Marianne Dufour, MA, ATPQ

 Marianne Dufour, M.A., has worked in community settings, institutions, and private practice as an art therapist, psychotherapist, teacher, lecturer, supervisor, group facilitator, and ritual guide. 
For 25 years, she has accompanied people from all walks of life on their journeys of loss, renewal, and the search for meaning. She is trained in ritual work, Nonviolent Communication, Internal Family Systems Therapy, and psychedelic-assisted therapy, and will add horses as partners on her journey in 2026. It was as she approached fifty that she realized her gifts and challenges had a family (neurodiversity) and fell under the umbrella of autism. She joyfully supports the exploration and celebration of neurodivergence in her clients and loved ones. Her passion is to create pathways to allow everyone to unleash their vitality and to encounter their inner suferings with poetry and tenderness.

Seeing and Being Seen: The Creative Therapist’s Presence in Neurodivergent Practice

What happens when therapeutic presence is understood not as a technique, but as a rhythm, one shaped by sensory systems, processing speeds, and the nonlinear timing of neurodivergent life? This presentation explores how creative therapy can honour the plural temporalities that emerge when autistic, ADHD, and otherwise neurodivergent bodies meet within the therapeutic space.
Drawing on disability studies, phenomenology, and neurodivergent scholarship such as Remi Yergeau’s kakokairos (awkward or mistimed presence), Polly reframes misattunement as an opening rather than a failure. Creative practice becomes a temporal technology here: a way to regulate, pause, loop, externalise and reconnect when conventional relational timing becomes too tight or too fast.
Through clinical vignette, gentle experiential exercises, and a three-layered model of presence, technical, relational, and embodied, Polly invites participants to consider how their own rhythms, sensory thresholds, and masking patterns shape the room.
Centred on lived ND experience, this talk offers a nuanced, compassionate reframing of timing, attunement, and presence. Participants will leave with a clearer sense of how creative therapy can make space for authentic tempo, for both therapist and client, and how seeing and being seen can become a shared choreography rather than a demand for seamlessness.

Learning objectives
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to: 
1. Describe how neurodivergent temporality (including delayed processing, looping, bursts, pauses, and nonlinear pacing) influences therapeutic presence for both clients and therapists.
2. Identify how moments of “misattunement” or awkward timing can function as openings for deeper relational understanding, rather than indicators of failure.
3. Differentiate between three layers of therapeutic presence: technical, relational, and embodied, and recognise how each operates in neurodivergent practice.
4. Evaluate how masking, sensory thresholds, and personal tempo shape the therapist’s capacity for authentic presence, and consider ethical ways to hold or soften masking in the therapy room.
5. Reflect on their own embodied timing and develop one small, sustainable intention for allowing their natural rhythm to enter their clinical work.
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Polly Miskiewicz, MA, HCPC, BAAT

Polly Miskiewicz is an HCPC-accredited and BAAT-registered Jungian Art Psychotherapist, graduating from the University of Roehampton’s (London) MA Arts Psychotherapy programme in 2015. Her clinical work focuses on neurodivergent adults, particularly women and queer individuals, navigating identity, masking, burnout, trauma, and the search for an authentic sense of self.

Drawing on Jungian theory, she adapts the Jungian model of self for neurodivergent lived experience, integrating symbolic expression, multiplicity, and creative psyche work. Her approach is informed by neuroaffirmative principles and trauma-responsive practice, including training in Child Accelerated Trauma Treatment (CAAT), which she has adapted for adult clients.

Polly integrates creative, embodied, and environmentally grounded modalities, offering sessions online as well as outdoors in natural settings. Her outdoor work often incorporates found materials and site-responsive art-making, supporting sensory attunement, embodied regulation, and a grounded connection to place. She centres co-creation, curiosity, and each client’s unique inner intelligence.


