“Pia takes great care creating an atmosphere that is open, welcoming and creative. She guides you to real insights with compassion and a gentle touch.” 

With 30 years’ experience in using the creative arts for personal and professional growth, I am a UKCP accredited integrative arts psychotherapist, workshop leader, published author and TEDx speaker. While I work with adults in 1-1 therapy, I write books for practitioners and children, and run creative workshops for women and organisations. I am passionate about empowering people to reconnect to their innate creativity to realise their own unique potentials.

• During a first career in advertising and qualitative research, I trained in creative group facilitation, designing experiential workshop programmes.
• In 1995, I was introduced to transpersonal therapies and creative coaching at WYSE International‘s leadership programmes in the UK, Italy and India.
• In 1999, I gained a Certificate in Psychotherapy & Counselling from Regent’s University, working at Place 2 Be as a child counsellor for 2 years.
• During my Masters at the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education, I was honorary therapist at Camden’s Women + Health Centre, Homerton hospital, and Newham hospital’s Miscarriage & Pregnancy Loss clinic.
• While in therapy training, I co-founded The Dream Mill, a qualitative research agency, designing insight and idea generation workshops for brands.
• In 2017, I was Story Director for artgym’s award winning documentary, The Moving Theatre, voted best film at the 2018 National Film Awards.
• After 7 years as an arts therapist at The London Art Therapy Centre, I co-founded Studio 34 in 2020, to offer both sanctuary and inspiration.
• In 2020 and 2023, I wrote six therapeutic fairy tales, illustrated by Sarah Pimenta, and The Storybook and Rewilding Children’s Imaginations manual.
• In 2023, I completed an introduction to Environmental Arts Therapy.

Humanistic, transpersonal, existential, psychodynamic, Jungian and attachment theories inspire my work, as well as myth, film, nature and art. Despite the challenging times we live in, I continue to believe in the human spirit’s capacity to renew itself through adversity and loss, and in the power of our natural creativity to enable more fulfilling connections with self and others.

With a mix of British and European roots, having studied and lived across three continents, I have a deep interest in different cultures and languages. My belief is arts in therapy offer us a universal, archetypal language to guide us through life.

My TEDx talk (2012) explores how the arts and creative tools can help connect us to our inner compass in times of transition.

Recent conferences where I have taught/facilitated creative learning sessions.