A therapeutic practice based on the transformative power of creative experience
Daoud’s Play, Art and Creativity Therapy is a therapeutic practice that approaches the human being as a whole: body, emotions, imagination, thought, memory, and relationship. It is based on the understanding that transformation does not occur only through talking about one’s difficulties, but also through entering into new experiences that allow different ways of feeling, perceiving, and responding to emerge.
In this approach, play and artistic creation are not tools added to a therapeutic process; they constitute the process itself. Through creative experience, individuals are invited to encounter themselves differently, to explore what has remained unexpressed, to reconnect with their inner resources, and to develop new possibilities for relating to themselves and to others.
The aim is not artistic achievement, interpretation of an artwork, or the acquisition of a particular expressive skill. The creative act is valued as a space of discovery and transformation: a place where a person can experiment with being, feeling, and acting beyond habitual patterns.
The foundations of the therapeutic process
Daoud’s practice is built on several interconnected principles:
Experiencing before explaining
The therapeutic process begins from lived experience. Rather than asking a person to understand themselves only through reflection or analysis, the work invites them to experience themselves through movement, voice, imagination, interaction, and creative action.
An individual may discover a new relationship with their body through movement, encounter a previously inaccessible emotion through an image or a scene, or recognize an inner pattern through a creative choice. Meaning emerges from the experience itself and from the person’s relationship with what they discover.
The body as a source of knowledge
The body occupies a central place in Daoud’s therapeutic practice. It is not considered merely an expression of psychological states, but a place where experience is held, transformed, and revealed.
Through work with movement, rhythm, breath, voice, stillness, and physical presence, participants develop a more conscious relationship with their own bodies. This process can reveal possibilities that were hidden behind tension, inhibition, habitual responses, or limited perceptions of oneself.
As one participant wrote:
“In the last session, I felt that my body was no longer the wall separating me from my inner world; instead, it helped me reveal what I had hidden without knowing it.”
This movement — from experiencing the body as a limitation to experiencing it as a resource — is one of the important therapeutic directions of the practice.
Creativity as a space of freedom and renewal
Creativity allows individuals to step outside fixed forms of self-perception. In a creative process, there is no single correct answer; there are possibilities to explore, choices to make, and new forms to discover.
This freedom creates a space where individuals can encounter parts of themselves that have been neglected, silenced, or constrained. Through imagination and symbolic expression, experiences that may be difficult to approach directly can find a form and become available for awareness and transformation.
A participant described this experience:
“I discovered a person hidden in the deepest depths of my unconscious. A person who causes my sadness and pain, but also my joy and happiness. This person frightened me, but I did not want to let go of her because she is part of me — because this person is ‘I’.”
The creative process therefore becomes a meeting with oneself: not an escape from reality, but a way of accessing deeper dimensions of one’s reality.
The practice of sessions
Sessions are structured around creative experiences proposed by the therapist according to the needs, development, and dynamics of the individual or group. These experiences may include:
- movement and physical exploration;
- voice and sound work;
- improvisation and dramatic creation;
- imaginative exercises;
- symbolic creation;
- interaction with others;
- writing and personal reflection.
The exercises are not applied as fixed techniques with predetermined outcomes. Each proposal is adapted according to the person’s process and according to what emerges during the session.
A simple exercise may therefore open different paths for different individuals: one person may discover a new emotional expression, another may develop confidence and spontaneity, another may encounter a forgotten capacity for play, connection, or imagination.
The therapeutic value lies not only in the exercise itself but in the person’s encounter with themselves through the exercise.
The therapist’s role
In Daoud’s approach, the therapist is a guide and an active presence within the creative process. The therapist observes, proposes, adjusts, and accompanies, while allowing each person’s own process of discovery to unfold.
The therapist does not impose interpretations or define what an experience “means” for the participant. Instead, the work relies on attentive observation and on creating conditions in which the person can recognize their own movements, choices, resources, and possibilities.
This requires a particular sensitivity to the uniqueness of each individual. The same exercise may serve different therapeutic purposes depending on the person’s history, present needs, and stage of development.
The therapist’s role is therefore not to lead the person toward a predefined version of change, but to support the emergence of the person’s own capacity for transformation.
Domains of application
Daoud’s Play, Art and Creativity Therapy has been developed and practiced across diverse therapeutic contexts, with the form and duration of the work adapted according to the needs of each person, group, and setting. It has been applied both as a brief therapeutic intervention, focused on specific processes or periods of difficulty, and as a longer-term therapeutic path supporting deeper personal transformation and development.
The approach has been practiced with individuals and groups in a wide range of contexts, including mental health care, rehabilitation, education, social support, and community-based interventions. Its applications have included work within psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitation centers, private therapeutic practices, and institutional settings, as well as with populations experiencing specific life challenges or requiring adapted forms of communication and support.
The practice has been used with:
- individuals experiencing psychological or emotional difficulties;
- people in psychiatric care and rehabilitation settings;
- refugees and displaced people facing experiences of rupture, loss, and transition;
- elderly people, supporting expression, connection, and the preservation of personal vitality;
- children and adults with special needs;
- deaf children and autistic children, through adapted creative processes that privilege embodied, sensory, and relational forms of communication;
- families and couples, exploring relationship dynamics, communication, and shared experiences;
- people in prison, where creative processes provide possibilities for expression, reflection, and human connection;
- groups engaged in personal development, collective processes, and relational work.
The approach has also been integrated into processes of non-violence, istisfaa (inner purification and clarification), and activism, where creative practice becomes a means of developing awareness, responsibility, relational sensitivity, and a deeper engagement with oneself and others.
Across these different fields, the therapeutic framework remains grounded in the same principles: creating a space where individuals can encounter themselves through experience, imagination, embodiment, and relationship. The specific exercises, forms of expression, and duration of the work may vary, but the underlying orientation remains the same: supporting the person’s capacity for awareness, integration, creativity, and transformation.
The therapeutic role of the group
When practiced in a group, Daoud’s Play, Art and Creativity Therapy develops an additional dimension: the group becomes part of the therapeutic environment.
The presence of others allows individuals to experience themselves in relationship, to be seen and recognized, to develop trust, and to discover new forms of communication. Participants learn not only through their own creative process but also through witnessing the experiences of others.
The group becomes a field where individuality and connection can develop together. It offers the possibility of discovering oneself while remaining in relationship with others.
A participant expressed the importance of this environment:
“The most important thing for me was the relationship between these people inside the workshop, and the energy that existed in this place — very positive, full of warmth and light. This is something I will never forget.”
Reflection and writing as part of the therapeutic process
Writing is integrated into Daoud’s practice as a continuation of the therapeutic experience beyond the session itself. Participants are invited to write freely about what they experienced, discovered, felt, questioned, or remembered.
These writings create a space where experiences can settle, become conscious, and continue their movement toward integration. The purpose is not evaluation or intellectual analysis, but maintaining a dialogue with one’s own experience.
One participant described the impact of this process:
“The analysis of myself that I do while writing the report became a new experience in discovering myself. I was able to discover, connect, express, bring out what is inside me, feel, and discover emotions, attitudes, and capacities that I did not know existed.”
Writing thus becomes another form of creative encounter with oneself.
A practice of becoming
Daoud’s Play, Art and Creativity Therapy is based on the belief that every person carries capacities for growth, creation, and transformation. Therapeutic change emerges through a process of discovery: discovering one’s body, one’s emotions, one’s imagination, one’s relationship with others, and one’s own ability to create new possibilities.
Through play and artistic experience, individuals are invited to move beyond fixed identities and reconnect with a more alive, flexible, and authentic relationship with themselves and with life.