Drawing and Talking Groupwork
What is Drawing and Talking Groupwork?
Our Drawing and Talking Groupwork sessions provide a safe and structured space for individuals to explore thoughts and emotions through creative expression. These small-group sessions bring together people with shared experiences, offering both peer support and direct guidance in a nurturing environment.
Groups are designed to meet specific needs—such as age, gender, or emotional wellbeing—and run at different times throughout the year. You can join one of our scheduled groups or request sessions for your organisation, school, or workplace.
We offer two types of groupwork:
- Emotion-Based Groups, where participants explore a different emotion each week through guided discussion and symbolic drawing.
- Story-Based Groups, where creative storytelling themes encourage self-reflection and emotional processing.
Each participant will have a personal folder, which I will store safely between sessions and return at the end of the programme. Both approaches foster self-awareness, confidence, emotional resilience, and social connection, while maintaining clear boundaries for safe, subconscious processing.
Emotion-Based Groups
Our Emotion-Based Groupwork is a 6 to 12-week programme designed to help participants explore and process emotions in a safe and structured way. Each session focuses on a single emotion—such as kindness, excitement, fear, anger, or pride—guiding participants through a process of discussion, creative expression, and shared reflection.
The purpose of Emotion-Based Groupwork is to help participants:
✅ Develop awareness of their emotions and how they are feeling internally
✅ Recognise that they are not alone and that others experience similar feelings
✅ Express emotions in a symbolic way, allowing for safe, subconscious processing
✅ Build emotional resilience and self-discovery
✅ Find ways to express and share feelings in a safe and supported environment
Sessions are facilitated in small groups of 6 to 12 people, following a structured three-stage approach:
- Discussion Stage – Exploring the week’s emotion in general terms, considering what it looks and feels like.
- Drawing Stage – Expressing the emotion symbolically through art.
- Sharing Stage – Participants discuss their drawings, following third-person storytelling techniques to prevent personal disclosure and encourage deeper reflection.
This group fosters emotional awareness, resilience, and self-understanding while ensuring a comfortable and supportive environment.
Story-Based Groups
Our Story-Based Groupwork runs for 5 to 8 weeks and supports creative expression and self-reflection through guided storytelling and drawing. With a larger group size of 8 to 30 people, participants work in small groups of 4 to 6 to encourage connection and peer support.
The purpose of Story-Based Groupwork is to help participants:
✅ Develop social connections and practice meaningful communication
✅ Build insight and emotional awareness through shared storytelling
✅ Experience being heard and understood in a safe group setting
✅ Explore themes of identity, resilience, and personal growth
✅ Develop empathy by relating to and understanding shared experiences
Each session follows a set theme, such as a special place, a favourite memory, or overcoming a challenge, helping participants process thoughts and emotions in a structured yet creative way. The sessions follow a two-stage process:
- Drawing Stage – Participants create artwork inspired by the week’s theme.
- Sharing Stage – Group members discuss their pictures, gradually transitioning to third-person storytelling techniques in later sessions to encourage subconscious processing.
This group is ideal for those who benefit from structured creativity, providing a nurturing space to build confidence, self-awareness, and emotional insight.