Developing accessible, innovative and effective approaches for arts psychotherapies and arts and health practices.
Arts psychotherapists and arts and health approaches use a range of mediums, including, visual art, body movement, music and drama to help bridge talking, feeling and the ways that we interact. Building on evidence and advances in research in arts, mental health and wellbeing, we support models and practices to be applied in accessible, inclusive and safe ways that are conscious of the social, political and cultural contexts within which they are employed. To do this we engage and lead research projects and provide translatory training programmes with the knowledge of technical aspects of implementation supported by our leading clinicans.
The priorities of the centre are to:
- Offer trainings that utilise knowledges from mentalisation-based therapies, interpersonal and interventions for psychosis
- Develop clinical research and quality improvement projects for arts psychotherapies.
- Develop dialogues with service users about how we can be more sensitive and inclusive to cultural, social and political situations.
- Build an international community
This is the first centre of its kind, accessible to all arts psychotherapists with a focus on innovation and evidence-based practice and will help to offer a way forward for arts psychotherapists developing, innovating and refining clinical methods verbally and non-verbally for specific clinical populations.
To become a trainer, to co-produce events or to learn more about our partnership with Brunel University, please contact jenni.de-knoop@
Developing Skills in Interpersonal Affective Focus (IPAF) for Complex Depression in Brief Arts Psychotherapies
- When: 4 June 2026
- Where: CNWL HQ, The Bevans Room, 350 Euston Road, Regent's Place, London, NW1 3AX
- Time: 10am to 4.30pm
Trainers: Diane Eagles and Professor Dominik Havsteen-Franklin
Overview
This one-day training aims to enhance clinical arts psychotherapy skills in formulation and develop understanding of the competencies required to deliver effective brief psychodynamic interventions. The course will introduce the Interpersonal Affective Focus (IPAF) from Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy as a framework to support clinical focus in brief arts psychotherapies work with complex depression.
Approach
The training will combine presentations, case vignettes, and experiential activities. Emphasis will be placed on reflective practice and discussion of clinical scenarios, supporting participants to develop confidence in understanding and applying IPAF in practice.
Please visit Step-Up to book a place and for more details. Please be aware that CNWL staff can attend this training for free, so please contact Jenni de Knoop for more information and the discount code.
2-Day Mentalization-Based Arts Psychotherapies for CEN/PD and Psychosis
- When: 19–20 May
- Where: In person - Brunel University
- Time: 9.30am to 4.30 pm
Trainers: Oliver Campbell (Art Psychotherapist), Mario Eugster (Music Psychotherapist), Prof. Dominik Havsteen-Franklin (Art Psychotherapist), Kawori Iguchi (Music Psychotherapist), Dr Erene Kaptani (Dramatherapist)
This training introduces the core concepts of mentalizing and epistemic trust, and explores how these ideas connect with creative, symbolic and arts‑based therapeutic processes. Participants will engage in guided arts‑based activities and consider how mentalization‑informed approaches can be integrated into their clinical practice.
Key skills you will learn
-
Understanding key MBT (Bateman and Fonagy, 2004) terminology relevant to arts psychotherapies
-
Recognising mentalising vs. non‑mentalising states in therapeutic encounters
-
Creative strategies that support mentalisation, emotional regulation and reflection
-
Introductory overview of MBT and MBAP in clinical settings and working with CEN/BP/psychosis
-
How artistic processes foster curiosity, perspective‑taking and relational attunement
Please visit Step Up for more information and to book a place. Please be aware that CNWL staff are offered a free place, so please contact Davide Puddu or Jenni de Knoop for more information and the discount booking code.
Mentalisation Based Arts Therapies - 2 day Training
Presenters: Oliver Campbell, Natalie Chesterman, Kawori Iguchi, Mario Eugster and Dominik Havsteen-Franklin.
Please note, If you would like to book any of these training sessions for your team or service, please contact Jenni de Knoop, or get in touch to find out when a similar course is next scheduled.
Moving with ADHD Neurodiversity in Clinical Practice: Embodied, Clinical and Relational Perspectives.
