Artsphobia is the socially produced fear, hostility or marginalisation of the arts and creative expression. It operates through dominant discourses and policies that position aesthetic, sensory, expressive and experiential ways of knowing as peripheral, indulgent or non-essential — normalising their devaluation and rendering that marginalisation invisible or inevitable. … Read More
Dr Carla van Laar. Artist. Creative And Experiential Therapist
Dr Carla van Laar
Master of Creative Arts Therapy
Doctor of Therapeutic Arts Practice
PACFA Reg. Clinical and Accredited Supervisor – PACFA
Carla is a painter and therapeutic arts practitioner from Australia. Born in Brisbane, Carla is first generation Australian on her Dutch grandparents side, and 7th generation through her maternal bloodline who were mostly English and came to Australia in the early colonisation of the 1800s. Her mother grew up in remote North Queensland and most of her extended family still live up North.
Carla currently lives and works in Boon Wurrung Country in the South Eastern coastal town of Inverloch, paying deep respects to the First Peoples of the Kulin Nations whose land was never ceded and will always be Aboriginal land.
Part of the Creative Revolution in Mental Health and Wellbeing
Identifying as a cishet woman, Carla is passionately disinterested in socially constructed identities that disempower anyone. Carla has over 25 years’ experience working with people and the arts for health and well-being in community organisations, justice, health and education contexts.
Carla’s first book “Bereaved Mother’s Heart” was published in 2007 and broke social taboos about maternal grief. From 2008-18 she established and ran an independent art therapy studio and gallery in Melbourne. Her Doctoral research “Seeing Her Stories” continues the mission to make women’s stories visible, through art.
Carla has worked as an Art Therapy educator at a number of training institutions since 2001. She is a practicing artist and in 2018 received an Artist Fellowship at RMIT’s creative research lab, “Creative Agency”. She insists on being part of a creative revolution in which art re-embodies lived experience, brings us to our senses, makes us aware of the interconnectedness of all life and is an agent of social change.
Carla’s book “Seeing her stories” presents her Doctoral research into making unseen stories visible through art. It was published in 2020 and is available to read for free on this website under the Seeing Her Stories menu.
Carla has lived experience as the parent of a child with disabilities and a life limiting condition, and it was during her beloved son Vaughn’s life that she was introduced to the life enhancing potential of creative arts therapies. She has worked with people who have disabilities since 1991 and continues this supportive 1:1 work today in her Inverloch based Art Therapy studio.
Experiential ways of knowing underpin Carla’s therapeutic work, including embodied attunement and arts-based responding, informed by trauma-centred, strengths-based, existential and narrative approaches. She loves to share creative practices as ways of knowing and being.
Carla is driven by a belief that the values underpinning arts-based practice are essential for healing our troubled world. She has authored two books and multiple articles.
Carla currently works with NDIS participants, war veterans, families affected by violence, and other creative help-seekers, and provides online supervision for practitioners around Australia. She regularly gets involved in creative projects that ignite her interest.
Carla is the Founding Director of the Creative Mental Health Forum and Collective Care Retreat, and Convenor of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA)’s College of Creative and Experiential Therapies (CCET).
Watch this short clip filmed at Carla’s “Unsung Spaces” exhibition during her fellowship at RMIT University’s “Creative Agency”.
Anna Kellerman of “Mama Creatives” invited Carla as a special guest. In this interview, Carla talks about being a woman, creative and therapist, being a bereaved mother, her journey into creative arts therapy, radical research and the art of activism and social change.
CLICK HERE to Listen to Dr Carla interviewed on the FAT MOON Podcast
Where Values Meet Practice – Inside the Supervision Studio
Where Values Meet Practice – Inside the Supervision Studio The calling and the dissonance People who choose the helping professions often describe feeling a “calling”, and experience their work itself as an art. We can be particularly empathetic, sensitive and … Read More
Creativity, Improvisation, and the Art of Meeting Life
“The Ability to Improvise Is the Ability to Live” What if creativity is not a luxury, but a life skill? A new neuroscience study on jazz improvisation offers something rare: a way of watching creativity unfold in real time. Researchers … Read More
Out of the Light and Into the Shadows: Exploring Spaces Not Yet Defined
“Stepping into the light,” is a well-known metaphor, suggesting that clarity is only found through illumination. In creative and experiential therapies, and in life, shadows possess their own kind of wisdom. … Read More
ARTCO DRAMA is BACK – September School Holidays Short Course with Henry De Oleveira
ARTCO DRAMA – Deepen Your Drama Skills with “View Points” We are proud to bring you this new short course designed by actor, theatre maker and VCA tutor, Henry DeOleveira. TUES, WED & THURSDAYS IN THE SEPTEMBER TERM BREAK … Read More
“PONDERING GRIEF” with Linda Espie and Dr Carla van Laar.
“The experience and expression of grief is as unique as a finger print”.
