Growing Through Creative Arts Therapy at Whitecliffe
When Amelia Yiakmis began her master’s at Whitecliffe, she was already working in community spaces, using the arts to support her mahi. Early in the programme her lecturer noticed she didn’t have her “usual bounce” and offered time for kōrero. Together, they made a plan, and Amelia realised, “This was a different kind of education – relational, deeply caring, and human.” That moment planted the seed to one day become a lecturer herself.
The School of Creative Arts Therapies (SoCAT) continued to nurture that desire. Alongside this, the small, invested class groups created what Amelia describes as “a feeling of safer holding,” enabling students to lean deeply into therapeutic understanding – of themselves and others.
For Amelia, Creative Arts Therapy is “countercultural in our fast, goal-driven world,” and she valued that “the training carried the sacredness that working with people’s wellbeing deserves.”
As with many students, some of Amelia’s most formative learning happened in placements, particularly developing creative evenings at Te Āhuru Mōwai o Aotearoa – Māngere Refugee Resettlement Centre with the awhi of the placement team and her peers. Whether it was “dancing to music from Syria to Myanmar” or “wrapping yarn around cardboard cats,” she remembers those gatherings as “full of companionship, co-regulation, and deep learning.” They nourished the therapists while creating spaces where the creative arts could weave their quiet, healing magic. Amelia still volunteers there today, now inviting her own students because, as she says, “that’s where you really see the learning come to life.”
The personal demands of training as a therapist were immense. For Amelia, it was “soul work – thrilling, scary, frustrating, affirming, sometimes all at once.” It required her to do her own inner work so she could walk alongside others during difficult times. Those challenges, though at times confronting, were profoundly rewarding – giving her both a deeply fulfilling career and personal transformation she wouldn’t trade.
Her message to anyone considering studying Creative Arts Therapy at Whitecliffe is clear: “If you feel that inner nudge, follow it. You’ll be challenged academically, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, but you’ll also find yourself among passionate, caring, thoughtful people. In a world that moves too fast, this work slows you down, invites you to sit alongside others, and meet what is – with creativity, compassion, and presence.”
Amelia’s journey, which began with an unexpected moment of care, continues to guide her as she offers that same care to those she now teaches and supports.