Trainer: Alexandra Zibisow, Dance Movement Psychotherapist
Intended audience:
-
Creative Arts Therapists & trainees
-
Therapists and practitioners interested in embodied, neurodiversityaffirming ways of working
-
Clinical supervisors exploring ADHDinformed practice
Learning aims:
-
Understanding ADHD through a neurodiversityaffirming lens
-
How attention, regulation, executive functioning and rhythm show up in therapy
-
Embodied, relational and regulationbased strategies
-
Working inclusively with or without a formal diagnosis (including NHS contexts)
-
Considering therapist neurodiversity, countertransference and supervision dynamics
Introduction to Team Formulation through Trauma-Informed Approaches (TIA) in Arts Psychotherapies: Shifting Perspectives from 'What is Wrong with You?' to 'What Has Happened to You?
Trainers: Gill Lock (Art Psychotherapist), Carol Jaffier (Dance Movement Psychotherapist) & Roz Urquhart (Art Psychotherapist)
Intended audience:
• Creative Arts Therapists & trainees
• Clinicians interested in trauma-informed arts-based approaches
• Multidisciplinary teams exploring traumainformed team formulation
Learning aims:
• Introduce the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) as an alternative to medicalisation
• Shift perspectives from “what is wrong with you?” to “what has happened to you?”
• Use artsbased methods to reflect on feelings evoked by serviceuser stories
• Deepen understanding of embodied and psychological trauma responses through creative exploration
• Explore how power dynamics and threats to core needs shape distress
• Develop traumainformed team formulations using creative and reflective arts practices
• Understand threat responses through a traumainformed, artssupported lens
• Identify compassionate, traumainformed ways forward informed by creative processes
Arts Therapies Clinical Supervision Fundamentals
This course is suitable for people who are new to supervising or are thinking to supervise in the future. Bookings for this will open soon.
Presenters: Dominik Havsteen-Franklin, Diane Eagles and Mario Eugster
Advanced Mentalization Based Arts Psychotherapies (MBAP) Practitioner Skills Training Day: Working with Neurodiversity and Embodied Mentalization
The training will centre on working with neurodiversity and embodied mentalization. The topics to be covered include:
- The necessity of neurodiversity-informed practice
- Flexibility in mentalization-based arts psychotherapies
- Honouring and affirming differences
- Case discussions
- Developing relational mentalizing and movement based interventions
- Theory and practice in working with gendered and racialised bodies
Presenters: Natalie Chesterman (Art Psychotherapist), and Dr Erene Kaptani (Dramatherapist)
A series of four evening lectures curated by Kawori Iguchi, Music Therapist.
When:
- 07 July
- 6 October
- 23 November
Where: CNWL HQ, the Bevans room, 350 Euston Road, Regent's Place, London, NW1 3AX
Time: 6pm - 8.30pm
More information to follow.
Lead
Dominik Havsteen-Franklin, Consultant in Arts Psychotherapies
Dominik Havsteen-Franklin (1972) is an internationally established, British Art Therapist and Clinical Academic who investigates and develops innovative models of arts-based intervention in health care that use body movement and visual image making. He is employed as Professor of Practice in Arts Therapies at Brunel University London and as a Consultant in Arts Psychotherapies for CNWL NHS Foundation Trust. He also a founder and Vice President for European Federation of Art Therapy.
He has an extensive portfolio of research collaborations including working with East London NHS Foundation Trust (London), University of Hertfordshire on the Horizons Project, Imperial College, Fred’s Company (London), Weill University (Qatar), Roehampton University (London), Sp(i)eel Arts Collective (South Africa). His research has focused primarily on intervention development to impact on health conditions such as art therapy for complex depression, mentalization based art psychotherapy for emotionally unstable personality disorder and developing psychosocial practice in South Africa.
Research in progress includes using art therapy in museums in Qatar, Arts Therapies for heterogenous groups in mental health, and neuro studies of change process in arts therapies. His major project at present is focusing on healthcare worker team development.
