Kellie’s Approach and Qualifications

Kellie is an Art Psychotherapist who offers a warm, reflective, and trauma-informed space for clients of all ages. Art therapy is an established form of psychotherapy that combines creative expression with talking, guided by a trained therapist. You do not need to be skilled in art to benefit from this work. The value lies in what the artwork represents for you, not in how it looks.

In sessions, clients use art materials in a sensitive and safe way to explore complex emotional experiences, process trauma, and reflect on thoughts and feelings that may be difficult to express verbally. Artwork becomes a bridge to understanding, insight, and emotional regulation. Kellie works closely with clients to explore the thoughts, memories, and relational patterns that emerge, helping them make sense of past experiences, deepen self-awareness, and move forward with clarity and confidence.

Her approach is person-centred and psychodynamically informed, with a strong emphasis on safety, containment, and emotional grounding.

Kellie works with diagnosed or undiagnosed, medicated or non-medicated clients, and she supports children, adolescents, adults, and older adults.

Children and Adolescents

Kellie has substantial experience supporting children and young people as they navigate attachment difficulties, developmental challenges, trauma, identity, family dynamics, and experiences of loss or change.

When appropriate, she works collaboratively with parents and carers to strengthen emotional communication and support the young person’s wider system.

She also has extensive experience with neurodiverse children and adolescents, helping them develop self-regulation skills, emotional understanding, and accessible ways of expressing their thoughts and feelings.

Adults

With adults, Kellie focuses on processing past experiences, trauma histories, and long-standing patterns shaped by attachment and relationships. She supports clients exploring identity, career and education transitions, interpersonal challenges, emotional regulation, and overall well-being. Her approach is highly individualised, offering a reflective and containing space to explore feelings, memories, and internal conflicts.

Older Adults

Kellie also works with older adults who wish to explore long-standing relational patterns, unresolved emotional conflicts, bereavement, retirement, or changes in life roles. Her work supports reflection, emotional resilience, and the strengthening of meaningful relationships in later life.

Learning Difficulties and Disabilities

Kellie has over five years of experience working with children and adults with learning disabilities in educational and NHS settings. She supports clients who may be non-verbal or who find verbal communication difficult.

Art therapy offers a safe, accessible way to communicate and explore emotions without relying solely on words. Kellie has liaised closely with Speech and Language Therapists and Occupational Therapists, including creating Makaton timetables to support communication for people with learning disabilities.

She also devised a multidisciplinary pilot project with OT, organising a ‘found objects’ group: clients would go on community walks to choose an object of interest and then bring it into art therapy to support narrative work, emotional expression, and engagement in the therapeutic process.

Kellie has completed the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training, essential for those working with people with learning disabilities and autistic people.

Trauma and Emotional Well-being

Across all client groups, Kellie integrates a trauma-informed and psychodynamically grounded approach. Art-making allows clients to engage safely with difficult emotions, build emotional regulation skills, and develop a deeper understanding of their internal world.

Her psychodynamic and psychoanalytic work also explores relationships with others, unprocessed trauma, patterns of behaviour, and the impact of early experiences. She helps clients identify strengths and vulnerabilities, examine triggers, and build confidence and self-esteem.

This includes supporting clients with challenging behaviour, risky behaviour, and traits associated with antisocial or emotionally dysregulated patterns.

Domestic Abuse Support

Kellie provides specialised art therapy for individuals and families affected by domestic abuse. Art therapy offers a unique route into procedural memory, the part of the brain where responses to fear, stress, and threat are stored, helping clients process trauma that may be difficult or impossible to access verbally.

For Adults

Art therapy supports adults in developing grounding skills, emotional regulation, and safe processing of traumatic experiences. Through creative work, clients may find new ways to understand and reorganise overwhelming memories and responses.

For Children and Young People

Children who have experienced domestic abuse may hold memories that are deeply buried or difficult to express. The physical act of making art can enable safe exploration and emotional understanding, supporting both healing and resilience.

Mother-Child Relationships

Kellie offers Dyadic Art Therapy - joint sessions for mothers and children - to support expression, communication, and emotional safety within the parent-child relationship. Dyadic work fosters connection, shared understanding, and stability after trauma.

Autism and ADHD

Kellie has significant experience supporting clients with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). She works with clients who are diagnosed or undiagnosed, medicated or unmedicated, and supports both children and adults.

Her work includes:

ASD

Psychodynamic and psychoanalytical exploration of relationships, unprocessed trauma (through artwork or talking), strengths and weaknesses, emotional triggers, self-esteem, confidence, and behavioural patterns including challenging or risky behaviour and antisocial traits.

ADHD

Support around organisation, sleep, impulsivity, and the impact of these on personal relationships, education, and career.
She also helps clients explore behavioural patterns, vulnerabilities, safety, risk awareness, addictive tendencies, and emotional triggers.

Through art therapy, clients are encouraged to reflect on their emotions, identity, and experiences of neurodiversity, developing emotional regulation, self-awareness, and strategies for maintaining safety and confidence in daily life.

Couples and Relationship Work

Kellie offers relationship-focused support for older couples and for parents who are finding aspects of parenting particularly challenging. Drawing on her psychodynamic training and art psychotherapy background, she provides a reflective and supportive space for partners to explore communication patterns, emotional dynamics, and the impact of life transitions or family stress on their relationship. Her work helps couples deepen understanding, strengthen connection, and navigate long-standing difficulties with warmth and sensitivity, especially when parenting pressures, neurodiversity, or complex emotional histories are shaping the relationship.

Kellie offers counselling and psychotherapy to teenagers, adults, couples and older adults from our Blackheath clinic, serving Greenwich, Lewisham, and the wider South East London area. She also offers online sessions.