We’re not all artists, but we’ve all experienced the soothing nature of drawing. The art of doodling has given rise to of adult colouring books, sketch journals and more ways to explore our thoughts and feelings. It’s also led to an appreciation of art as a vehicle for transformative therapy, but access to resources for those who want to follow this path can be tricky at best, impossible at worst.

It’s something that Ali Strick found at the outset of her own mental health journey. Keen on pursuing art therapy as a vehicle for unpacking her own thoughts, she struggled to find a space that catered to her needs. The support on offer just wasn’t her – it was too expensive, too young, too clinical.

“I had been through a tough time with my own mental health and knew that making art about my feelings had helped me but I wanted to do it in a setting where I could be around other like-minded people instead of creating art alone – struggling with mental health issues can be a very lonely place. I thought a space or workshop like this would exist, but it didn’t,” Ali explains.

After speaking to, and garnering encouragement and support from a few friends, Ali founded Arts Sisterhood, a grassroots social enterprise created to provide affordable and accessible mental health support and art therapy to all self-identifying women and non-binary people. These art therapy sessions take shape across physical workshops, online workshops, online support groups, private support sessions and self-help books.

This festive season – a time when loneliness and isolation can be felt more than ever – we’ve teamed up with Arts Sisterhood on a series of guided art therapy events and tutorials, starting on Instagram on World Kindness Day, Friday 13th November.

Until then, read on to get to know a little more about Arts Sisterhood’s take on therapy.

Q: What does an Arts Sisterhood session entail?
A: Arts Sisterhood workshops start off with an introduction to the workshop, an explanation of the theme of the session and what inspired me to choose it, then we have some short warm up exercises, then several longer exercises and we finish with a group discussion of the theme and the work we’ve completed. In our physical sessions we have some music, access to cocktails and a lot of chatter, which makes them feel like a fun evening out with friends instead of a serious therapy session. Our online sessions don’t have that element but are more focused around peace and relaxation.

Q: In the past, you’ve been very open about your own mental health journey. Are you comfortable telling us a little bit about your own experience?
A: I’ve probably struggled the most with depression and anxiety, these being symptoms of bigger, deeper issues like low-self esteem, fear of abandonment and childhood trauma. I’ve also come to discover in adulthood that I am on the Autistic spectrum, and have realised this has had an affect on my ability for social interaction as well as verbalising thoughts and emotions, both of which have had a negative impact on my mental health.

It’s been quite a journey to navigate through, from first realising that something felt wrong and noticing changes in my behaviour, to the position I am in now, where I’m the happiest and healthiest I’ve been. I’ve experienced real lows such as sleeping constantly, not getting out of bed for weeks, not wanting to look after myself, not cleaning, eating or washing, getting into trouble and upsetting people around me with bad behaviour, feeling suicidal and ending up in hospital.

What turned things around for me was learning that what I was experiencing wasn’t a part of my personality or who I am, when I realised that I wasn’t an abnormal person but what I was experiencing was actually an illness and that it was normal – that’s where I started to improve. I began to learn about my illness and my issues, I learned about my life and myself, I went to therapy and I began to study psychology and psychotherapy. The more I did work on myself and learned about psychology, the better I became. This is what I try to teach and encourage through Arts Sisterhood.

Q: Can you tell us about some of the mental health benefits of art therapy?
A: Art therapy has many of the same benefits as talking therapy, including self expression and catharsis, ability to understand oneself better, problem solving and seeing issues from new perspectives, recognising your own inner strength, calming effect on anxiety, an increase in self esteem and self awareness, alleviating symptoms of depression, reducing stress and a positive, productive distraction that encourages self-validation.

Q: How has art therapy benefited you personally?
Art therapy allowed me to learn about and express myself; it allows me to visually see my thoughts and feelings helping me to understand myself better. Making art helps me to create something real and understandable out of issues that previously felt clouded, intangible or inaccessible. Using art therapy helped me to build a strong sense of self which helped me to build my self-esteem, giving me confidence and the strength to love myself, which can be one of the hardest things to learn how to do when you suffer with mental health issues.

Q: Are you able to tell us about any improvements, big and small, you’ve seen in attendees of your sessions?
My favourite improvements have been a woman who managed to improve her body dysmorphia and eating disorder through art therapy tasks and another woman who had previously been sectioned and felt too institutionalised to leave her home, plucked up the courage to venture out to one of our workshops and then felt the confidence to re-attend several more!

Q: Part of Art Sisterhoods mission is to facilitate effective peer support. Why is this important? And how do you achieve this?
A: Peer support is so important as it can feel so alienating when suffering from mental health issues. You can feel like nobody understands you and that leads to feelings of loneliness and wanting to shut yourself away from the people you know, making you feel even worse. When you engage with others who have experienced the same symptoms and behaviours as you, you feel more comfortable about openly discussing your problems because you know that person completely understands and empathises with you. I encourage peer support at my workshops by choosing tasks where attendees most engage with people around them but also by facilitating large group discussions which usually turns into people openly sharing their experiences and feelings and being supported by everyone in the group.