Alexandra Symons Applied Artist and Art Psychotherapist
Alexandra Symons Background & Qualifications
Alexandra Symons is a qualified Applied Artist (BA Hons) and Art Psychotherapist (MA Art Psychotherapy, HCPC registered) with a private practice based in North Wales.
Alexandra has had a varied career in different care and support roles and environments. Her first support role was from 1989-1991 as a volunteer working with homeless adults with learning disabilities in Birmingham where she gained great insight into the very challenging lives these individuals faced. After moving back to her native county of Cheshire Alexandra worked in several nursing and care homes as an auxiliary nurse, carer, support worker and activities coordinator, this is where she found a passion for working with older people and gained a lot of experience.
Alex always managed to bring arts and crafts into her roles, often supplying her own materials and running sessions in her own time, she realised very early on the amazing benefits this had on the client's mental and often physical health.
Alex later worked for several years in one of Chester's largest day centres for adults with learning and physical disabilities, she planned and organised arts and crafts sessions, music therapy and many general holistic activities like light and drama therapy for the service users. Later Alex worked in a high-dependency, one-to-one home setting with a young woman with multiple and severe physical and brain injuries, enabling her client to live independently and engage in everyday activities and supporting her hobbies and interests, this was also a semi-nursing role where Alex often used arts to enable her client to communicate her feelings and needs to a better degree.
After a career break of four years to raise her children, Alex went back to university where she gained an Honours Degree in Applied Arts, and became a freelance artist and crafter, making her own unique porcelain and silver jewellery and running teaching courses from her home studio, also working as an activities co-ordinator where she arranged several, daily all-inclusive activities, based mainly around arts and crafts for the residents of residential and nursing homes. Through covid, Alex got accepted on a 2-year, full-time Art Therapy master’s degree at Chester, where she gained a Distinction for her dissertation research project, based on her analysis of studies of Autism in children and the beneficial effects of art therapy, she also gained a Distinction overall.
Alex worked for a year on placement at a primary school in Chester and set up the school's first art therapy practice. Here she ran five daily one-to-one art therapy sessions with children aged 4-11 with a variety of diagnosis, disabilities, behaviours and trauma conditions, all feedback and outcomes were very positive.
Alex has more recently been running art therapy group sessions for charitable organisations in North Wales and working with smaller groups at her home studio and providing personal therapy for individual clients.
Alex is now a freelance art therapist who can offer one-to-one sessions at her home studio (or via Zoom online sessions) and group sessions for organisations, schools etc. Alex is very down-to-earth, caring and insightful, she can read people well and put them at their ease with her excellent social and communication skills.
(please see prices on the following page)