29 September 2025
Working With Artists
When I’m not working as a Registered Psychotherapist, I make time for my creative practice, namely writing. I’m a published novelist, short fiction author and essayist, and I’ve been writing since I was very young (though, it should be noted, I only had my first piece published when I was in my mid-40s). Writing is very dear to me, as it has a lot to do with communicating ideas as much as it does telling stories. I mention this because having a creative practice is more than just scribbling. In short, there’s intent behind it; not necessarily to get published, have work shown in a gallery, or have one’s play produced. The intent is to get closer to what it is that you’re trying to distill, or “say.” It’s laborious, even if you’re talented.
In working with clients I kinda prefer the more neutral phrase “having a creative practice” rather than “being an artist” because the latter title can feel weighty and intimidating. Having a creative practice can be a way to make sense of the world around us, or to sort through our own thoughts in a way that is less tangled than what swirls through our heads when we aren’t attempting to articulate it. Some of what we create can be uplifting and supportive, other times it can be stormy and sullen. I think there can be a tendency among those to whom a creative practice is either new or has never been encouraged (say, when we were growing up) to ask ourselves “What am I even doing here?” In other words, a sense of lacking of purpose.
Having a creative practice is made more thorny, to put it lightly, by the constraints of our hyper-capitalist environment where we are constantly being told to lean in or be resilient in the face of economic precarity, smeared boundaries between work and personal life, and rising expenses without commensurate increase in free time or salary. One may ask “Who has time for art?” and that is not a small question, nor is the existential threat of generative AI and its imposition on those of us who just want to create without using a half-blind genie to help us along the way.
There can be so much pressure to succeed in our careers–even if “success” is just putting food on the table–that to speak with others (friends, family) and open up about art-making might seem intimidating, as if we’re talking about some arcane topic that no one can relate to. This is why I like working with artists, whether that’s with a capital-A or not. Artists regularly work with not-knowing: the blank page, the empty canvas, the DSLR sitting unused in the corner of the room. They create from nothing and bring forth shapes and forms, and ask questions that can be challenging to approach. Particularly given how streamlined the world would like us to be sometimes, doing the challenging, the weird, the provocative or vulnerably leaning into unapologetic celebrations of beauty can damn well be a form of rebellion.
But sometimes we need help. Sometimes it’s hard to accept what we’re creating, whether its because part of us attaches unhealthy language around it, like “selfish” or “unproductive”, or whether we have deeper doubts about what it is that’s being manifested; thoughts, messages, ideas that perhaps we’ve never given voice to, which might make us uncomfortable in some way. In the therapeutic space, we can look at this; not only the topic in question but most importantly how it makes us feel…and why. Therapy can sometimes be an artist’s tool to occasionally remind themselves that they’re actually on the right track when they’re experiencing doubt.
(a brief note: I’ve previously addressed the question of Will I Lose My Creativity If I Seek Therapy? for those who are interested)
If you are interested in learning more about my services, about me, or perhaps booking an appointment, please call me at 416-873-7828 or email me at info@downtowntherapy.ca for more information.
filed under: art• artists on depression• creatitivy• psychotherapy
16 July 2025
Intersubjectivity and Therapy
I mention intersubjectivity on this website when speaking about my approach (or at least part of), however I find that in conversation, either with clients or non-clients, I don’t really get into it much. That’s because intersubjectivity is nuanced, making it easier for me to not wanting to get into the weeds, rather than attempting to explain it and risking that I’m talking about something way more abstract. It’s not unlike talking about playing the guitar, and abruptly switching into music theory.
Intersubjectivity is about the meaning-making that happens from social, or self-with-other, interaction. As a baseline, we know ourselves, even if the deeper/darker/further reaches of ourselves are not exactly well-explored or comfortably woven in with the rest of us. And then there’s everybody else around us: our mother, the contractor, our friends and acquaintances, lovers and strangers. Each with their own level of self-knowing. Key to intersubjectivity is that on a basic level we are constantly influencing each other, often through subtle, non-verbal messaging; messaging that can be communicated either intentionally or less-than consciously. And then, on top of that, there’s how we receive those messages, how we interpret them and how they make us feel; how those emergent feelings might be less-than-consciously influenced by internal background processes such as anxiety or the remnants of traumas big and small.
Every one of us, in our social interactions, is sending messages that are interpreted, while in parallel we interpret the messaging of others. And we can draw meaning from those messages, meaning that can often be coloured by our subconscious thoughts and feelings. An example: imagine a domestic gathering–a small party in someone’s apartment. In one room a handful of guests have gathered, and are laughing at something shared between them. In this example, someone walks into the room while the laughter is taking place. If someone who has low self-esteem or has been previously bullied walks into that room, they might interpret the message (the small gathering of people laughing) as follows: they’re laughing at me, so I should disappear. And yet someone different might walk into the same room under the same circumstances and interpret the message as: hey, let’s see what they’re talking about that’s so funny.
Even in the therapeutic space we might find ourselves extracting thoughts, feelings, or even judgements from the therapist sitting across from us. It might be the way they said a word. It might be the words themselves. It might be that they chose to cross their legs while we were in the middle of talking. Those of us who are more hypervigilant might internally weigh the meaning of those things, even if the therapist was simply being themselves in the moment. As a relational psychotherapist, and someone trained with intersubjectivity theory, I would be tempted to make mention of a shift in the client if I saw that perhaps something I said or did had caused a stir. The point of this, I should mention, is not for the therapist to come across as a smarty pants with Jedi powers; rather, the point is for opportunities of self-with-other repair. It’s not just having something we’re doing noticed by our therapist, it’s the validation of something deeper, and the further exploration of “what’s up with that?” with someone we can trust. That’s where the repair can begin to happen.
Bonus feature: Intersubjectivity also dovetails with the idea that we can’t take responsibility for what other people think or feel. Yes, we can and should take responsibility for our actions and words, of course, but, to use another example, if the barista at the café looks like they’re in a bad mood one morning, it’s probably not because we didn’t wish them an extra-happy “good morning” and yet some of us might go there, might feel that they contributed to this. Unless, on a basic level, we understand that we can’t take responsibility for what other people are doing or saying, or thinking, then it becomes easier for us to feel complicit in or weighed down by the bad things we notice around us.
If you are interested in learning more about my services, about me, or perhaps booking an appointment, please call me at 416-873-7828 or email me at info@downtowntherapy.ca for more information.
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