Katrina Millhagen

I offer sessions in psychodynamic psychotherapy and art psychotherapy, online, in both English and German. I am available five days a week for sessions at a time of your choosing. Please approach me with times that may best work for you.

I offer a free introductory online session.  Concessions are available for students and trainee counsellors.  

In my years as an art therapist, registered with HCPC, I have worked in mainstream school settings with challenged adolescents and with adults in the community with learning impairments. For ten years I was part of a NHS multi-professional Adult Community Mental Health Team. Subsequently I spent twenty years in Higher Education art psychotherapy training with MSc students and several years in a clinic for psychosomatic illness, conducting art psychotherapy sessions with adults. Over this entire period I also offered private practice and supervision consultancy work. I have worked with a variety of issues ranging from anger management, anxiety, bereavement, burn out, chronic fatigue syndrome, cultural issues, depression, eating disorders, health related issues,  life coaching, loss, psychosomatic illnesses, redundancy, relationships, self-esteem and stress (including  work related contexts).

My practice of creative art psychotherapy involves psychodynamic and relational work and an eclectic, existential and Integrative approach. I work with adults, older people and trainees. My experience in different settings and with a great diversity of people has prompted and inspired me to undertake further learning about a great variety of therapeutic approaches. Both my approach to my work and my therapeutic stance have broadened considerably over the years, helping me to focus on the most effective ways of therapeutically encouraging and supporting each individual's strengths. I find post-Jungians of much interest. An example of my published work appears in Franzen, Hampe, Wigger (Hg.) , 2020 Zur Psychodynamik kreativen Gestaltens. Künstlerische Therapien in klinischen und psycho-sozialen Arbeitsfeldern (K Alber Verlag Freiburg/München)., Chapter by K Millhagen: Accompanying clients in psychodynamic art psychotherapy through a non-dual stance.

I offer online work in a quiet and uninterrupted space. For those who wish to engage with painting, drawing, clay etc. this can take place online if you have some art materials to hand. Art work can also be carried out outside of sessions and then be brought in for joint exploration. Images from our dreams and life experiences often appear in the artwork. No artistic skills are required, just a wish to engage.

The length of time I would need to work with you depends on the nature of the issues we are dealing with. A brief series of four to six sessions could be useful if you feel that your self-confidence has been knocked and you would like an external figure to assist you in refocusing your strength. Short-term work designed to address a specific problem could involve ten to sixteen sessions. Longer term work may be necessary in order to address more deep rooted areas that require time for exploration. This process could last a year or longer. These conditions may also apply to trainee therapists that are on a Master’s or Higher Education programme.

Our first session provides an opportunity to meet up and get a sense of each other. It is a time to explore what has led you to seek therapy and to begin to look at events that stand out for you and that may have impacted on you. You will be becoming part of a process that may need to unfold gradually but which can assist you in understanding more fully how significant experiences in your life and in those of your family, friends, colleagues may have affected you. The session involves us in a joint exploration of ways in which we can best assist you. Undertaking therapy is a considerable commitment in terms of emotion, energy, time and money. So this first session is an important opportunity for you to ask any questions you may have to get a sense of how I work, so that together we can decide if my therapeutic approach will be helpful to you.

The first session is an opportunity to meet and get a sense of each other. It is a time to explore what has led someone to seek therapy and to begin to look at events which may have impacted on you positively as well as areas that feel more difficult. This is a process of gradual unfolding which can consequently lead to an understanding of how events in your life, family, work, relationships and any significant experiences may have affected you. There will be some questions from me and a joint exploration in order to begin to gain some understanding about how best I can assist you.

Undertaking therapy is a considerable commitment in terms of emotion, energy, time and money. So this first session is an important opportunity for you to ask any questions you may have in order to get a sense of how I work so that together we can decide if my therapeutic approach will be helpful. 

I offer supervision in psychodynamic psychotherapy and art psychotherapy, online, in both English and German. I am available five days a week for sessions at a time of your choosing. Please approach me with times that may best work for you.

I offer a free introductory online session. Please contact me for fees.

I am registered with the HCPC (Health & Care Professions Council), BAAT (British Association of Art Therapists) and BACP (British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapists). After qualifying as a senior psychotherapist, senior supervisor (MBACP Accred.) & art psychotherapist, I practiced for 35 years. I completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Art Therapy in 1986 and an MA in Art Psychotherapy in 1992.

Supervision in the Helping Professions Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet is a clearly focused text on the supervision process which has become a valuable reference point for me. Their Seven-Eyed Model is very helpful. This model is relational because it focuses on the relationships between client, therapist and supervisor. It proposes a systemic approach which focuses on the interplay between each relationship and how this can be contextualised within the wider system.

Many issues can be explored in supervision, including transference and counter transference, aspects which may belong to therapy and not to supervision, defensiveness on a therapist's part or personal blind spots. Brigid Proctor (referenced in Hawkins and Shohet) refers to the need to help a supervisee feel received, valued and understood, as only then will the therapist feel safe enough to review and challenge him/herself (p.36.).

Within the modality of art psychotherapy, supervision addresses how to incorporate image making into the process of a psychotherapeutic relationship. Questions and discussions may include the way that the significance of an image can be sidelined if the image itself is not focused on in enough depth. For example, it may be that an image could be given too much space and attention, leaving inadequate time and space for verbal psychotherapy. It is important to emphasise that, in art psychotherapy, the images created by clients require the therapist’s full attention in order that the non-verbal aspects of the art processes can be reflected on adequately. Such explorations can make it possible to develop a new outlook on life. J. Shaverien (2007) focuses on the importance of reverie when creating and discussing images. G. Mc Neilly (2006), writing about group art therapy, examines ways in which the dynamic struggles of conscious and unconscious oppositional forces may play out continuously, both among clients and within the artworks, a process that can lead to greater inner harmony and useful self-exploration.

There are also relational aspects of therapist and client that require the attention of the supervisor. Stephen Mitchell (2000) in From Attachment to Intersubjectivity (p.142) explains that the therapist may usefully work through projections to allow clients to speak their minds. He stresses that being able to respond well to such stimuli may greatly enhance the efficacy of the sessions. He also describes common struggles around 'hate' and the emergence of warmer feelings and laughter in an illuminating way.

My approach to supervision

In conducting supervision, my aim is to support you in order to help endorse, enrich and sustain good practice. I do not see my role as merely dispensing criticism, but as witnessing the therapeutic work so that I can help to refine your awareness of the process. Our sessions will help me develop a sense of how your therapeutic relationships with your clients are developing. I will also be able to gain an understanding of your responses and reflections. 

In Love’s Executioner and Tales About Psychotherapy Irvin Yalom, an existentialist practitioner, focuses on issues of transference and counter transference, as well as the potential assumptions and ‘blind spots’ that the therapist may have. He emphasises the need for therapists to bring themselves into the therapeutic relationship, to give feedback to clients and hear their feedback. He thus strongly supports relational aspects in both the encounter of therapy and the supervisory context.