Angela Richardson

Angela is a clinically registered Creative Arts Therapist, Creativity Coach, Supervisor and Professional Development/Workshop Facilitator and a registered Teacher. She is passionate about the role expressive arts therapy can play in supporting and nourishing people’s wellbeing and their ability to live vibrantly. She believes in the power of hope and the alchemy of creativity for personal insight, growth and healing.

Angie is a clinically registered Creative Arts Therapist, Dramatherapist (UK), Creativity Coach, Supervisor and Professional Development/Workshop Facilitator and a registered Teacher. She has her own company called ‘Creative Harmony Expressive Arts Ltd’.

Angie gained her Education degree from the University of Auckland, and a Diploma of Teaching from Auckland College of Education. Prior to that she had attained her Teaching Diploma in Speech and Drama from Trinity College. Her Curriculum Vitae records a number of different employment positions prior to her becoming a Creative Arts Therapist, including setting up and running in partnership a Drama School for children and teens for a number of years. 

Angie has had extensive training and experience in Open Form Improvisation, in New Zealand and for her Masters dissertation she attended training in Santa Fe and Australia. Since gaining her Master of Arts in Arts Therapy Degree (Clinical) in 2010 she has worked with a wide range of client populations in a number of different organisations alongside running her own private practice. Her clinical roles have been in diverse environments including the complex and diverse area of special needs, mental health, and disability from stroke and Alzheimer’s.  Private practise work has been with children, teens and adults either individually or with family groups. In 2021 she was contracted to lecture on the Masters programme at Whitecliffe in a supporting role and continues to supervise clinical students along with other practising arts therapists. 

At this present time she has had a chapter accepted for an international dramatherapy book which is in the process of being published and another chapter is currently under review for inclusion in an international Creative Arts Therapy book. Angie is a great believer in the inherent healing power of play and playfulness for everyone and has great concerns around the ramifications for children who have experienced play deprivation. Currently she is running therapy programmes for adults with mental health needs and working with tamariki in South Auckland schools, many of whom have experienced trauma. Her therapeutic mahi is based on the underlying precept of the Creative Arts therapies that we are all inherently creative. By accessing the different domains that the creative arts therapies offer she utilises a multi-modal approach to meet the psychosocial and emotional needs of her client’s for healing, growth and wellbeing. 

Having run a vast number of workshops for different organisations, Angie is very passionate about opportunities to present PD for staff on the importance of play, playfulness and the effects of trauma. She has received some excellent feedback from schools who have benefited from an experiential presentation to support them with their mahi. Angie is committed to advocating the important role play has in Education for children, particularly those affected by developmental trauma. 

2011   Gained Fully Registered Arts Therapist status 

2010   Master of Arts in Arts Therapy (Clinical), First Class Honours, Whitecliffe, New Zealand

2008   Master of Arts in Arts Therapy, First Class Honours, Whitecliffe, New Zealand

2004   Gained Fully Registered Teacher status

2000    Bachelor of Education degree (Education major), University of Auckland 

2000    Diploma of Teaching (Primary), Auckland College of Education 

1985    Teacher’s Diploma in Speech and Drama, Trinity College of Music, London