The Secret Language of Autism: Fostering Presence-Based Connection Through Creative Congruence Time (CCT) and Expressive Arts

This presentation focuses first on finding the right language to connect with clients with ASD and attuning to their needs, communication styles, sensory profiles, and rhythms—rather than defaulting to what the therapist is most used to offering. 
Creative Congruence Time (CCT) is a presence-based expressive arts framework created by Ellen Yang that supports clients in returning to themselves through attuned, culturally responsive, and strengths-focused practice. Rather than centering symptom reduction alone, CCT invites a steady, relational pacing that helps participants notice sensation, emotion, image, and meaning in real time, while honoring identity, context, and lived experience. Using accessible prompts across art-making, movement, sound, and reflective dialogue, CCT supports self-regulation, agency, and self-trust without pressuring disclosure or “performing” insight. The framework emphasizes congruence: aligning inner experience with outward expression, and aligning therapeutic choices with each person’s culture, values, and capacities. Participants learn how to create a safe, flexible container where creativity becomes a language for resilience, connection, and growth. This presentation introduces CCT’s core principles, practical structure, and adaptable applications for individuals and groups across diverse settings.

Learning objectives
By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Identify 3 ASD-attuned communication and engagement principles that support rapport and safety before introducing expressive arts interventions.
2. Apply the core structure of Creative Congruence Time (CCT) to design a brief presence-based expressive arts sequence that is culturally responsive and strengths-focused.
3. Adapt CCT prompts across modalities to support self-regulation and agency.
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Ellen Eun Young Yang, PhD(c), CAGS, REAT, RCC, RCC-ACS, RCS

Ellen Eun Young Yang, PhD(c), CAGS, REAT, RCC, RCC-ACS, RCS, is the author of the published book The Secret Language of Autism, a work that integrates expressive arts therapy, neurodiversity-affirming practice, and decades of clinical insight. With more than 30 years of experience in education and mental health, she supports individuals, families, and professionals through a creative, relational, and trauma-informed approach. Ellen is also the creator of Creative Congruence Time (CCT), a presence-based expressive arts framework grounded in culturally responsive and strength-focused care. 
She specializes in autism and neurodiversity, drawing from both her clinical training and her lived experience, shaped by intergenerational trauma, gender-based cultural challenges, and immigration from South Korea to Canada. Ellen is a Registered Clinical Counsellor, Registered Counselling Supervisor, and Registered Expressive Arts Therapist, providing therapy, clinical supervision, and professional training. She teaches at the WHEAT Institute, works with the PALS Autism Society, and practices in Vancouver. More information is available at www.therapythrougharts.com. 

Recovering the Art of
Human Connection in the Complex Culture of Neurodiversity

This presentation asks what the terms "neurodiversity" and "neurodivergent" really signify in practice. “Neurodivergent” is often positioned as them, contrasted with “neurotypical” and this can reinforce dichotomous thinking: rigid either/or categories that feel like common sense because they mirror everyday habits of thought. Drawing on the idea of habitus (like a fish born in water who learns to navigate without questioning the environment) we examine how institutional cultures shape what is seen as “normal,” “appropriate,” or “treatable.”
In Sandra’s hospital work, the systems around care often reinforced these dichotomies through standardized expectations, compliance-based goals, and privileged narratives about functioning. This tension led her toward community-based practice and the creation of an Art Hive: a space built to disrupt the binary, center lived experience, and let multiple ways of being, communicating, and creating coexist. Over time, the Art Hive organically became a welcoming, low-pressure environment where neurodiverse participants could be supported through relationship, choice, and meaningful participation.

Learning objectives
By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Explain how “neurodivergent vs. neurotypical” language can unintentionally reinforce dichotomous thinking in clinical settings
2. Recognize how institutional norms, standards, and privileged narratives shape what is labeled as normal, functional, or treatable.
3. Describe and apply at least two Art Hive–informed, community-based strategies that reduce binary framing and better support neurodiverse participation.
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Sandra Hewitt-Parsons, MA, PhD(c), RCAT, EXAT

Sandra Hewitt-Parsons is a registered art therapist, Disability artist, published author, and the founder of Safe Harbour Expressive Therapies. A childhood stroke survivor herself, she is deeply passionate about working with individuals who identify with disability. Her personal experience of being unheard has shaped her approach to therapy. Sandra is a dedicated advocate for her community, empowering others to discover and express their own voices on issues that are meaningful to them. She resides in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, with her husband and her two cats.

Day 6, February 22, 2026

The Sensory-Based Relational Art Therapy Approach (S-BRATA)

Developed by Huma Durrani, the Sensory-Based Relational Art Therapy Approach (S-BRATA) is a framework for working with autistic children that bridges sensory integration and attachment-based art therapy. Rooted in Huma’s personal and professional experiences, this approach recognizes that sensory processing differences deeply influence how children relate to their environment and to others.

