Arts, Creativity and Mental Wellbeing The Australia Council for The Arts recently hosted a program to develop a policy paper focusing on Arts, Creativity and Mental Wellbeing. I was privileged to participate in the workshops. Participants were invited to share … 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

C.CET – The new College of Creative and Experiential Therapies with PACFA
In an Australian first, the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) has voted unanimously to establish a new professional home for Creative and Experiential Therapists – the College of Creative and Experiential Therapies, or C.CET. In this 14 minute … Read More

“A Sense of Place” CARLA VAN LAAR Exhibition Catalogue 2nd – 31st March 2022
A Sense of Place : Carla van Laar 2nd – 31st March 2022 Inverloch Community Hub 16 A’Beckett St Inverloch Open 7 days from 10am – 4pm Handcrafted Tasmanian Oak frames by L-Mac Carpentry For SALES enquiries contact Carla … Read More

New publication: “ART THERAPY FIRST AID – Growing Capacity with Art Therapists in Communities Affected by Australian Bushfires”.
Art Therapy in Response to Natural Disasters, Mass Violence and Crisis is a new Jessica Kingsely publication edited by Joseph Scarce. I am honoured to be one of the authors in this wonderful new book. … … Editor Joseph Scarce has … Read More

MY SUPER POWER IS…
What is your own special SUPER POWER? Remember! Art Therapy is a time to relax, enjoy yourself, focus on your strengths express your personality and how you like to make art there is no right or wrong way, no good … Read More

FOUNDATIONS OF CREATIVE WELLBEING – online course with Dr Carla van Laar
Watch the overview OPENING SPECIAL 67% DISCOUNT – THE FULL COURSE FOR ONLY $99 PURCHASE NOW – CLICK HERE What to expect from this refreshing new course by leading Art Therapist Dr Carla van Laar? … This highly experiential course … Read More

Creative Self Care: Choosing, changing and continuing Part 2 “Seeing Differently – Noticing Change””
With Dr Carla van Laar Feature image credit Carla van Laar In this article I share a personal story about how what we see can change, and then I invite you to reflect on how you have changed since you … Read More

Creative Self Care: Choosing, changing and continuing Part 1 “Materials and moving – my choices today”
With Dr Carla van Laar Feature image credit Carla van Laar In this article I introduce some ideas about change as an inevitable part of life, and invite you to observe the changes and choices you make through exploring an … Read More

HIRA DAHAL – author of “Phulmaya”, a new book sharing the stories of thousands of Nepali girls trafficked from the entertainment industry into sexual slavery.
Hira Dahal is one of my greatest heroes. I first met Hira over ten years ago when I was working with the Art to Healing project in Nepal. We continued to meet over the coming six years as I … Read More

Creative Self Care: Tuning in to our Environment part 3 “Making a creative space”
With Dr Carla van Laar MCAT DThAP Feature image credit Carla van Laar In this article I share some of the research into creative spaces, and invite you to make a creative space for yourself, a space to continue your … Read More

Creative Self Care: Tuning in to our Environment part 2 “Notice what Nurtures”
With Dr Carla van Laar AThR Feature image credit Carla van Laar In this article I share about my own personal process of painting from life, and invite you to notice what nurtures you in the environment, and to slow … Read More

CREATIVE MENTAL HEALTH – FILM LAUNCH
“2021 Creative Mental Health Forum and Self Care Retreat” is a twelve minute documentary filmed on location in Boon Wurrung Country, South Eastern Victoria, at the event of the same name. This short film features footage and interviews … Read More

Creative Self Care: Tuning in to our Environment part 1 “See a Rainbow”
With Dr Carla van Laar Feature image credit Carla van Laar In this article I share some of my research into how the environments that we live and work in affect us – or our contexts – and I invite … Read More

Victorian State Government agrees to fund Arts Therapy in schools – success for the ACTivate Arts Therapy campaign.
Following the announcement of the new State budget on 20th May, Acting Premier James Merlino announced on breakfast radio that the State Government will be creating a new $200,000 fund to support extra mental health initiatives in schools. He stated … Read More

Creative Self Care: Coming to our Senses Part 3 – Mapping the Territory of your Body
With Dr Carla van Laar AThR Feature image credit: Carla van Laar In this article, I share a description of my personal experience of art making to highlight the inter-relationship between art making and sensory awareness. I then invite you … Read More

2021 Creative Mental Health Forum brings 60 Arts Therapists to Boon Wurrung country, South Gippsland, Australia
https://youtu.be/I302-fmzMUY Sixty Creative Arts Therapists from all over Victoria and interstate gathered on the traditional lands of the Boon Wurrung People in Inverloch for the first Australian summit of its kind from 14th – 17th May 2021. “We want more … Read More

Creative Self Care: Coming to our Senses Part 2 – Drawing Breath
With Dr Carla van Laar AThR Feature image credit Carla van Laar In this article I introduce the links between creative practices, mindful approaches, and traditional healing practices. I then invite you to use the process of drawing your breath … Read More

Supervision Studio 2021 – BOOK YOUR DATES NOW
Supervision Studio $150 – 2.5 hours ONLINE Supervision Studio Sundays 10.00am – 12.30pm Art based and experiential methods for reflective practice Small groups in an online studio environment This is the supervision you have been dreaming of – attend from … 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