A play-full approach to therapy

  1. About Emma

    Emma’s ethos to practice, writing, research and for living is bringing forward creative, playful, and relational ways of connecting that promote relational health and emotional wellbeing. This turn towards an arts and play approach to knowing and being was the influence of the many infants and young children she has supported over the years to heal from trauma and overcome adversity.

    The remarkable capacity of infants to express emotions and share their inner worlding is largely through creativity and play modes that are the occupation of children. Artistic, playful and relational practices are transformative of mental health and wellbeing, stimulating authentic communication and expression of lived realities through curious, exploratory, and responsive modes.

    First obtaining a Bachelor of Psychology and Master of Counselling, Emma’s passion for working with little humans and the therapeutic benefits of the arts and play therapy has been extended with a doctoral degree in Therapeutic Arts Practice as well as post graduate studies in Child Psychotherapy. She has undertaken comprehensive training in the field of infant mental health where she is an experienced IMH practitioner, consultant, and supervisor.

  2. Therapeutic Practice

    Renowned for her work and research in Infant Arts Therapy, Emma is an experienced Infant Mental Health Consultant, Child Psychotherapist, and Arts Therapist and believes strongly in the need to turn towards relational and creative approaches to support trauma-healing and attachment.

    Coming up to 20 years, Emma’s experience has focused on trauma healing, disordered eating/eating disorders, and child and women’s mental health. She has held various senior roles in community organisations supporting children (0-18 years) with a lived experiencing of family violence, early life trauma, child protection, and adversity including an IMH consultancy role with Berry Street for 3.5 years and a research position at a family violence service.

    Emma is committed to demonstrating trauma-responsive practice alongside adopting client-led, neuro-affirming, and culturally safe principles that centre clients and their lived realities to enable moving towards a meaningful and connected life.

    As an accredited supervisor, Emma’s approach to reflective supervision and companioning draws from the same relational frame capable of holding practitioners in their work with infants and parents. Thinking/working/reflecting with psychotherapy theories helps to maintain and develop the thinking mind and feeling heart needed to bear the unbearable, and attune, respond, and reflect.

  3. Research and Publications

    Emma has diverse research experience and interests that cross disciplinary boundaries and enjoys/seeks interdisciplinary collaborations that innovate new ways of doing “intervention” capable of contemplating the complexity of lived experiencing. She is passionate about (re)conceptualising well-being, trauma, and mental health within a relational ontology, inquiring with post qualitative methods and new materialism that agitate for more responsive innovations in mental health.

    As an independent researcher, Emma’s focus is on inquiring into everyday lived experiencing through posthumanist experimentations are that tangible, accessible, and provocative. Emma has presented and published on multimodally mapping the more-than-human elements that compose lived realities, with a forthcoming chapter being published in 2025.

  4. More..

      • Infant mental health (0-5 years)–Social-emotional development, parent-infant attachment, early life trauma and adversity, child protection.
      • Child Psychotherapy (2-16 years)–therapeutic intervention for developmental differences, social-emotional development, mental health (trauma, anxiety, depression, eating issues/disorders), neurodevelopmental conditions, child protection. The Melbourne Play Studio
      • Art Therapy–disordered eating/eating disorders
      • Trauma therapy (children and women)–including EMDR, integrative psychotherapy.
      • Group art therapy–parent-infant groups, disordered eating, early learning centres and primary schools.
      • Clinical supervision–Allied health, Health, and Early Childhood professionals supporting infants, children and families; trauma and family violence; complex mental health; arts therapy.
      • Consultation–secondary case consultation for therapists (IMH, child mental health, court proceedings, family violence); art therapy group programs.

    • My research interests are strongly focused on potentiating connections and relationships that not only promote well-being and connection through creative and playful modes but are transformed in ways that are meaningful and becoming. With roots in traditional knowledge practices such as psychology, I have turned towards posthumanism and new materialism for the extraordinary capabilities to map the sensory, affective, and haptic elements that entangle lived experiencing. I am particularly intrigued in how matter and materiality of everyday objects and artefacts co-produce mental health and well-being. Adopting a relational ontology enables interdisciplinary collaborations, extending beyond the boundaries of conventional practice to reveal more critical understandings of complex human experiences.