Through the dual focus of sensory regulation and relational attunement, S-BRATA positions the art therapist as both a facilitator of sensory safety and an attachment figure who offers co-regulation, empathy, and consistency. The art materials become a bridge—helping to lower anxiety, organize sensory input, and create conditions for secure connection and emotional growth.

In her presentation, Huma will explore the link between sensory processing challenges and impaired attachment patterns, illustrating how artmaking can be a reparative, embodied, and relational experience. She will also introduce the seven core themes of S-BRATA, which guide the therapist in using sensory-based art experiences to nurture trust, expression, and resilience in children on the autism spectrum.

Learning objectives
By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Define the core principles of S-BRATA.
2. Explain how sensory processing differences can shape anxiety, behavior, engagement, and relationship/attachment patterns in therapy.
3. Identify the art therapist’s dual role in S-BRATA 
4. Select and justify sensory-based art materials/interventions that support regulation, reduce distress, and increase readiness for connection and expression.
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Huma Durrani, DAT, RCAT, RP

Huma Durrani is a Pakistani-Singaporean art psychotherapist, author, and researcher, currently based in Toronto, Canada. A mother of three sons—her eldest, an autistic adult—Huma’s personal and professional journeys inspired the development of the Sensory-Based Relational Art Therapy Approach (S-BRATA), a framework for supporting autistic children by integrating sensory processing and attachment-based art therapy principles.

Huma has authored a book on the S-BRATA and published in multiple international journals and presented her work at global conferences. She is also the author of the memoir Wrapped in Blue, which chronicles her and her son’s shared journey through autism.


Alongside her research and writing, Huma maintains a private art therapy practice and teaches periodically, continuing to bridge art, science, and human connection in her therapeutic and educational work.

Interoception – The 6th Sense: Integrating Sensory Capacities and Expressive Arts in Neurodivergent Affirming Practice

This presentation emphasizes the relevance of integrating trauma-informed expressive arts therapy approaches in neurodivergent-affirming practice, exploring the unique role of interoception, the sense of the body’s internal states, in emotional, cognitive, and nervous-system regulation. Understanding this connection between sensory processing and individual experience promotes therapeutic practice that honors individual neurotypes and invites reflection into how we might adapt environments and engage through work with therapeutic, arts-oriented experiences that are both neurodivergent-affirming, and trauma informed. Participants are invited to consider the how and why of current practices in relationship to the frameworks or approaches they may consider integrating in support of neuro-inclusive practice.
Interoception is explored within the context of three, inner sensory areas of experience, leading participants in an opportunity for self-discovery into their own interoceptive, sensory capacity map. Methods for adapting the process to integrate alternative media, or alternative areas of sensory experience, are introduced.
The importance of recognizing the inner relatedness of different senses within the sensory system, and the adaptable, organic nature of one’s sensory capacity is discussed as an additional aspect to creating a foundation for providing holistic, neurodiversity affirming care.

Learning objectives 
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to: 
1. define why expressive arts are supportive of neuro-affirming practices. 
2. describe the relationship between interoception and neurodivergent experiences. 
3. name at least 3 areas of interoceptive experiences and how capacities in these areas may vary, particularly for those who identify with divergent neurotypes. 
4. explore interoceptive practices in response to participation in provided experiential and prompts. 
5. explain how expressive arts approaches to interoceptive exploration can be capacity enhancing.
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AriAnna Carroll, LMHC, REAT, EXAT

Ari is a licensed mental health counselor, registered expressive arts therapist, an EMDR certified provider, and has completed all levels of training in the Oaklander Model of Gestalt Play Therapy. Since graduating from the Expressive Arts Therapy Program at the University of Louisville in 2004, she has supported groups and individuals of all ages in a variety of settings including schools, residential care settings, in-patient treatment centers, rehabilitation programs, and out-patient mental health therapy settings. Ari is currently in private practice, the first in Iowa to put expressive arts therapy at the heart of client care. She specializes in providing youth and family-based services, in addition to working with adults that have an interest in resourcing expressive arts.   As a life-long percussionist, she has a special interest in integrating rhythm and sound oriented approaches into practice. As parent to a neurodivergent child, she is invested in continued learning relating to neurodiversity affirming practices and advocacy. She enjoys exploring the relationship between expressive arts therapy, neuroscience, and sensory-oriented insights, and how this informs practice that encourages wholistic engagement, integration, and healing.   Her accomplishments include creating community-oriented therapeutic expressive arts programming for adults and youth, supporting those with interest in private practice development, certification in Rhythm 2 Recovery, a therapeutic method that integrates rhythm and reflection for social emotional health, and partnering with schools in support of neurodivergent children and families, serving as co-creator and facilitator in presentations and support groups for parents/caregivers of twice-exceptional youth within her community. Ari creates harmony between practice and play with her family, pursuing outdoor adventures and shared creative outlets, appreciating the journey ahead of the destination.   
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Emily Johnson Welsh, LPAT-S, LPCC-S , ATR-BC, EXAT, REAT

