Arts-Based, Trauma-Informed Child Psychotherapy

This Legacy Interview offers a unique opportunity to enjoy and learn from one of the field’s most respected voices in child psychotherapy and neuroscience-informed practice. For over four decades, Dr. Margot Sunderland has been a leading figure in transforming how we understand children’s distress, challenging deficit-based models of diagnosis and behaviour management, and instead developing trauma-informed, relational, and arts-based approaches grounded in the latest developments of neuroscience.

The conversation is enriched by the contributions of her special guests Professor Brett Kahr, Dr. Dan Hughes, and Dr. Lynette Rentoul who have collaborated with Margot over decades, offering valuable insights into the development of their own therapeutic practice and their contributions to the field.

Margot shares her understanding of how early experiences influenced her journey from performing arts into psychotherapy, and how these shaped her interest in helping children express and process painful emotions—themes that would become central to her work. She demonstrates key clinical techniques including sandplay therapy and her innovative “Big Empathy Drawing” method, showing how these approaches help children access and transform core emotional pain.

This Masterclass Workshop offers a unique opportunity to witness Dr Margot Sunderland’s integrative arts-based and neuroscience-informed approach to child psychotherapy brought to life. Filmed live in her specially constructed clinical playroom, the session is hosted by MINDinMIND’s founder Jane O’Rourke, a practising child and adolescent psychotherapist. Drawing on her own clinical experience, Margot and Jane engage in a thoughtful and practical exploration of how Margot’s theoretical ideas are applied in real-life therapeutic work with children and families.

Together, they move through a series of powerful clinical demonstrations using sandplay therapy, clay, the Big Empathy Drawing, Emotion Cards, and puppets to explore a wide range of therapeutic dilemmas. From working with avoidant, anxious or traumatised children to supporting parents in making sense of their own emotional histories, the conversation highlights the richness and flexibility of Margot’s creative, right-brain-focused methods.

The session also addresses the dramatic rise in diagnoses of autism and ADHD. Margot shares her view that these presentations can often reflect the impact of unprocessed trauma, and discusses how children may be better supported through emotionally attuned, relational interventions grounded in neuroscience and attachment theory.

What unfolds is a masterclass in arts-based, trauma-informed child psychotherapy. It is grounded in over four decades of clinical experience and a deep understanding of how creative modalities can support emotional development, self-regulation and relational capacity. As Margot puts it, this work is about helping children to “fly”, to move beyond survival states and access the vitality, curiosity and connection that come when their emotional worlds are understood and supported.