      • Multimodal mapping the lived experiencing of parents and infants (current) with Dr Ariel Moy.
      • The Safe Nest Group pilot project: Early intervention for mothers and infants who have experienced family violence (2018-2024) funded by ANROWS in partnership with Swinburne University.
      • Post qualitative research: Making voice immanent: Mapping and sensing the between spaces of becoming using cartographic art-making-as-inquiry (2021)
      • Trauma-informed Therapeutic Spaces (2019-20), Emerge, Australia.
      • Early Years Therapeutic Art and Play Program (School Readiness Funding).
      • Founder iPEACH network (Infant and Perinatal engagement in Arts and Creative Health)—Australian based network bringing together PIMH professionals passionate about incorporating creative and expressive arts therapies into everyday practice and research.
      • Centre for Infant Wellbeing—Inspired by the playful and creative modes that are the occupation of infants, the mission of CFIW is to nurture infant and parent wellbeing by bringing playful, artistic, and relational ways to connect, grow, and flourish.
      • Trauma-informed design of therapeutic spaces—Domestic Violence Refuge, Family Violence service, Vic (2019-2020) Organisational Therapeutic Practice Framework Emerge (2019-20).
      • School Focused Youth Program 2018-2023: design and delivery of art therapy programs for children with trauma histories and developmental differences.
      • Multicultural mother-infant art therapy group, Women’s Friendship Network 2018-2022.
      • “Draw it Out” Art Therapy program for at-risk youth – Boroondara Council, 2015.
      • ‘Meeting the Infant Model’ (MTIM) Relational and Interactional Observation tool to capture infant capacities (include link)
      • Ethical Practice webinar series
      • Working with vulnerable children and their families
      • Professional practice series
      • World Art Therapy Conference 2025, Mapping and mattering the lived experiencing of parents and infants: A New Materialist approach in Infant Arts Therapy’.
      • ‘Perinatal and Infant Arts Therapy’ Masterclass series with Dr Ariel Moy, 2024.
      • Fat Moon Podcast, Season 4, Ep 6.
      • ‘Mapping the Lived Experiencing of trauma for parents and infants’ with Dr Ariel Moy, Big Trauma, Big Change conference, March 23rd, 2024.
      • ‘Made in Australia: Infant consultation to address abuse, violence, and neglect’, Berry Street, WAIMH Congress, June Dublin 2023.
      • “The Materiality of Attachment”, Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Professionals Network webinar ‘Holding Spaces’, May 2022.
      • Infants in refuge: Consultation Model (webinar presentation) AAIMHI Vic, May 2022.
      • “Responding to the needs of children: COVID and DV”, PACFA’s College of Counselling Webinar, March 2020.
      • “Tele-mental health and DV”, PACFA’s College of Counselling Webinar, March 2020.
      • ‘Titrating Trauma: Managing the Impact of Trauma in the Therapeutic Process’, Trauma Informed Counselling webinar PACFA’s College of Counselling, June 3rd, 2017 .
      • van Daal, E., & Moy, A. (2024). New Materialist Mapping the Lived Experiencing of Trauma in Perinatal and Infant Mental Health. Social Sciences, 13(12), 682. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13120682 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/12/682
      • Wood, K., Giallo, R., Fogarty, A., van Daal, E., & Morrison, B. (2024). The Safe Nest Group pilot project: Early intervention for mothers and infants who have experienced family violence (Research report, 08/2024). ANROWS. (PDF) The Safe Nest Group pilot project: Early intervention for mothers and infants who have experienced family violence. Available from: https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/safenest-early-intervention-family-violence/
      • van Daal, E. (2023). Entanglement of “trauma” spaces: how people, place, and objects co-produce the mental, therapeutic, and physical space(s) in trauma-informed design. Edinburgh Architecture Research, 38 (1), 41-60. https://journals.ed.ac.uk/ear/article/view/8924
      • van Daal, E. (2021). Making voice immanent: Mapping and sensing the between spaces of becoming using cartographic art-making-as-inquiry. Unpublished Thesis.
      • van Daal, E., & Westhead, P. (2021). Early intervention for homeless infants begins in refuge. Parity, 34 (8), 23-54.
      • Westhead, P., & Hodges, E. (2018). Infants in Refuge: The ignored crisis. Parity, March, p. 23-24.
      • Hodges, E. (2016). The story of you, I, and we. Ann Morgan Prize, AAIMHI.
      • Hodges, E. (2016). The infant perspective of Domestic Violence and homelessness: community-based early intervention of trauma with families living in refuge. Infant Mental Health Journal, 37, Supplement 1, p. 122.
      • Hodges, E. (2016). Implementing a 5-week Peek-a-boo Club™ with mothers and infants living in refuge: Highlights, challenges, and reflections. AAIMHI Newsletter, 29 (1), p. 6-8.

  5. Contact

    Dr Emma van Daal

    Email me directly or via the Melbourne Play Studio:
    Email: emma@dremmavandaal.au
    Practice: hello@theplaystudio.com.au
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-emma-van-daal-b4a4281a/
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dremma_van_daal/