Dr. Alisoun Neville

I was born on Wurundjeri land, with my deepest connections to Mt Toolebewong outside Healesville and the northern suburbs of Melbourne. In 2022 I moved to the beautiful Milowl Phillip Island, and now work on Boon Wurrung / Bunerong country across the Bass Coast. My processes of writing and other art-making have informed my commitment to use creativity, collaboration, embodiment, and play for self-advocacy, discovery, self-expression, and healing. I have also been changed by the creative expressions of others, especially fiction and life writing by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers.

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In 2016, I completed my Masters of Therapeutic Arts Practice, with a placement and early practice working with women caught up in the criminal justice system, and establishing a private arts therapy practice through Eve Studio in Preston. I am a Registered Clinical Counsellor through the Psychotherapy and Counselling Association of Australia (PACFA) and was the first Deputy Convenor of PACFA's College of Creative and Experiential Therapies.

 

In 2024 I became a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), following another three year training program in Peter Levine's body-oriented approach to trauma healing. I can work within the Somatic Experiencing or Therapeutic Arts practice models, depending on your intentions and interests, and usually work under an integrated model in which I may offer both approaches.

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I work primarily from my Cowes studio, from which I can see both adults and children, and offer sessions online to any location in Australia. I work with local schools to support children on-site where I can.

 

Prior to becoming a therapist, I worked for almost 20 years in health and community services. This includes substantive work with, and a commitment to, Aboriginal community-controlled organisations, and the overlapping contexts of mental health, disability, women’s safety, and services for people impacted by imprisonment.  Crayons and Stuff includes a unique consulting practice, integrating my experience and training in the expressive arts with consulting and training skills.

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Crayons and Stuff has a broad vision, to support and strengthen mental health practices that can respond more effectively to the impacts of our society and its systems. This work includes for example my development of an NDIS training program to support increased access to arts and music therapists in the NDIS scheme, and substantive contributions to Activate Arts Therapy, a successful campaign that raised awareness and secured access to funding for professional arts therapists in Victorian schools.

 

This work is part of a bigger commitment to more creative opportunities and safer spaces for the neurodiverse and others with lived experiences who think there is something we can learn from what we have experienced and where more change is needed to be heard on our own terms.