“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.

Jungian, humanistic, transpersonal, existential, psychodynamic 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, others and the habitats we live in.

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 the arts in therapy and education, can also offer us a universal, archetypal language, as well as creative tools for problem-solving and innovation.

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

Conferences where I have taught/facilitated creative learning sessions.

Biography: studies and work from 1990-to-date

• 1990-1994 – BA in modern languages (French, Spanish) with my thesis on Quichua/Castilian bilingualism in Ecuador published in Early Years journal
• 1994 – Graduate trainee at Leo Burnett advertising agency, trained to develop communication strategies and insight/idea generation
• 1995 – Introduction to transpersonal therapies and creative coaching at WYSE International‘s leadership programmes in the UK, Italy and India.
• 1997 – Move into qualitative research and creative group facilitation
• 1997-1999 – short courses at Sesame, Central School of Speech and Drama, and Making Moves – in dance/movement and drama therapy
• 1999 – Certificate in Psychotherapy & Counselling from Regent’s University
• 1999-2000 – Trained as Place 2 Be child counsellor in primary schools.
• 2001 – Volunteer at the Atlantic Whale Foundation in Tenerife, helping co-design community arts and international education projects
• 2001, embarked on Certificate and Masters in integrative arts psychotherapy at the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education
• While in therapy training, co-founded The Dream Mill, a qualitative research agency working for; Action Aid, Samaritans, Forster Communications – Department of Health/Education, CYPU (Children & Young People’s Unit)
• 2005, my illustrated ‘Sometimes I Feel’ flashcards published by Routledge
• In 2000s, honorary therapist at Camden’s Women+Health Centre, Homerton hospital, and Newham hospital’s Miscarriage & Pregnancy Loss clinic.
• 2012 – helped launch therapy pilot to support new mothers – Women+Health
• 2013-2020 – Arts psychotherapist at The London Art Therapy Centre
• In 2017, Story Director for artgym’s award winning documentary, The Moving Theatre, voted best film at the 2018 National Film Awards.
• 2020, co-founded Studio 34, an independent arts therapy studio.
• 2020, 2023, my therapeutic fairy tales, were published, illustrated by Sarah Pimenta, and The Storybook, & Rewilding Children’s Imaginations manuals
• In 2023 – Introduction to Environmental Arts Therapy training.

Professional memberships and group networks