About
Val is an emerging art therapist working with neurodivergent children and families across homes, hospitals and early intervention centres. She integrates creativity, care and relational depth into both her clinical and artistic work.
Alongside her clinical practice, Val is a graphic designer and multidisciplinary artist whose work weaves playful yet confronting imagery to invite discomfort, reflection and honest dialogue. Her practice encourages audiences to question assumptions and examine emotional undercurrents beneath the surface.
Val is a recipient of The Red Pencil Singapore Scholarship (2024–2026).
Curious Explorers: A qualitative inquiry into how play in art therapy facilitates intra- and interpersonal development in children with developmental needs
Val's thesis explores the role of the art therapist and play in group art therapy sessions for young children with developmental needs in an early intervention centre (EIC) in Singapore.
Through a qualitative, practitioner-based case study approach, this thesis examines how the application of play-based processes in art therapy can support intra- and interpersonal development amongst children with developmental needs in EICs in Singapore.
The study draws on observations from a 14-week group art therapy intervention with children under the age of six, answering the research question: How might play in art therapy facilitate intra- and interpersonal development amongst children with developmental needs in Early Intervention Centres (EIC) in Singapore?
Data was analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggest that play in group art therapy facilitates joint attention and supports children in developing inter- and intrapersonal skills through co-regulation, the use of materials and non-verbal support, resulting in children’s sense of autonomy and engagement being supported.
These findings highlight the importance of applying relational, play-based approaches for children with developmental needs in art therapy, with implications for art therapy practice in early intervention contexts in Singapore.
Within Reach
Within Reach is an interactive artwork that invites adults to lower their guard and reconsider their resistance toward dyadic and family art therapy. Through approachable yet subtly confronting elements, the work challenges the belief that art therapy belongs only to children.
Participants are encouraged to engage in playful interaction, reconnecting with parts of themselves often silenced by adulthood. By interacting with the piece, audiences encounter the possibility of healing the “inner child” through creative engagement.
Within Reach asserts that vulnerability, play and relational repair remain accessible—if we are willing to reach towards them.
Professional practice
Val completed her first clinical placement at a non-profit organisation supporting children and adolescents living with chronic illnesses and disabilities, where she gained experience addressing diverse emotional, medical and psychosocial needs.
She subsequently completed her second placement at an early intervention centre in Singapore, working with children under the age of seven at risk of developmental, intellectual, sensory and/or physical disabilities. Here, she conducted both individual and group art therapy sessions, centring her practice on supporting early developmental needs through creative and responsive therapeutic engagement.
Her clinical interests include parent-child dyadic art therapy and the integration of play within therapeutic interventions. She is also drawn to sensory-motor approaches such as clay-based therapy, and trauma-informed modalities including Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Val holds a particular attentiveness to the intersection of art and care—spaces where image-making becomes a language for what words cannot yet hold.
3rd Singapore Medical Humanities Conference
At the 2025 Singapore Medical Humanities Conference, centred on the theme of The Healer and the Patient, Val presented two original artworks exploring the emotional landscape of mental health and therapeutic practice.
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The Voices Stop Me (acrylic on circular canvas, 60 cm) offers a first-person perspective on the shame that can precede help-seeking, reflecting on how Singapore's culture of achievement often silences vulnerability.
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A Healer's Coat Hook (oil pastels, A2) reimagines Wadeson's (1986) analogy of the art therapist as a coat hook—a stable, temporary holder of heavy emotional transference—as something rooted, organic and quietly enduring.
Clinical internship
Nathanael Koh
Liu Yi Wen
Tan Shu Hui, Rachel
Chuang Ting-Yun
Neubronner Samantha Jean
Claudia Tan Shilin