Join us for an insightful and interactive workshop designed for creative/experiential therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists, allied health professionals, educators, and arts and health workers at the 2025 Creative Mental Health Forum.
In “Pondering Grief Together,” renowned grief counsellors Linda Espie and Dr Carla van Laar will explore the deeply personal and unique experience of grief, emphasising its complexities and the various ways it can be expressed and understood. … Read More
“NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY” with Dr Carla van Laar.
Navigating Uncertainty: Insights from Dr. Carla van Laar at the 2025 Creative Mental Health Forum and Collective Care Retreat
As we continue to navigate the complexities of mental health care, particularly within the framework of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), the upcoming 2025 Creative Mental Health Forum and Collective Care Retreat offers a timely opportunity to reflect on the evolving landscape of creative and experiential therapies. Dr. Carla van Laar, a key speaker at this year’s forum, poses a crucial question: “What has been revealed over the past six months of uncertainty regarding access to Creative and Experiential Therapies in the NDIS?” … Read More
Supervision Studio – an online safe creative space for allied health practitioners
If you are in the mood to reflect in good company on the year gone by, perhaps consciously letting some things go, and embracing an intention for the coming year, please join us for this creative and reflective, supportive sharing space. … Read More
Inverloch Pop-Up ART CO – the evidence of participation
Image: A young visitor admiring artist Martha Breninger’s “Ocean Goddess” soft sculpture. We created a driftwood shrine for her, and many visitors to the ARTCO created soft colourful pom-poms to adorn the shrine and make a commitment to the Ocean … Read More
Dr Carla van Laar – advocating for Creative and Experiential Therapists
Advocacy for Creative and Experiential Therapies Part of my role as Convenor of PACFA’s College of Creative and Experiential Therapies (CCET),is a pivotal job in actively shaping the landscape of mental health and wellbeing within Australia’s service system and … Read More
RADICAL CREATIVITY with Dr Carla van Laar and Melanie Knight
Rhythm in Flow – Dance Meditation Dancing is a way of knowing ourselves beyond the physical. Dancing is a way of processing what is stored in the body Dancing is a way of integrating change Dancing is a way … Read More
Dr Carla van Laar – Artist and Creative Arts Therapist
Artist’s Statement I pay my respects to the Boon Wurrung People, on whose traditional lands this exhibition takes place. I honour them, their elders and ancestors. They have inhabited, cared for, gathered on and practiced Culture here on Country for … Read More
Experience the Practice-led, Creative Approach to Supervision with Dr Carla van Laar’s “Supervision Studio”
Art is a Way of Knowing There is a difference between making art to “express something”, and making art as a form of inquiry, using creative process as a means of knowledge production – employing art as a way of … Read More
Experience the Creative Mental Health Forum and Collective Care Retreat with Dr Carla van Laar in 2024
We’ve done it! Changed the name of our forum to better reflect the true nature of this event – “collective care”. Are you a mental health professional looking to explore the power of creative approaches in your practice? Do you … Read More
RECRUITING A CREATIVE OR EXPERIENTIAL THERAPIST TO YOUR TEAM?
Introducing PACFA’s College of Creative and Experiential Therapies Dear Employer, Team Leader, or Manager, Introducing PACFA’s College of Creative and Experiential Therapies I am pleased to inform you of the establishment of the College of Creative and … Read More
ARE YOU A WONDER WORKER?
Feature image above published by the Inverloch RSL: Members of the Inverloch RSL participating in the new “Ocean /Art Mindfulness” wellbeing program for veterans, proudly funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Are you a Wonder Worker? I … Read More
SUPERVISION STUDIO – Online Creative Practice with Dr Carla van Laar
WATCH MY 2 MINUTE INTRO TO SUPER VISION STUDIO https://vimeo.com/811512264?share=copy SUPERVISION STUDIO with Dr Carla van Laar is an online, small group supervision session where we focus on using creative and collaborative processes as ways to connect, explore, problem solve … Read More
WHAT’S BENEATH OUR FEET? with Melissa McDevitt Weston and Carla van Laar
What’s beneath our feet? Cultural awareness in Australian Nature-based Arts Therapy For Arts Therapists wishing to practice Nature-based Arts Therapy in Australia, Cultural awareness is essential, and can become a deeply healing experience for Country, Traditional Owners and Arts Therapists, … Read More
Publications & Resources
Dr Carla van Laar’s Publications and Resources SNAPSHOTS OF A BEREAVED MOTHER’S HEART – RESEARCH Dr Carla’s first major work was her 2001 Master’s research project, in she investigated her own lived experience of being a bereaved Mother using arts … Read More
Curriculum Vitae
Dr Carla van Laar MCAT Prof Doc ThAP PACFA reg. Clinical 27769 PACFA accredited supervisor Arts Practitioner, Educator, Researcher and Therapist “With over 25 years experience working with people to enhance life through art, I am committed to creativity and … Read More
