Kirsty Campbell
Project title: Nest Building as a Self-Supervision tool: Exploring Countertransference through Heuristic self inquiry
Kirsty grew up in central Scotland and lived overseas in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for 10 years as an English literature teacher before moving into a wellbeing role in 2017 providing mental health support to children and adolescents. She now lives, works and creates on Gubbi Gubbi country. Kirsty relocated to Australia in 2022, six months after the birth of her daughter. While navigating early motherhood and existing between two places, she found herself beginning again. This chapter of Kirsty’s life inspired her to follow her aspiration of working in Mental Health as an Art Therapist.
While living in Cambodia, Kirsty had lots of opportunities to travel around South East Asia and enjoyed immersing herself in diverse cultures, learning how communities express themselves through art and storytelling. Experiencing these stories - whether through beautifully folded lotus flowers or spoken word performed by people impacted by Genocide and displacement - Kirsty developed a deeper understanding of humanity. Through this experience, she was inspired by the universal language of all art forms and their power to hold stories and facilitate healing.
Kirsty’s research is a deeply personal and reflective exploration of her clinical practice. Rooted in her lived experience as a therapist, her inquiry seeks to elucidate how her own patterns of attachment inform and shape the therapeutic relationship. She is motivated by a desire to understand more fully the centrality of the therapist’s internal world as an instrument of therapeutic change, and how creative processes can enhance self-supervision and clinician insight.
Kirsty’s artistic practice is both a vehicle for self-inquiry and a means to navigate the complexities of the external world. She is particularly drawn to the spontaneity of watercolor, acrylics and the organic qualities of found natural objects, embracing processes that encourage flow, experimentation, and symbolic communication.
Engaging in the research process has proven to be an experience of depth and vulnerability. Immersing herself in heuristic inquiry demanded not only intellectual curiosity, but also a willingness to turn inward and confront the subtleties of Kirsty’s own attachment representations as a therapist. Creating artwork alongside the research process cultivated a deep sense of reflection and curiosity with the knowledge that was emerging. It is Kirsty’s hope that this self supervision approach may be useful for Art Therapists as a way of witnessing and holding space for self while sustaining compassionate presence for others.
Mixed media on Canvas
40cm x 30cm
NFS
Dà-shealladh is a Scot’s gaelic word which translates as the gift of multiple perspectives. This artwork represents my dual process of discomfort and emerging clarity as I sat in the foreign land of research.
Natural Found Materials
30cm by 30cm
NFS
Sìth means peace in Scot's Gaelic. The nest is a peaceful, protective space where self inquiry can occur during the immersion phase of research. It represents the sacred inner space where knowledge can be constructed and held.
Acrylic on canvas
30cm by 30cm
NFS
Brìgh translates as essence. This artwork captures my immersion stage of research where each week new insights were emerging and multiple truths were existing at one time. There was a need to hold complexity gently and refrain from simplifying.
Watercolour and Acrylic on canvas
40cm by 30cm
NFS
Eòlas is a Scot’s Gaelic word meaning a deep intuitive knowing. This artwork embodies the illumination phase of research where ideas appear in fragments, and begin to merge. Still in the stage of not yet knowing enough to share but the insight is inspiring.
Found natural materials on canvas
40cm by 30cm
NFS
Bunait means being rooted and stable. These are the elements of the land that supported me through the research process to feel rooted, inclusive of used coffee beans. The purple flowers are also symbolic of new learnings as I begin to write my thesis.
Mixed media on canvas
30cm by 30cm
NFS
Fighe means to weave. Working with the dripping wax mirrored my process of allowing emerging patterns and themes to weave the narrative of my thesis. The web embodies the action of interlacing new knowledge with existing research.
Brùthadh
Oil pastel and pen on paper
21cm by 29.7cm
NFS
Brùthadh translates as feeling literally compressed. There is a sense of being squeezed and drained as I navigate mothering, the demands of the masters programme and thesis writing. The colours contrast rather than flowing in harmony highlighting the intensity of the feeling.
Sealladh
Collage on paper
21cm by 29.7cm
NFS
Sealladh translates as sight. This artwork captures not only physically seeing the end of the research process but deep understanding harnessed along the way. There is a sense of reunion with self after moving through complexity and releasing my thesis.