Each month, the 'Day in the Life' series offers PACFA members the opportunity to share their personal and professional experience as dedicated Practising & Registered Clinical Counsellors and Registered Clinical Psychotherapists who embody the art and science of holding space for others.
This month, we follow the day with PACFA's College of Creative and Experiential Therapies (C.CET) member, Rae Sabine.
About Rae
Rae’s pronouns are They/Them. Rae is a trans non-binary and multiple neurodivergent registered supervisor (Rae avoids using the term ‘clinical’ to describe the supervision work they do, as they prefer to use non-clinical language in their approaches), arts therapist, and psychotherapist with a lived experience of chronic illness.
Qualifications and training
Rae received a Graduate Diploma in Therapeutic Arts Practice from the MIECAT Institute and the Bachelor of Arts Psychotherapy from the IKON Institute. They facilitate in a multi-modality capacity, which means that in addition to talk-based forms of practice, offering other art-based forms of expression such as narrative, music, drama and dance.
Rae has also done Professional Development Training in a range of Psychotherapy Modalities such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), IFS (Internal Family Systems Therapy), and DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy). ‘I regard these methods with caution, as they have the potential to be employed for the purpose of oppressing and manipulating people, particularly people from marginalised lived experiences and communities who were not involved in developing or evaluating these methods. I frequently advise those I work with to selectively adopt the techniques that are beneficial to them and modify those methods to better validate their lived experiences.’
A Day in the Life of C.CET member, Rae Sabine
7:00-8:00am: Morning Rituals
I enjoy commencing my day with a cup of coffee while listening to the last episode of Inside the Therapy Room by Samantha Sellers. I find great pleasure in listening to Sam's podcast, as she, being a queer woman, is dedicated to interviewing a variety of therapists to highlight the diversity among therapists and their unique approaches.
While continuing to listen to this podcast, I prepare a nutritious smoothie with a banana and mixed berries, which I consume while performing my morning stretches. Additionally, I publish a pre-prepared post on my website and social media platforms.
8:00-8:30am: the upcoming “Lived Experience Leadership Series”
On this particular day, I check my emails to see PACFA's 3-day Learning from Lived Experience Leadership to Transform Practice workshop series and see that the spiral chats curated by the Diversity in Gender, Body, Kinship and Sexuality (GBKS) Interest Group will be held on day 2. I read this article on the PACFA website to see the sequence the series will follow.
This prompts me to work on a project I am doing with Dr. Gávi Ansara (He/him), Convenor of the GBKS Leadership Group and Carla Van Laar (she/her), Convenor of C.CET, to formulate a statement for C.CET on ethical strategies to prevent misgendering and ethical approaches to handle situations if misgendering happens.
8:30am - 9:00am: Preparing for my working day
In my personal studio, I switch on the lighting (I change my lighting throughout the day depending on people's sensory and environmental needs), power up my computer, and organise my files, art supplies, props, and tools accordingly, based on who I am scheduled to meet with that day. Today, I need a few extra things like puppets, masks, acrylic pour materials, rocks, shaving cream and food colouring.
9:00am-5:00pm: Sessions
The majority of my day is dedicated to conducting supervision, arts therapy and psychotherapy sessions. I work with people from many different backgrounds, genders, sexualities, cultures, age groups, spiritual beliefs, physical abilities and disability needs.
In my role as a supervisor, I offer my knowledge and experience in providing support to people who are neurodivergent, disabled, queer, transgender, asexual/aromantic, polyamorous, as well as those with chronic illnesses. I also support practitioners to grow and have their own process of support to monitor, develop and refine their skills. My goal is to assist them in gaining deeper awareness of how they practice, the people they work with and to explore ways to grow their private practice in alignment with their values.
6:00pm: Dinner
I am extremely fortunate to have a partner who prepares dinner for me, and we enjoy our dinner while watching our most recent favourite TV show. Tonight, we are watching an episode of Fallout which is set in a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation. In this speculative future world, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants, and bandits. I especially love Dane, the non-binary character played Xelia Mendes Jones, who uses he/they pronouns. We do this while eating vegan chilli that contains almost every bean possible, capsicum, carrot, corn, garlic, and home-grown chillies and herbs from my sensory garden.
7.15-9.15pm: Peer Supervision
Tonight, I am participating in peer supervision, during which I will conduct a practice run-through of the creative workshop that I will be facilitating for Switchboard's Lived Experience Network. Switchboard is peer-driven support services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender diverse, intersex, queer and asexual people, their families, allies and communities. The feedback I receive during my run-through is positive, which helps me to feel confident and prepared for the upcoming workshop.
10:00: Bed
I find pleasure in ending my day by reading in bed. Tonight, the book I am reading is Inspiring Creative Supervision by Jane Wood and Caroline Schuck. This book has inspired some ideas for my upcoming sessions. For example, I am considering the possibility of taking out my toys and mini figures in order to invite some supervisees to delve into reflecting on how interpersonal dynamics show up in their work.
Connect with Rae
Website