Emily has over 17 years’ experience providing expressive arts therapy support and developing resources in trauma-informed approaches and integrative wellness.  She is a graduate of Lesley University’s Expressive Arts Therapy and Mental Health Counseling program in 2008 and is a licensed and board-certified art therapist/supervisor, licensed clinical counselor/supervisor, expressive arts therapist/ trauma-informed, and registered expressive arts therapist. As faculty for the Trauma-informed Expressive Arts Therapy Institute for over 12 years, she brings a current knowledge of expressive arts and body-based approaches that focus on building resilience and community. She provides technology-assisted distance supervision for those working towards the EXAT / EXA-CE, REAT (Registered Expressive Art Therapist), ATR (Registered Art Therapist), and LPAT (Licensed Professional Art Therapist in Kentucky).  Emily’s accomplishments in the field include presentations at conferences for the American Art Therapy Association, Buckeye Art Therapy Association, Kentucky Association for Play Therapy, and International Expressive Art Therapy Association;  authoring and co-authoring chapters in the book Art Therapy and Healthcare (Guildford Press, 2013) ; co-designing and co-facilitating the online artmaking workshop  “Art Therapy + Happiness Project;"  being awarded "Cure Champion" by the American Cancer Society for my accomplishments in bringing expressive art therapy and yoga programming to families fighting cancer. Most recently, Emily enjoys balancing her expressive arts therapies private practice, Art Yoga Love, LLC, serving children, families, and adults, with yoga studio ownership and teaching! She is also nourished by wonders of parenting, being outside, loving on her fury friends and plans to never stop finding gratitude in these simple daily adventures.

Neurodivergence in Art Therapy: Moving towards Neuroaffirming Care and Education

Learning objectives
At the end of the presentation, participants will be able to:
1. Identify principles of neurodiversity-affirming care
2. Identify the impacts of social masking on ND therapists and clients.
3. Identify two ways special interests can apply in neurodivergent therapeutic relationship.
4. Identify three potential strengths and challenges of being an ND art therapist.

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Jessie Woolhiser Stallings, DAT, ATR-BC, LIMHP, LPC, LMHC,

Jessie Woolhiser Stallings is the Clinical Director for a nonprofit social service agency and a specialist in neurodiversity-positive art therapy. Her  clinical experience includes autism, ADHD, trauma, and strengths-based creative approaches that center neurodivergent voices and lived experience. With clinical practice spanning schools, community clinics, private practice, psychiatric hospitals, and partial hospitalization programs, she brings a broad, cross-context understanding of client needs. She has served on professional boards and won awards for research and advocacy.

Jessie is former full-time Art Therapy/Counseling faculty and continues to serve as an adjunct professor. She authored Special Interests in Art Therapy With Autistic People: A Neurodiversity-Positive Approach and has contributed numerous articles, book chapters, and presentations on a variety of topics. Jessie serves as a reviewer for multiple journals. She is late identified ADHD and is researching the experiences of neurodivergent clinicians to identify inclusive therapeutic and educational models.

Creative Treatment Planning: Using Neurodivergent Hyperfocus and Special Interests with Purpose

Neurodivergent individuals often develop intense, focused passions—special interests—that can serve as powerful therapeutic tools when embraced rather than pathologized. This presentation explores how clinicians can integrate these interests into collaborative, creative treatment planning, transforming rigid goals into meaningful, client-centered narratives. Drawing from creative writing, narrative and expressive arts therapy, and neurodiversity-affirming practice, participants will learn to reimagine treatment goals through the lens of a client’s inner world—be it built from Lord of the Rings, Zelda, Minecraft, or D&D.
Through interactive writing prompts, case examples, and hands-on exercises, attendees will practice turning special interests into metaphors, motivators, and scaffolds for skill development. This approach honors neurodivergent identity and fosters deeper engagement, autonomy, and trust in the therapeutic process. Attendees will leave with practical tools to personalize care plans, adapt interventions, and collaborate with clients in ways that feel authentic, imaginative, and empowering.

