Dr Anne C Holmes is a group analytic psychotherapist working with individuals and couples in private practice and conducting groups in a variety of public sector settings.

Counsellors and psychotherapists are expected to practise regular self-care in order to sustain their capacity to be useful to their clients and patients. Although this is agreed in principle, various conversations with colleagues have raised my concern about the practice of regular self-care. In this talk, I shall draw on my recent doctoral studies to consider the role of the creative arts in this ongoing self-care.

OPS members and their guests will be invited to reflect on their own preferred ways of restoring the psychological and emotional energy expended in their therapeutic work. Over the last ten years, I have explored and named the concept of creative repair.  I shall present this concept and discuss the ways in which creative repair can be practised both individually and in a group.