Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
Spotlight on Careers
03 December 2021
This week we hosted a Careers Q&A with EHS Old Girl Olivia Reddin, an art psychotherapist. She gave Sixth Form students an insight into her day-to-day life, her career path since leaving EHS and advice to anyone wishing to pursue a career in therapy. Thank you to Year 12’s Rosie Wang who has transcribed some of the key points from Olivia’s Q&A.
Can you tell us a bit about what you did after you left EHS?
I went to art school for a year before leaving to have my daughter, and then I did social work for three years. In terms of going into therapy, social work is a really good
way of learning, and gives you exposure to working with various groups of people. It gives you a good base on theory, and therapist work is mainly based on theory. Then I
worked in specialist adult services in drugs and alcohol rehabilitation where I found art the easiest way to engage. This sort of became the main focus of my work and then I
did two years of postgraduate degree in art psychotherapy before qualifying in 2016.
How does art help with improving mental health specifically?
Art itself is wholly healing, so if you like art, it is really relaxing, is quite a slow pace, you can work with music on and it is really soothing. I work with children with
level 3 mental health, so it’s quite a complex mental health problem and many of them have had exceedingly difficult things happen to them; they need to talk about them,
explore them, and make sense of them. But many of them don’t want to talk verbally, because they find it difficult, or they do not know how to speak about them. So, art
becomes another means of communication.
What happens during an art therapy session?
Some people would come, and not do any art at all, and we would just talk. Some people won’t speak to me at all, they just want to make art and embrace that calming
atmosphere. Some people don’t want any of those things, and they just use this session purely for a place to sit and just to be there. I tend to work with people for 10 to 12
sessions.
What kinds of mental health problems do you deal with?
I work in a clinical team, so I work with a team of mental health doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists, so we all share what's going on with our patients. In order to be
referred to the NHS, you have to be really quite poorly, but that might just be that you are very anxious, and you are exhausted. Many of the young people I'm working with are
very anxious because of the backlash of covid and other issues such as OCD and eating disorders etc.
How do people get into this field; is there a typical entry-level job?
Art therapy is very difficult to get into in terms of a full-time permanent position. Art therapy is actually a relatively new profession, but the benefit is really starting
to be recognized, especially in schools where more and more common. I started doing work in schools first, and the majority of clinics have not only art therapists, there are
also music therapists and drama therapists. There are lots of ways of working that forms the creative therapist's umbrella. It is quite competitive, but by the time you are
qualified to be a therapist, there probably will be more jobs available.
What is your biggest challenge?
As we come out the other side of the covid pandemic, I think we are now seeing a mental health pandemic. Like the examples I talked about earlier, people are really getting
stressed out, and the situation is getting much more difficult. And the NHS hasn’t necessarily got the budget as there are many young people that we have to support, high
caseloads and lots of children. It’s tiring, but you just need to be a good clinician, and do the things you should be, such as regularly sharing with your teams, and keeping
on top of your own mental health, then it’s manageable. It is a very rewarding job and the positives do outweigh the negatives.
What have you learned from your own experiences of art therapy that benefit you on a personal level?
For me personally, it is taking the time to do things that make you feel good. So, for me, that’s art. That’s a massive benefit for supporting my mental health. I do take the
time to be creative and allow myself to spend some time on self-care, which is really important. And when we do get stressed, just to have a lazy weekend or having duvet time
is really important. I think the key is to find a healthy balance between work and looking after yourself.
What A-Level subjects would you recommend students take if they are interested in this profession?
Art is a must and probably any sort of psychology or sociology. I do hear people recommend doing social work before. And anything that informs mental health will stand you in
good stead, but any sorts of social care course because those are the theories that you are using to look at what is going on with the people that I work with.
Lastly, any recommendations for work experience?
In Birmingham, there is the Birmingham Centre for art therapy. They offer all sorts of drop-in sessions and experiences. And any sort of local care homes; although it is not
therapy, you can still do artworks with them, and it is a soothing practice that we talked about at the beginning. Over the Christmas period there can be some people who are
quite lonely, and you can go and make them Christmas cards. You can also do charity stuff or committee things that involves of designing posters for the arts etc - anything
that gets you to interact with people.
