About
Dorris is an emerging art therapist with a background in psychology and creative design. Her work is shaped by her experience across diverse clinical settings.
Dorris is drawn to nature-based and sensory art-making, offering a gentle and attuned space for self-expression, connection and growth. She also holds space for deeper reflection and emotional processing.
Her interests in mindfulness, baking, music and creating in unconventional outdoor spaces inform her approach, bringing a sense of playfulness, presence and openness into her practice.
🎨 arts + 🩵🧠 psychology + 🌿 nature
Feeling through art making: An art therapy inquiry into natural and sensorial materials with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Singapore
This thesis is a practitioner-based qualitative inquiry that explores the therapeutic implications of natural and sensorial materials in art therapy sessions with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in Singapore. It examines how media properties and sensory engagement with natural and sensorial materials may support creative expression in the artmaking process.
Findings suggest that natural and sensorial materials are associated with increased sensory engagement and more exploratory, embodied responses in artmaking. Three key themes emerged from observing the creative process, highlighting how clients engaged with different material qualities and how these qualities shaped creative expression.
Overall, the study highlights that research on art therapy with adults with IDD, particularly in relation to natural and sensorial materials, remains limited. This thesis, therefore, contributes to understanding the importance of natural material in supporting sensory-based creative expression.
With In | With Out
“The outside reflects from within; the inside mirrors the outside.”
Exploring the dialogue between inner and outer worlds, this work centres on a half-cut vase made from recycled pulp. As a vessel of containment, it reflects the therapeutic process of holding and reshaping experience, where vulnerability, resilience, and transformation emerge through care and time.
Animated visions of the four seasons unfold across the wall and the half-cut vase, casting shifting landscapes onto and within the vessel. Growth stirs inside the container, echoing outward into its surroundings, while the environment, in quiet return, seeps back in—shaping, eroding, becoming.
Boundaries blur as inner and outer dissolve into one another, until what remains are only projections: fleeting impressions of a world that feels at once held and imagined.
Professional practice
During her clinical internships, Dorris worked with individuals across diverse neurological and developmental needs.
She facilitated group art therapy sessions with people living with Parkinson’s disease, supporting emotional expression and social engagement through the creative process. In her final placement at a day activity centre for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), she conducted both open-group and individual sessions, focusing on creative processes and sensory-based expression as meaningful forms of communication.
Beyond her internships, Dorris has supported young adults receiving care in an acute inpatient mental health service, adults living with schizophrenia, and older adults with dementia through volunteer and professional work.
Her practice incorporates nature-based and sensory materials, alongside gentle mindfulness approaches such as breathing and grounding, within person-centred, humanistic and Adlerian frameworks.
Clinical internship
Claudia Tan Shilin
Liu Xiaoyu
Nathanael Koh
Val Wai
Low Yu Neng (Lyn)
Anandi Mehra
