Associate Professor Sheridan Linnell

Associate Professor of Art Therapy,
Arts Therapy & Counselling

Biography
Contact
Publications
Projects
Supervision
Teaching

Biography

Sheridan Linnell is Associate Professor of Art Therapy in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University, Australia, and the University’s first Discipline Lead for Arts Therapy and Counselling. She works with others to question and reshape professional and therapeutic discourse and engages with the creative arts and writing as modes of inquiry that can promote social justice. A practising poet, she occasionally collaborates on installation and performance art with colleagues and friends.

Sheridan’s research focuses in part on how as a White therapist she can respond to the legacies and current iterations of trauma, abuse and colonisation - a complex matter requiring an engaged, ethically nuanced and interdisciplinary response. Her doctoral and postdoctoral work explored this problematic through postcolonial theorist and critical psychologist Couze Venn’s metaphor of ‘apprenticeship to the other’, in the context of working with First Nations colleagues to support Indigenous children ‘in care’; and as a therapist working predominantly with the effects of family violence and sexual assault. This work has come sharply into focus given the current tendency in most forms of therapy to make the (essentialised) body and brain the locus of trauma to the exclusion of the social and cultural.

As Discipline Lead, Sheridan has been taking these developments into action through international and national scholarly collaborations, cross-institutional curriculum development, and high quality international and local publications co-authored with ECRs and HDRs. As Chief Editor of the open-access Journal of Creative Arts Therapies, she supports emerging and diverse arts therapies researchers and practitioners across the Asia Pacific region to publish about their work. Sheridan has particular expertise in supervising PhD students who are conducting critical, qualitative research into their own professional practice and the normative assumptions and practices of their discipline.

This information has been contributed by Associate Professor Linnell.

Qualifications

PhD University of Western Sydney
MA University of Western Sydney,Nepean
BA University of Sydney

Professional Memberships

ANZACATA (previously ANATA; ANZATA) (1995 - 2022)

Organisational Unit (School / Division)

Arts Therapy & Counselling

Contact

Email:	S.Linnell@westernsydney.edu.au
Phone:	(02) 9685 9441
Mobile:
Location:	EH.G.11 Parramatta

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Teaching

Previous Teaching Areas

101303 Art Therapy: Histories, Theories, Groups, 2015
101304 Art Therapy: Application to Client Groups, 2015
101784 Clinical Studies (Art Therapy), 2016
102357 Ethics and Diversity in Research and Therapy, 2016
102358 Practising Research and Researching Practice, 2016

Publications

Books

Linnell, S. (2010), 'Art psychotherapy and narrative therapy: An account of practitioner research', : Bentham Science Publishers 9781608051182.

Chapters in Books

Linnell, S. and Zappa, A. (2021), 'Artful trans-itions and the queering of pregnancy, birth and (m)othering', Therapeutic Arts in Pregnancy, Birth and New Parenthood, Routledge 9780367462246.
Linnell, S. (2019), 'Inter-mission : an enactment of how art psychotherapy and narrative therapy shaped teamwork and therapeutic practice in a community-based counselling service for young people in Western Sydney', Art Therapy in Australia: Taking a Postcolonial, Aesthetic Turn, Brill 9789004315181.
Paton, J. and Linnell, S. (2019), 'Embodied wisdom in the creative arts therapies : learning from contemporary art', Practice Wisdom: Values and Interpretations, Brill 9789004410480.
Linnell, S., Perry, S., Pretorius, J. and Westwood, J. (2019), 'Where knowing and not knowing touch : contemporary art as a mode of research, subjective transformation and social engagement', Art Therapy in Australia: Taking a Postcolonial, Aesthetic Turn, Brill 9789004315181.
Gilroy, A., Linnell, S., McKenna, T. and Westwood, J. (2019), 'An introduction of sorts or all sorts of introductions', Art Therapy in Australia: Taking a Postcolonial, Aesthetic Turn, Brill 9789004315181.
Bansel, P. and Linnell, S. (2018), ''Terre Cherie-Ed U. K. Shone' : a desiring machine for rappin' and extrapolatin' on the monstrosities of academia', Writing with Deleuze in the Academy: Creating Monsters, Springer 9789811320644.
Linnell, S. and Ollerton, J. (2016), 'Changing practice discourse from inside practice : borrowing from the arts', Professional Practice Discourse Marginalia, Sense Publishers 9789463005999.
Linnell, S. and Horsfall, D. (2016), 'Disturbing professional practice discourse : re: writing practices', Professional Practice Discourse Marginalia, Sense Publishers 9789463005999.
Linnell, S. (2016), 'Sheridan Linnell', Arteterapia Tom 3: Projekty = Art Therapy Volume 3: Projects, Difin 9788379305179.
Linnell, S. and Westwood, J. (2013), 'W strone modelu narodowego arteterapii w Australii', Arteterapia: od teorii do terapii: Podrecznik przedmiotu = Art Therapy: from Theory to Therapy: Course Guide, Wydawnictwo Akademii Pedagogiki Specjalnej 9788362828555.
Linnell, S. (2007), 'Found wanting and becoming undone: a response to Eva Bendix Petersen's 'Passionately attached: academic subjects of desire'', Judith Butler in Conversation: Analyzing the Texts and Talk of Everyday Life, Routledge 9780415956536.

