Newsletter: November 2025
Thankyou!
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Jill Cooper for her unwavering support and encouragement over the past few years. Jill has chosen to follow a new path and will be stepping down from her role as Director of the School of Play and Creative Therapies. We are truly thankful for her dedication and all that she has brought to the School of Play and Creative Therapies. We wish her every success and happiness in her next chapter.
This months top news
We’ve just returned from Bristol after an inspiring week with a wonderful cohort of students on the Level 6 Relational Play and Creative Therapy for Young People course. The venue was beautiful, and the staff team took exceptional care of us all creating the perfect environment for learning, reflection, and connection.
Each participant arrived with open hearts, enthusiasm, and a deep passion for developing their skills to better support young people. It was a joy to witness their creativity, curiosity, and courage as they embraced this next step in their professional journey. We feel deeply grateful to everyone who joined our community this week and contributed to such a rich and supportive atmosphere.
Coming soon...
Once Upon an Archetype
Where psychology meets myth, and transformation begins.
Step into the realm of archetypes the timeless patterns of human energy that shape how we think, feel, and connect.
In our therapy sessions, clients discover through the story narrative how archetypal energy reveals hidden strengths, heals old stories, and ignites the power of authentic self-expression.
Each archetype holds a key to your creativity, your courage, your compassion.
When you understand their language, you unlock profound clarity, confidence, and purpose.
This is your invitation to meet the characters within you the Healer, the Warrior, the Lover, the Sage and let them guide your next chapter.
Special Offer, Can’t Be Missed!
Transformative. Empowerment. Awaken the archetypes that live within.
Date 15/11/2025
Location: Online
Cost: £80.00
Unlock the Power of Symbolic Play: Archetypes, Metaphor & Anti-Heroes
Once Upon a Trilogy®
This three-day course explores how archetypal energy, metaphor, and anti-heroes reveal themselves in therapeutic play from recurring characters to repeated storylines.
Day One: Once Upon an Archetype
Discover how timeless archetypes in fairy tales and myths shape our psyche and appear in client narratives, offering pathways to healing through the unconscious.
Day Two: Once Upon a Metaphor
Explore how metaphor creates a safe space for clients to share complex or painful experiences, using symbols, puppets, and stories to express what words cannot.
Day Three: Once Upon an Anti-Hero
Examine complex characters where light and shadow meet, and consider how clients’ own origin stories shape identity, resilience, and transformation.
Gain insight, practical tools, and a deeper understanding of the symbolic worlds your clients inhabit.
Accredited by CPD Standards Office
Dates: Day 1: 15/11/2025. Day 2: 13/12/2025. Day 3: 07/02/2025
Location: Online
Cost: £244.00
Geek Therapy®
This course is almost sold out, if you want a place book now to avoid disappointment!
Working in collaboration with Josué Cardona, MS we are delighted to bring Geek Therapy to the UK!
This certification course introduces the Geek Therapy® Model, an affinity-based model of psychotherapy.
Unlock the Power of Geek Therapy: Engage Clients Through Their Passions
Geek Therapy® is a form of creative therapy that uses elements from geek culture like computer games, comics, Sci-fi and fantasy movies or series, Manga, tabletop games, and other fandom interests as tools or mediums in therapeutic settings. It leverages the interests and passions of clients who identify with “geek” or “nerd” culture to engage them more deeply in therapy, making the process relatable, enjoyable, and meaningful.
In practice, it is especially effective with young people or those who feel more comfortable expressing themselves through the lens of their hobbies and interests. It blends psychology with popular culture to create a unique, client-centred approach to mental health.
This certification is designed to be accessible to all therapists, educators, and community practitioners.
Dates: 22/11/2025
Location: Live Online
Cost: £40.00
New Dates Web Therapy: Supporting families in Crisis
Working with traumatised children and their families requires specialist training. Web therapy takes you through a system that will empower you to work with clients who have experienced complex trauma and parents and professionals who are caring for them.
For more information: https://schoolofpact.com/courses/web-therapy/
Dates: 10/01/2026 – 11/01/2026
Location: Live online
Accredited by CPD Standards Office
Level 7 Diploma Relational Play and Creative Therapy Children and Young People – Dubai, Bromley
Working in collaboration with the Play Therapy Centre to bring Relational Play and Creative Therapy to Dubai. A transformative approach that equips practitioners to support children and young people through the natural languages of play, creativity, and imagination. This training emphasises the importance of relationship at the heart of practice. Children and young people thrive in spaces that are safe, attuned, and trusting where they can express feelings, process experiences, and explore their identity through play, art, storytelling, and creative expression.
Through this training, you will learn to:
- Create secure, nurturing environments that foster connection and trust
- Use play and creativity to help children communicate complex emotions
- Support children in processing trauma, change, loss, and personal challenges
- Apply flexible, culturally sensitive approaches to therapeutic practice
- Strengthen resilience, emotional regulation, and self-understanding in young people
This training offers practical skills, reflective insight, and creative strategies to transform your work.
Empower lives through relational, creative therapy to learn to bring connection, understanding, and healing to the children and young people you support.
Qualification Accredited by: CpCAB
For more information about this dynamic course, dates and venues visit: https://schoolofpact.com/level-7-diploma/
Level 6 Certificate in Relational Creative Arts Therapy for Adults
Are you ready to take your therapeutic skills to the next level? Our innovative Level 6 Certificate in Relational Creative Arts Therapy for Adults qualification is designed to build on your existing skills, experience and knowledge equipping you to work creatively and ethically with adult clients.