The results and background to completed projects have been published in wide range of peer reviewed journals, for example recent publications include:
-
Colecchia, F., Spinelli, G., Havsteen-Franklin, D., & Nandy, M. (2025). Toward a Sociotechnical Ecosystem for Ethical Screening and Promotion of Mental Health and Well-Being. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 27(1), e64790.
-
Havsteen-Franklin, D., & Campagna, A. (2025). Investigating the Impact of Musical Soundscapes on Well-being: A Qualitative Focus Group Study Using Arts-Based Methods: 探究音乐声景对幸福感的影响: 一项采用艺术本位方法的质性焦点小组研究. Creative Arts in Education and Therapy (CAET), 85-104.
-
Havsteen-Franklin, D., Asenjo Palma, C., Dima, M., Hansen, M., Merdin Uygur, E., Tore Yargin, G., … Meliou, E. (2025). Wellbeing in the wild: co-creating context-sensitive wellbeing dimensions with a community of young artists. Arts & Health, 1–24.
-
Havsteen-Franklin, D., & Perboni, V. (2025). Synaesthetic emergence: a scoping review of factors facilitating synaesthetic states in non-synaesthetes through arts engagement. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 12(1), 2454113.available here.
-
Mandangu, C., Ramos, A. M., Sengupta, M., Bender, R., El-Hayani, R., Hasan, I., ... & Havsteen-Franklin, D. (2025). Implicit bias in referrals to relational psychological therapies: review and recommendations for mental health services. Frontiers in Public Health, 12, 1469439.available here
-
Myles, A., & Havsteen-Franklin, D. (2025). Beyond the Human: Emergent Theories of Synthetics in Art Psychotherapy Research Pedagogies. Body, Space & Technology, 24(1).available here.
-
Huss, E., Havsteen-Franklin, D. (2025) Mechanisms of Art
for Social Art Therapy available here.
Lead
Jenni de Knoop, Dance Movement Psychotherapist
Jenni is a UKCPregistered Dance Movement Psychotherapist (DMP), Open Dialogue practitioner, clinical supervisor, educator, and doctoral student with over 21 years of clinical experience. She works in adult psychiatric rehabilitation and is the practice lead for the CaRE Project (creative team development) as well as the Training and Development Lead for the International Centre for Arts Psychotherapies Training (ICAPT).
Jenni is a visiting lecturer at the University of Roehampton and Brunel University, teaching on the Dance Movement Psychotherapy and Arts Psychotherapy Master’s programmes. She also works in private practice, offering clinical supervision, group reflective practice, and bespoke workshops.
Jenni is passionate about supporting people to inhabit their unique bodies with creativity, respect, and compassion. She is committed to dialogical, trauma informed, and embodied approaches. Her research interests include creative team development, relational and embodied resilience, and supporting teams to work better together through relationally coordinated practice.
Recent publication:
Havsteen-Franklin, D., de Knoop, J., Agtarap, T., Hackett, S. and Haeyen, S. (2023) ‘Evaluation of an arts therapies approach to team development for non-acute healthcare teams in low control and high pressure environments’, The Arts in Psychotherapy, 83. Available here.
Carol is an experienced dance movement psychotherapist who currently holds posts in CNWL NHS Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster, Brent, Harrow and Hillingdon working in inpatient acute mental health, older adults, rehabilitation and learning disabilities/autism adults and camhs. Although specialising in the psychotherapeutic use of embodied movement to promote social, physical, cognitive and psychological integration of the individual; Carol uses a trauma informed approach to deliver care effectively while considering previous life experiences. Before joining the NHS in 2018, Carol enjoyed a career in musical theatre and as a performer having studied at The Urdang Academy and Arts Educational London and gained her MA in dance movement psychotherapy from Roehampton University in 2018.
As well as contributing to ICAPT, Carol is a co-facilitator on the Arts Psychotherapies trainee forum and was co-project lead on the Arts for Staff Wellbeing Space.
Diane is an artist and Art Psychotherapist with 33 years experience. She has worked for Central North West London NHS Trust for most of this time, managing the Older Adult Arts Psychotherapies service as well as working in adult psychotherapy outpatients and male Psychiatric Intensive Care.
