Beccy Hayward
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
I provide private Art Psychotherapy for adults and young people.
As well as practicing in Chepstow Therapy Centre, I offer sessions outdoors in nature in Bristol; in both BS15 and BS16 locations. I have combined my passion for the outdoors, Art Psychotherapy and Gestalt training alongside my forest bathing experience to create a unique practice.
Being in nature naturally supports many health benefits. It reduces stress and anxiety, bringing a sense of calm and grounding. Scientific evidence supports that time in nature supports our immune systems and decreases levels of cortisol, a hormone linked to stress. Nature can help us reconnect to ourselves and feel a sense of peace and support helping us find perspective in our lives.
I am a fully qualified Art Psychotherapist and a trainee Gestalt Psychotherapist. I'm a registered member of the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) and of the British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) and I adhere to the codes of conduct of these organisations. I have professional liability insurance, a current DBS certificate and Safeguarding training. I work with children, adolescents and adults and I can also facilitate groups.
I offer a confidential, safe and supportive therapeutic space where I encourage freedom of expression through the use of art materials to individuals who are experiencing mental, physical, social and emotional difficulties. The relationship between myself and the client is of central importance but also in art psychotherapy it is the three-way process between the client, therapist and the art work created that is unique. Over time I build a trusting therapeutic relationship with my clients helping to facilitate new perspectives that will bring about a sense of acceptance or re-evaluate situations or feelings.
I work with an understanding of attachment based psychotherapy and I am influenced by Gestalt theory. I place emphasis in meeting people where they are in the moment and with what they choose to bring to their sessions.
What is Art Psychotherapy
Art psychotherapy is a creative form of psychotherapy using art media as a means of expression and communication. Art Psychotherapy can be helpful to anyone who finds it difficult to express their thoughts and feelings verbally or may prefer a different way of expressing themselves.
You don’t need previous experience or to be good art, it’s the therapeutic process and the meaning attached that’s important. Often when a difficulty has been explored using the art materials it can be reflected on and experienced objectively or understood differently and often becomes clearer, which can make it easier to talk about. Making art can often communicate at a symbolic level complex and confusing thoughts and feelings, which can be shared and worked with within the therapeutic relationship. The art made can act as a container for difficult content and emotions and as it has a concrete form it can be safely put away, with the option of returning to it for further exploration, to unpick and work through over time, as part of the healing process.
Training, qualifications & experience
Professional qualifications:
2011 - 2014; MA Degree in Art Psychotherapy (University of South Wales)
2009 - 2011; Foundation Degree in Creative Arts Therapies (City of Bristol College and Plymouth University)
Current training
2017 - Date; Gestalt psychotherapy (Gestalt Centre Wales)
Other training
I am a certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Guides (ANFT)
I have completed the High Peak Wilderness First Aid Training
Experience
As well as working in private practice, I’m a self-employed art psychotherapist in schools in Bristol, working with children individually and in groups and with parent/carer and child in joint sessions. I work with children with a wide range of experiences and traumas, many of whom are children who are looked after. I work with a wide range of emotional states that can be overwhelming, such as; anger, grief, anxiety and sadness. Also helping young people make sense of life events including domestic violence and abuse, bullying, changes in family structure and illness, peer relationships, bereavement, trauma, social anxiety, and feelings of isolation.
As a trainee art psychotherapist, I worked in an acute mental health inpatient ward at the Royal United Hospital Bath, working with adults with a range of mental health difficulties at a crisis point in their lives. I also worked with Bristol North Community Learning Difficulties Team with adults with learning disabilities and downs syndrome, working together on issues of bereavement and loss.
I qualified as an art psychotherapist in 2014 and prior to that, I had five years of experience of working as a therapeutic arts facilitator, working with a wide range of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.
Member organisations
Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.
The HCPC are an independent, UK-wide health regulator. They set standards of professional training, performance and conduct for 16 professions.
They keep a register of health professionals who meet their standards, and they take action if registered health professionals fall below those standards. They were created by a piece of legislation called the Health Professions Order 2001.
Registration means that a health professional meets national standards for their professional training, performance and conduct.
The British Association of Art Therapists
Areas of counselling I deal with
Other areas of counselling I deal with
Children in care/adoption
Therapies offered
Fees
£60.00 per session
Free initial telephone session
Concessions offered for
Additional information
Sessions are weekly at the same time each week
Each session is 50 minutes,
Outdoor sessions are 1hour
- Free telephone consultation
- Appointments are £60
When I work
- I am available for private practice on Wednesdays in Chepstow Therapy Centre.
- I offer sessions outdoors in nature in Bristol on Wednesday mornings, some availability Mondays and Tuesdays
Further information
Continued Professional Development
2018
- Field based Gestalt practice and whole intelligence - Malcolm Parlett
- Introduction to Sandplay, inner landscapes
- Working with children the oak lander way
- The therapist as relational artist -Rich Hycner
- Field based Gestalt practice - Malcolm Parlett
- Radical relationality, mutual influence in the therapist patient dialogue - Lynne Jacobs
- Gestalt Experiments in practice
- Neuro dramatic play; attachment based play
- Advanced practitioner inter-agency child protection training
2017
- Gestalt fundamentals training
- Internal Family Systems
- Working with Relational Trauma
- Working with People Who Self Harm
- The Rescued Fragment – What underlies Shame
- Safeguarding in education and PREVENT
2016
- Dyadic Parent-Child Art Psychotherapy Training Level 1
- Introducing a Model of Art Therapy Based Organisational Consultancy
- Assessing Dissociative Disorders
- Introduction to Safeguarding in Education
- Integrative Sandplay Studies
- Energy Tools Training, 1 and 2
- Gestalt, The secret Agent of Shame
- Letting the Future In, Therapeutic Intervention for Children Affected by Sexual Abuse
2015
- Working with Children in Trauma; An Exploration of Trauma Symptoms, Trauma and the Impact on a Child, Treating Dissociation
- Digital Media Workshop
- Trauma, Psychosis and Dissociation: Working Towards Recovery
- Understanding Domestic Violence and Abuse
- Circuits and Circumstances – The Effects of Early Experiences on the Brain
- Initial Agency Child Protection
- Exploring Archetypes through Dramatherapy
2014
- Secondary Trauma and Resilience
- Environmental Arts Therapy
- Explorations in the Autistic Spectrum
- Human Trafficking Introductory Course
