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Jean-François (J.F.) Jacques, PhD
Arts and Somatic Therapist
Specializing in Arts Therapy, Trauma and Somatic Therapy, and Couples Therapy
Arts Therapy
I provide individual arts therapy for adults to help address and overcome a wide range of issues and difficulties such as depression, stress, anxiety, traumatic life experiences, troublesome emotions like anger, loss and bereavement, compulsive behavior, lack of control or the impact of long term health conditions.
Arts therapy offers alternative and creative ways of connecting and understanding what may feel difficult to put into words and overwhelming to deal with.
The engagement with the arts provides an opportunity to communicate and explore personal issues from a safe distance. This can involve image making, clay, sand tray, projective play, physical movements, voice work, creative writing or story making.
At the same time, the therapy aims at meeting individual needs. This means that there is also space for talking and reflection.
Trauma and Somatic Therapy
I am a certified somatic experiencing practitioner (SEP), a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma developed by Dr Peter Levine. I provide specialised somatic-based treatment to address the long lasting effects of traumatic experiences held in the body and the nervous system.
Somatic Experiencing focuses on the connection between mind and body to release stored trauma energy. The therapy helps restore balance and resilience by addressing the physiological impact of past traumatic experiences.
I integrate this approach with creative methods in arts, theatre and psychotherapy to help overcome and resolve presentations, patterns and symptoms resulting from post-traumatic stress, relational, developmental or complex trauma.
The treatment consists in helping to overcome difficult, traumatic and stressful life experiences by paying particular attention to the experiences of the body, enabling the safe and creative expression of emotions and feelings held in the body, as well as learning to regulate the nervous system and develop resources and strategies to move forward with life in general.
Couples Therapy
Creating and keeping a healthy, loving and nourishing relationship as a couple can be very challenging. What seemed to be true at some point in a relationship can suddenly change in a way that could not have been anticipated. Equally, the weight of individual past history and experience can find its expression in the life of a couple in ways that can be destructive unless approached with care and empathy.
I provide couples therapy to address issues such as:
- Connection and mutual understanding
- Communication and sharing
- Trust
- Anger and destructive behaviours
- Managing conflicts and disputes
- Managing new responsibilities i.e. becoming a parent or a carer
- Loss and grief
- Sexual life and intimacy.
As part of this work, I make use of creative and somatic techniques and exercises to explore and resolve the issues that will have been brought to therapy.
Bio
I am a HCPC registered Arts Therapist, certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP) and clinical supervisor with over 20 years of combined experience in private practice, the NHS and voluntary services.
I worked for 13 years as a creative arts therapist in a community and in-patient adult mental health service in the NHS, providing individual and group treatment for clients with a wide range of emotional difficulties. I have also worked for mental health charities such as MIND and within a learning disability service.
I am associate lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. My current area of research focuses on psychophysical and somatosensory approaches to trauma healing that uniquely integrate arts therapy with somatic practices. I have written several book chapters and articles on creative therapeutic practice (available here).
I have been actively involved in the development of the arts therapy profession in the UK as co-editor of the academic journal Dramatherapy. I am a professional member of the Somatic Experiencing Association UK (SEAUK) and member of the Michael Chekhov Association (MICHA).
I am also a trained musician and a qualified teacher, and the creator and director of the Theatre of Lived Experience, a visual, performance and literary arts practice.
My qualifications:
- HCPC registered Arts Therapist (Drama)
- Certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)
- BPS certified in Trauma Treatments
- Level 1 Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP)
- NCIP certified in Couples Therapy
- IGA certified Group Work Practitioner
- Level 1 Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)
- BADth registered Clinical Supervisor
My approach
My therapeutic approach is unique in integrating arts therapy, action methods, play, body based modalities, somatic psychology, and elements of the existential and analytic psychotherapeutic traditions.
It emphasises the connection between mind and body. It recognises the way in which the body carries memories, thoughts and feelings, and that as such it is a powerful medium for expression, understanding and change.
I am particularly interested in relational, embodied and aesthetic approaches in psychotherapy. These are essential aspects of working therapeutically through the arts that I particularly value.
My approach is also based on role theory and explores the different roles, scripts and stories we play in life either explicitly or implicitly, and our ability to develop and embrace new roles and narratives.
My approach is centred around an understanding of your personal and specific needs, and is non directive.
Book
This volume explores the singularity of embodiment and somatic approaches in the healing of trauma from a dramatherapy, theatre and performance perspective. It brings together voices from international scholars, researchers, practitioners and clinicians in the fields of dramatherapy, theatre and performance to better understand how these different approaches offer unique and unexplored perspectives on the body as a medium for the exploration, expression and resolution of chronic, acute and complex trauma, as well as collective and intergenerational trauma in different cultural contexts.
Foreword by Dr Cathy Malchiodi.