Molly Holland

I am a Creative Arts Therapist working in Bristol and the South-West with 10+ years' clinical experience.

As a child, I had a voracious appetite for playing make-believe and, like most children, I had a lot of big feelings which I  struggled to express. I'd lose track of time role-playing characters who embodied the emotions that I didn't have the language to verbalise.

Being dyslexic, I continued to struggle to express my emotions through words. Drama lessons at school helped me to express the wild and wonderful things going on inside and helped me to feel seen and heard.

After studying drama at university, I worked in special education alongside neurodiverse children and adolescents. Here, I learnt how effective drama was in building connections, compassion and communication.

In 2010 I began my training as a Dramatherapist.  I am holistic in my approach, which means I am concerned with the whole of you. Your thoughts, feelings, instincts, senses, hopes, dreams, likes and dislikes. My role as therapist is to support the whole of you without judgement.

Integration of the self through self-expression is also an important value in my practice. This means connecting with our inner-self and expressing both the pain and joy that we feel. 

I use role-play, story making and creative improvisation to help you be in a more caring relationship with your inner-self in its entirety so you can tell your authentic story and listen to other people tell theirs.

In therapy, you may be offered to make a body sculpt, given a choice of images or props to help you express what's troubling you. The creative expression is, however, always client led and the therapist's role is to support you to find a form of creativity that helps.

Alongside my dramatherapy practice I have worked as Creative Attachment Therapist since 2012 with fosters and adoptive people and their families. My practice is trauma informed. 

Some symptoms of being traumatised can include; 

Under-remembering the trauma through amnesia or over-remembering through flashbacks 

Implicit (feeling) memories of the trauma such as feeling scared, unsafe and having a constant sense of doom

Feelings of worthlessness and shame

Feeling suicidal 

Having sudden intense emotional or physical reactions, such as panic attacks, after encountering a trigger

Feeling numb 

Unexplained pains in the body 

Difficulty sleeping and relaxing

Trauma symptoms such as these are a normal response to abnormal situations. In therapy the focus is not on talking about what happened, the focus is on feeling safe. 

No previous experience in drama or any creative activity is necessary to have Creative Arts Therapy. 

If you are interested in finding out more about therapy, please get in touch via phone or email to talk in confidence.

I also offer supervision to Creative Arts therapists. If you are interested in finding out more, please get in touch via phone or email.