She has contributed to the International Centre for Arts Psychotherapy Training, ICAPT, since its inception. She has been a visiting lecturer and tutor for Roehampton University, The Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education, IATE and Brunel Art Psychotherapy training amongst others. She was co producer of the Adaptation of Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy for Arts Psychotherapy, A-DIT, and has an interest in Environmental Art Psychotherapy (EAT) with a recently published paper on attentional focus in EAT.
Erene is an anthropologist, participatory performance artist and Dramatherapist with expertise in participatory performance as a social research method for academic research, community building and public impact. She is currently working for CNWL NHS as community Dramatherapist and is training to become an accredited MBT practitioner.
She employs narrative and movement-based methods inspired by physical, playback and forum theatre. She has been a member of Playback South Theatre Company and devised performances at Studio Upstairs wellbeing community.
She devised Suspended Lives and ‘Me I just put British’ plays about the hostile UK environment with Rich Mix and Tara Arts. Forthcoming contributions see Critical Social policy and FENNIA journals, 2023. available here.
Gill Lock is a HCPC registered Principal Arts Psychotherapist who has wide experience of delivering Art Psychotherapy sessions for the NHS, both in the Mental Health service and the Learning Disabilities service for the past seventeen years. She also undertakes this work in private practice. She has practiced meditation and yoga for the past twenty five years, and has delivered sessions and training on Mindfulness Based Art Therapy for fifteen years.
She became a Trauma Informed Approach Champion four years ago, undertaking trainings on trauma and bodywork, and team formulation from a trauma informed perspective. Gill then delivered regular trauma informed team formulation sessions for staff teams with the acute inpatient setting in which she currently works.
Gill is the founder and director of Mindful Arts in Letchworth, Hertfordshire; a creative space to explore self-expression and self-awareness through Art Therapy, Mindfulness Meditation and Authentic Movement.
Kawori is a music therapist working for North Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Arts Psychotherapies Service and North West London Arts Psychotherapies Service, CNWL NHS.
Before joining adult community service, she has worked in forensic CAMHS inpatient units and a forensic adult inpatient unit, as well as in adult acute inpatient service.
Mario trained as a pianist and organist in Switzerland and completed his training as a music therapist at Nordoff Robbins in London. He is currently working for CNWL (Central North West London Mental Health Trust) in adult mental health providing music therapy in both acute inpatient and community settings.
He has multiple roles, including principal music therapist in acute and clinical lead for arts therapies in acute inpatient settings. He holds managerial responsibilities as well as leading on service development in the arts therapies in CNWL and is a trainer for ICAPT (CNWL - International Centre for Arts Psychotherapies Training).
Mario is currently conducting PhD research into the role of culture in music therapy with people affected by psychosis. (Nordoff Robbins PhD programme, Goldsmiths University of London). He is also a free-lance musician.
Oliver is an art psychotherapist (HCPC/BAAT) at North West London Arts Psychotherapies at CNWL NHS. Oliver co-facilitates the mentalization based art therapy program for adults living with Complex Emotional Needs.
Oliver also works with young people with psychological and emotional difficulties and neurodiversity at an alternative provision school. Oliver is trained in Mentalization Based Therapy and Narrative Exposure Therapy, a NICE recommended treatment for complex PTSD.
Roz qualified as an Art Psychotherapist in 2006 and as Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist in 2019. Roz has worked within variety of settings in Scotland and London in services for adults and children with Learning Disabilities, Autism and Mental Health difficulties within the NHS and charity sector.
Roz’s qualifications include BA (Hons) Illustration from The Edinburgh College of Art, MSc Art Psychotherapy from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Diploma in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy from The Arbours Association and full accreditation as a Mentalisation Based Therapy Practitioner with the Anna Freud Centre; she has also undertaken further training in supervision. Roz is registered with BAAT, HCPC, UKCP and is on the BPC roster of MBT practitioners.
Roz works part time for CNWL as Principal Arts Psychotherapist for Learning Disabilities services. In addition, Roz also works part time as a senior psychotherapist and trainer for a national charity for people with Learning Disabilities who have experienced trauma within the clinical service and training and consultancy service.
