School of Creative
Industries
Ng Wei Xin
Wei Xin worked in community mental health after graduating with a MA in Counselling from Monash University. His experiences with his own physical and mental health conditions have informed his person-centred approach and steadfast belief that effective therapy is borne from examining and tending to one’s wounds with honesty.
Realising the limitation of verbal therapy for clients with histories of developmental trauma, Wei Xin ventured into experiential mind-body modalities. This led to his enrolment in the MA Art Therapy programme supported by the Local Training Grant awarded by the National Council of Social Service.
His clinical placements were a doorway to unique encounters with a diverse clientele, including adolescents and older adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities as well as clients experiencing family violence.
Wei Xin’s art practice features a responsive blending of natural and found materials into nature-inspired forms. His heartfelt and creative engagement with his own art supports his work with clients, using artmaking as a meditation and self-care tool to process daily and existential challenges.
Work
Please, come home
Mixed media garden landscape, acrylic board
60 x 45 cm
2023
"Please come home and once you are firmly there,
Please stay home awhile and come to a deep rest within." - Jane Hooper
Please, come home reimagines zen gardens in an outsider art environment, blending found and natural materials into a landscape bridging dualities. Personal and collective grief, a field of emotions and sensations in our mind-bodies, are given space and honoured as one strolls, slows down and rest in this garden. Through the artist's work, nature is rediscovered as a space and place which offers rejuvenation and, potentially, a sense of home.
Thesis abstract
Tending to the wounded healer: A heuristic inquiry using response art in unpacking a trainee’s lived experience in protection services
The aim of this qualitative, practitioner-based thesis was to explore lessons from the wounded healer’s experience through creating art in response to the art therapist trainee’s and clients’ challenging life circumstances, and if these discoveries informed clinical practice with clients at a protection service. A wounded healer can be viewed as an archetype (a type of universal pattern found in human psyche) where one who learnt from and sufficiently recovered from physical and psychological injuries commits to guiding others in their recovery process. The impaired professional is differentiated, although the wounded healer can experience impairment due to their specific vulnerabilities. Art therapy has gained traction locally as a recovery modality to address family violence, an increasingly salient concern in Singapore. Through a heuristic approach combined with an arts-based inquiry method, response art of the art therapy trainee was thoroughly examined through the lenses of personal and clients’ lived experiences, intra- and interpersonal perspectives, as well as the range and use of art materials. The iterative processes of deep inquiry and reflection between response art and client material revealed that due to the mirroring of lived experience between client and wounded healer, response art to the wounded healer’s lived experience is still clinically meaningful. Clinical implications and limitations are discussed in the closing.