Heather Dawson has been an art-maker, a therapist, a group leader and an explorer of the uniqueness and the mystery of human beings for over thirty years. She trained as an art therapist, a body centered psychotherapist (the Hakomi Method), and has a Masters degree in expressive arts therapy and psychology. Her teachers are among the pioneers in each of these fields.
Heather has led the studio based course at the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute, and has been in private practice since 1994; she is also an instructor at St. Stephen's College in Edmonton, Alberta.. She continues to facilitate individual and group supervision for graduate therapists working in agencies throughout the lower mainland and across Canada. Heather has also traveled throughout Canada and to Europe and Ireland as a workshop facilitator.
For many years she worked in agency settings alongside youth, women, families and children as they processed the difficulties associated with traumatic circumstances. She considers this work to be among the most profound and humbling experiences of her life, and credits the courage of these people as her greatest teacher. Her work is further deepened by her own life's journey as a mother, a companion and a seeker.
Heather has enormous respect for the lifelong journey of discovery and learning which each human being is part of, and continues to live her own life with a joy for creating and adventure. Inspired by the appreciation gained through sharing the beauty and the complexity that is found in the intimacy of creative work, she offers group and individual sessions that support taking the next step into the unknown.