This exciting programme draws on thought-provoking theories to deepen your clinical understanding and enhance your practice. You’ll learn to apply Client-Centred approaches, talking therapy, and creative arts techniques to support adults experiencing a broad spectrum of mental health challenges, including trauma, neurodiversity, and attachment difficulties.
Humanistic, Client-Centred Approach
At the heart of the course is a humanistic, client-centred perspective. You will explore the work of renowned thinkers including Rogers, Jung, Freud, Siegal, Porges, Karpman, and Bowlby, gaining the theoretical foundation to underpin your practice.
Relational Creative Therapy in Action
The course focuses on the therapeutic alliance, the connection between therapist and adult client which is central to helping clients explore emotional, personal, and relational challenges. By engaging with creative arts media such as sand trays, clay, art, movement, story, and music, clients can express thoughts and feelings that may be difficult to articulate verbally. These creative approaches foster insight, self-awareness, and personal growth, allowing clients to access their unconscious and bypass their inner critic.
You’ll experience a blended learning approach, combining experiential creative practice with theoretical study, ensuring that you develop both your practical skills and your understanding of the therapeutic process. In Relational Creative Arts Therapy, the adult client is central to every stage of the journey.
Course Structure & Support
- 8 intensive training days, followed by 70 clinical hours with adult clients
- Termly online sessions with your tutor
- Ongoing one-to-one support throughout your learning
Take the next step in your professional journey and discover how Relational Creative Arts Therapy can transform your practice and empower your clients.
Qualification Accredited by CpCAB
Dates: 14/02/2026 – 21/02/2026
Location: Stagsden Village Hall, Bedford
Level 6 Certificate, Relational Play and Creative Therapy, Young People
The Relational Play and Creative Therapy for Young People Qualification is designed to expand play therapists’ skills and confidence in working ethically with clients aged 11–25.
This course deepens your theoretical understanding while providing practical tools for safe, effective practice. You’ll explore key legal aspects such as consent, safeguarding, and risk assessment. This course is ideal for those supporting adolescents, Care Leavers, or young people with Special Educational Needs.
Full details of this qualification can be found at https://schoolofpact.com/courses/post-qualifying-relational-play-and-creative-therapy-for-young-people/
Qualification Accredited by CpCAB.
Dates: (This course begins with the first day online, followed by six in person days.)
14/03/2026 Online
18/04/2026 – 19/04/2026 In-person
16/05/2026 – 17/05/2026 In-person
13/06/2026 – 14/06/2026 In-person
Quarterly tutorials: Dates and times will be agreed with the cohort
Location: CIM Business Centre, Moor Hall, Cookham, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 9QH
Qualification Accredited by: CpCAB
Something to ponder on...
From the Window: The Cedar and Its Crows
On the outskirts of Bristol, where the city’s edge softens into fields and hedgerows, a great cedar tree draws us toward an amazing venue, home for the week as we deliver a course! From the window of our training room, the Cedar Tree fills the view, a vast tall silhouette, its limbs reaching wide with lavish greenery, its trunk steady and scarred with time. Around and within it, a restless flurry of movement was happening! Crows, dark and glinting, gathering in the branches like notes in a living composition. Their calls carry through the still air sharp, knowing, insistent.
Inside, the classroom hums with a quieter energy. Students work in near silence, each absorbed in their own creative process. The soft murmur of pencils on paper creates a rhythm as steady as the cedar’s roots. I find myself glancing between them and the window, between the world of unconscious thought and the world of nature, and the two seem to reflect one another.
The cedar rises steady and unmoved, even as the wind worries its branches. In ancient lore, cedar is the tree of endurance and wisdom, a symbol of protection, of strength that does not need to boast. I find comfort in that, especially watching the students so deep in their own creative processes. There’s something of the cedar in their quiet persistence: the courage to keep growing, unseen, until something takes shape.
The crows, by contrast, bring movement, voice, and mystery. Their symbolism is layered and complex. In Celtic tradition, they are seen as messengers between worlds, guiding souls and carrying secrets from the unseen. To some, they are omens, to others symbols of intelligence and adaptability. The crow teaches transformation the ability to see beyond what is obvious, to find meaning in the overlooked. Watching them flock and scatter, I see not foreboding but vitality, a restless creativity that refuses to settle.
Together, the cedar and the crows form a kind of living metaphor. The cedar represents grounded strength, patience, and endurance of the long work of growing quietly over time. The crows embody curiosity, change, and the power of perception. One teaches us to stand firm; the other reminds us to move freely. They coexist, perfectly balanced, stability and motion, silence and sound, wisdom and wonder.
As I sit among the students, their pens bring unconscious ideas into being, I see echoes of both symbols in this space. There is the cedar’s steady patience in their concentration, and the crow’s spark of imagination in their unfolding thoughts. Beyond the window, nature enacts its own lesson that creation is both rooted and untamed, both deliberate and alive.
Perhaps that is what learning, and living, truly are! The art of being both cedar and crow grounded enough to endure, and brave enough to take flight.
Spotlight
OPPORTUNITY! We are looking for qualified clinical supervisors based in Bristol and Bromley who are therapeutically qualified to work with children and young people to join our supervisors list.
You will need to be a member of a registering body, hold a current Enhanced DBS, ICO and Liability Insurance. If you are interested in being added to our list of clinical supervisors, please let us know. Contact details are below.
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