Emergence, Inquiry, Becoming

A Learning Journey Concludes

I have finished my Masters of Creative Arts Therapy. On Tuesday, November 11, I attended my final Small Learning Group via Zoom and submitted the last of my assessment tasks on MS Teams. It feels so strange to reach this point. I’ve felt relieved, happy, sad, excited and nervous! My studies and time with the MIECAT Institute have had a profound impact on me, and I want to mark this moment, honour the journey, and offer a reflection on my experience and what happens next.

A detail from my final multimodal inquiry: stitched fragments, gold thread, and the tools and notes that held the process.

Two and a half years ago, I took a chance and submitted an expression of interest for MIECAT’s first mid-year intake. I was drawn to MIECAT’s experiential, arts-based approach to learning—the “E” in MIECAT. Rather than learning only through theory, we engaged through doing. We explored experiences using movement, sound, imagery, gesture, and artmaking. Learning was multi-sensory, multi-modal, and grounded in lived experience.

Engaging in arts-based inquiry: holding the stitched piece while writing noticings alongside it.

This experiential model meant that throughout my studies, I tried and tested the concepts and processes I was learning. I worked in pairs and small groups, engaging in ongoing arts-based inquiry as a way to understand human experience. These processes shaped many of my creative arts therapy reflections. Alongside this sat discussions, journal writing, academic readings, and, of course, assignments. In my final year, I also completed a year-long placement at Unique State, facilitating group experiences under the supervision of Accredited Arts Therapist, Elaine Sullivan.

Looking back, MIECAT’s core values of Relationality, Emergence, Multimodality and Lived Experiencing have become the core of my therapeutic arts practice.

Relationality taught me to attend to the space between myself and those I work with. Through creative inquiry and lived experience, I came to understand how relationships shape meaning. Relationality now grounds my practice in companionship, attunement, and working alongside rather than over or against.

Emergence invited me to let go of preconceived outcomes and be open to what arrived. This wasn’t always easy. Over time, I learned to sit with the unknown as fertile ground for insight. This understanding now sits at the centre of how I facilitate—spacious, patient, and open to the unexpected.

A close-up of the stitched fragments and threads from my final inquiry, showing the fine details of the process.

Multimodality showed me that different modes of making reveal different layers of experience. Moving between materials, gestures, images, and words deepened my understanding of embodied meaning. This approach now guides how I support others—offering multiple entry points and letting each mode speak for itself.

Lived Experiencing focuses on the real, embodied experience of life. Holding sensations and emotions, and understanding individuals as experts in their world, has become foundational in my practice. It guides me toward a grounded and embodied presence.

Together, these values continue to shape the practitioner I’m becoming. A commitment to curiosity, spaciousness, and relational presence—cultivated through MIECAT’s reflective arts therapy process—feels central to my work. I am becoming a practitioner who trusts my noticing, lets materials and moments speak in their own time, and allows what is unfinished to simply be unfinished.

My values and lived experience guide me toward a practice of trust and openness. The presence I hope to offer others is one of spaciousness, humility, and attuned relational presence.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to learn with MIECAT. As I step into this next chapter, I’m curious about what will unfold—what the next leg of my journey, my creative inquiry, and my lived experience will look like. And I would be grateful if you came with me on the journey of building my professional therapeutic arts practice, whatever shape it takes.

A fluid watercolour process from my inquiry work—movement, colour, and materials in conversation.