Learning objectives
1. Identify ways to integrate neurodivergent special interests into collaborative and creative treatment planning.
2. Practice using special interests as metaphors, motivators, and scaffolds for therapeutic skill development.
3. Develop practical tools to create personalized, neurodiversity-affirming care plans that enhance client engagement and autonomy.
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Sarah Newton Penston, MS, LPC, ATR-BC, EXAT

Sarah Newton Penston is a licensed professional counselor and board‑certified art therapist based in Norfolk, Virginia. With over 17 years in practice, she blends expressive arts and trauma‑informed modalities to facilitate creative healing for neurodivergent, LGBTQ+, and spiritually diverse clients. Sarah holds credentials in expressive arts therapy, clinical trauma, somatic, and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

Originally from Ringgold, Virginia, she draws on her rural roots and love of nature to incorporate organic materials and somatic processes in her work. She co-leads expressive arts therapy supervision, consultation, and peer support groups, offering safe spaces for connection through art, movement, and storytelling.

Passionate about helping clients access inner wisdom, Sarah views therapy as a co‑creative journey toward integration, voice, and embodied belonging.

Not Without Us: A Neurodivergent Art Therapist Navigating Personal and Professional Tides

This presentation delves into the personal and professional perspectives and experiences of a neurodivergent art therapist supporting neurodivergent clients in Singapore. The presenter invites you to reflect on his journey transitioning from trainee to professional and navigating intersectional complexities as a neurominority (Fung, 2025) in a landscape where neurodiversity and art therapy struggle to find their place. This sharing hopes to reflect on the experience of a dual-experience practitioner (McJimpsey, 2023) guided by a psychodynamic and neurodiversity-affirming lens in search of balance and advocacy for neurodiversity and art therapy.
The session includes a hands-on workshop where participants are invited to experience art-based therapeutic tools utilised by the presenter, refined through his clinical experiences. In particular, the presenter will share the pragmatic use of picture cards informed by a strength-based, self-reflexive, and humanistic approach of mentalising and communicating the intersubjective neurodivergent experiences in therapeutic settings. These tools additionally intend to nurture the practitioner’s self-reflexive and self-compassionate capacity amidst hectic commitments. Supporting neurodivergent clients with accessible and self-reflexive tools hopes to tap on the authenticity of the therapist’s self to work towards nurturing inclusivity and equity in our clinical practice.

References:
Fung, L. K., & Doyle, N. (2025). Chapter 1. Neurodiversity: The New Diversity. Neurodiversity, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9781615379514.lg01
McJimpsey, D. (2023). Exhibition tackles mental health stigma. Insight: International Journal of Art Therapy, Winter. https://baat.org/publications/insight/winter-2023/exhibition-tackles-mental-health-stigma

Art materials needed: art materials at your choice

Learning objectives
By the end of the presentation, the participants will be able to:
1. Reflect on personal and professional experiences of the dual-experience practitioner in art therapy, including implicit and explicit biases in supporting the neurodivergent population. 
2. Apply the tools presented in their practice, to support neurodivergent clients in therapeutic settings.
3. Introduce the same tools for professional self-care and self-reflection.
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Tay Hongcheng, MA, AThR, AThS

Hongcheng's passion for storytelling led him to a career in the media industry after earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Digital Filmmaking. Reflecting on his own mental health and well-being journey and recognising the healing power of collaborative play, storytelling, and visual arts, he sought out volunteer roles and art-based research that broadened his understanding of the intersection of arts, play, and disability.
He earned his master's degree in art therapy at LASALLE College of the Arts. His postgraduate thesis focused on integrating self-reflexivity with a neurodiversity-affirming psychodynamic art psychotherapy practice. In his clinical placement and work in schools, he provided art therapy services to neurodivergent students in individual and group settings.
Hongcheng is a registered art therapist and is currently working at a private practice providing counselling services supporting children, teenagers and their parents in Singapore.
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