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.

Event Highlights

The conversation explores important clinical concepts including:

The Fundamentals of Arts-Based Therapeutic Work

• The power of creative expression in accessing the unconscious: “Like Freud said, dreams are a royal road to the unconscious. I think the arts are a royal road to the unconscious. They are very powerful.”
• How the arts facilitate access to the right brain’s wisdom and emotional processing
• The importance of “show, don’t tell” in therapeutic work with children
• Understanding therapy as a conversation through multiple creative modalities
• The role of therapeutic presence in creating safety for emotional exploration

Child Psychotherapy Techniques

• Margot shows how sandplay is a powerful medium for processing trauma
• Margot demonstrates how the ‘Big Empathy Drawing’ facilitates collaborative sense-making with children
• The use of puppets, and how symbolic play can help children externalise inner conflicts, access painful feelings safely, and feel emotionally met by the therapist
• The importance of empathic listening and validation in therapeutic conversations – she demonstrates how her Emotion Cards facilitate this
• Understanding that transformation happens through accessing core pain: “Because in the story is the core pain. You’ve got to get to core pain underneath the defense, and the story will have the core pain. Lesley Greenberg says you cannot leave a place until you have first arrived. In other words, you cannot get well until you have first got to core pain.”
• The critical role of one supportive relationship can be in a child’s life: “We know that one emotionally available adult before the age of 18 can stop the trajectory from adverse childhood experience to long-term mental health and early death, just one emotionally available adult. And it doesn’t have to be a therapist.”

The Neuroscience of Emotional Development

• How early trauma affects brain development and emotional regulation
• The importance of right-brain to right-brain communication in therapy
• How effective therapy can change brain chemistry and neural pathways
• Understanding the neurobiological basis of attachment and its impact on mental health

Margot Sunderland

Child Psychotherapist, Founding Director of The Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education, and Author

For more than four decades, Margot has been at the forefront of transforming how we understand children’s distress. She is Director of Education and Training at The Centre for Child Mental Health in London and Founding Director of the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education, which offers integrative training in psychotherapy, the arts, and child and adult mental health. She’s also Co-Director of Trauma Informed Schools UK, which has trained over 60,000 professionals worldwide.

Her books, including “The Science of Parenting” and “Conversations that Matter,” have sold over a million copies worldwide and been translated into 18 languages, bringing accessible evidence-based approaches into homes, classrooms, and therapy rooms around the world.

Despite significant opposition from traditional training institutions and professional bodies, Margot has shown remarkable courage and perseverance in creating innovative approaches using creative arts that have since gained wide recognition, ultimately expanding the field’s capacity to help troubled children and young people.

Her approach emphasises the integration of seven distinct art forms with attachment theory, psychoanalytic approaches, emotion-focused therapy, and neuroscience research. This integrative approach has been a hallmark of her career, playing a pivotal role in shifting the field toward an approach that embraces the wisdom of the right brain in both therapist and client.

Perhaps one of Margot’s most important contributions has been her ability to make complex psychological and neuroscientific concepts accessible to both professionals and parents. Her ability to translate research into practical guidance is evident in her award-winning book, “The Science of Parenting,” which won First Prize in the British Medical Association Medical Book Awards and draws on over 700 scientific studies. It has sold over a million copies worldwide.

Most recently, her film “What Every Teenager Needs to Know About Emotions, Relationships and Mental Health” represents her vision for transforming how mental health is addressed with young people, moving beyond symptom management to genuine healing.

Access to this recording qualifies for 2 CPD/CEU hours.

Workshop Host

Margot was in conversation with Jane O’Rourke.

Jane O'Rourke, founder of MINDinMIND and a former award-winning BBC journalist now practising as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, draws upon her combined expertise to create rich and thoughtful conversations with leading mental health clinicians. Her interviews weave together the personal and professional threads of her guests' journeys, capturing the experiences that have shaped their clinical work and thinking.

Bibliography & Resources

Publications:

Books

• Sunderland, M. (2016). What Every Parent Needs to Know (revised edition). London: Dorling Kindersley.
• Sunderland, M. (2015). Conversations that Matter. London: Worth Publishing.
• Sunderland, M. (2006). The Science of Parenting. London: Dorling Kindersley. (First Prize, British Medical Association Medical Book Awards)
• Sunderland, M. (2018). Draw on Your Emotions (2nd edition). London: Routledge.
• Sunderland, M. (2008). Draw On Your Relationships. Oxford: Speechmark Press.

Children’s Books (Therapeutic Stories)

• Sunderland, M. (2003). Ruby and the Rubbish Bin. Oxford: Speechmark Press.
• Sunderland, M. (2003). The Day the Sea Went Out and Never Came Back. Oxford: Speechmark Press.
• Sunderland, M. (2001). A Nifflenoo Called Nevermind. Oxford: Speechmark Press.
• Sunderland, M. (2001). Willy and the Wobbly House. Oxford: Speechmark Press.
• Sunderland, M. (2004). How Hattie Hated Kindness. Oxford: Speechmark Press.

Therapeutic Resources

• Sunderland, M. (2021). Helping Children Talk About Their Lives (booklet and cards). Wadebridge: Armstrong and Sunderland.
• Sunderland, M. (2019). Helping Teenagers Talk About Their Lives (booklet and cards). Wadebridge: Armstrong and Sunderland.
• Sunderland, M. (2018). The Emotion Cards. London: Routledge.
• Sunderland, M. (2018). The Relationship Cards. London: Routledge.
• Sunderland, M. (2003). Helping Children with Low Self-Esteem. Oxford: Speechmark Press.
• Sunderland, M. (2003). Helping Children with Fear. Oxford: Speechmark Press.
• Sunderland, M. (2003). Helping Children with Loss. Oxford: Speechmark Press.
• Sunderland, M. (2001). Using Storytelling as a Therapeutic Tool with Children. Oxford: Speechmark Press.

Films/DVDs

• Sunderland, M. (Director). (2024). What every teenager needs to know about emotions, relationships and mental health [Film]. Redshark TV.
• Sunderland, M. (2015). Best Relationship with your Child: The First Five Years [DVD]. Redshark TV.
• Sunderland, M. (2015). Best Relationship with your Child: Creative Quality Time [DVD]. Redshark TV.
• Sunderland, M. (2015). Best Relationship with your Child: age 5 to 12 [DVD]. Redshark TV.

Margot Sunderland’s publications have been translated into 18 languages and published in 24 countries worldwide, reaching millions of readers across different cultures and contexts

“Because in the story is the core pain. You’ve got to get to core pain underneath the defense, and the story will have the core pain. Greenberg says you cannot leave a place until you first arrived. In other words, you cannot get well until you first got to core pain.” Margot Sunderland