Journal Articles

Speedy, J., Davies, B., Gannon, S., Kirkpatrick, D., Laidler, C. and Linnell, S. (2022), 'Arctic terns : writing and art-making our way through the pandemic', Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies, vol 22, no 2 , pp 107 - 121.
Thomson, J. and Linnell, S. (2020), 'Enchanted encounters with the liveliness of matter and art forcing thought', Emotion, Space and Society, vol 35 .
Gilroy, A., Linnell, S., McKenna, T. and Westwood, J. (2020), 'A tale of two launches : an arts-based, autoethnographic inquiry into decolonising art therapy in the context of (post)colonial Australia', Art Therapy Online, vol 11, no 1 , pp 1 - 49.
Gale, K., Wyatt, J., Smartt Gullion, J., Hou, N., Jeansonnne, C., Linnell, S., Reaves, M., Reilly, R. and Rhodes, P. (2019), 'Deleuze and collaborative writing in the dance of activism', International Review of Qualitative Research, vol 12, no 3 , pp 323 - 338.
Thomson, J., Linnell, S., Laws, C. and Davies, B. (2018), 'Entanglements between art-making and storytelling in a collective biography on the death of an intimate other', Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, vol 7, no 3 , pp 4 - 26.
Paton, J. and Linnell, S. (2018), ''The art therapist is present' : embedding arts therapy practice and education in the praxis of contemporary art', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Arts Therapy, vol 13, no 1 & 2 , pp 101 - 111.
Lever, A., Linnell, S., Morris, L. and Westwood, J. (2017), 'Crossing the field : creating intra-active spaces through a participatory artists' event', Art Therapy Online, vol 8, no 1 .
Linnell, S. and Lever, A. (2017), 'The spaces in-between : the emotional geographies of art therapy and place', Art Therapy Online, vol 8, no 1 .
Jaaniste, E., Linnell, S., Ollerton, R. and Younan, S. (2015), 'Drama therapy with older people with dementia : does it improve quality of life?', Arts in Psychotherapy, vol 43 , pp 40 - 48.
Linnell, S. and Davies, B. (2015), 'Poetry, art and Deleuze', Rhizomes, vol 28 .
Horsfall, D., Linnell, S., Latham, R. and Rumbold, J. (2014), 'Palliative care for the planet', Journal of Applied Arts and Health, vol 5, no 2 , pp 281 - 292.
Linnell, S. (2012), 'Risk discourse in art therapy : revisiting Neil Springham's Inscape paper on art and risk', International Journal of Art Therapy: Inscape, vol 17, no 1 , pp 34 - 39.
Zabrodska, K., Linnell, S., Laws, C. and Davies, B. (2011), 'Bullying as intra-active process in neoliberal universities', Qualitative Inquiry, vol 17, no 8 , pp 709 - 719.
Westwood, J. and Linnell, S. (2011), 'The emergence of Australian art therapies : colonial legacies and hybrid practices', ATOL- Art Therapy On Line, vol 1, no 3 .
Bansel, P., Davies, B., Laws, C. and Linnell, S. (2009), 'Bullies, bullying and power in the contexts of schooling', British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol 30, no 1 , pp 59 - 69.
Linnell, S. (2009), 'Becoming 'Otherwise': A story of a collaborative and narrative approach to art therapy with Indigenous kids 'in care'', Australina and New Zealand Journal of Art Therapy (ANZJAT), vol 4, no 1 , pp 15 - 26.
Linnell, S., Bansel, P., Ellwood, C. and Gannon, S. (2008), 'Precarious listening', Qualitative Inquiry, vol 14, no 2 , pp 285 - 306.
Bansel, P., Davies, B., Gannon, S. and Linnell, S. (2008), 'Technologies of audit at work on the writing subject : a discursive analysis', Studies in Higher Education, vol 33, no 6 , pp 673 - 683.
Williams, C. and Linnell, S. (2006), 'When the doctors consulted the narrative therapist: An experiment in questioning dominant stories of PhD pedagogy', International Journal for Critical Psychology, vol 18 , pp 56 - 80.

Conference Papers

Linnell, S. (2014), 'Shaking, and making, the ground upon which art therapy stands', International Art Therapy Conference, Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Exhibitions

2018, 'Moonlight Bay'
2016, 'Crossing the Field: Creating Intra-active Spaces through a Participatory Artists' Event'
2015, 'The Island Speaks'
2015, 'Palliative Care for the Planet?'
2007, 'Where Knowing & Not Knowing Touch'

Other Publications

2020, 'Depression, Co-Morbidity and Integrated Care', Report
2018, 'Recovering Creativity: The Art of Mental Health Recovery [Exhibition Catalogue]', Published Work
2018, 'Recovering Creativity: Understanding the Role of Art in Mental Health Recovery, Through the Voices and Images of People with Lived Experience of a Major Mental Health Problem', Report
2007, 'Where Knowing & Not Knowing Touch', Published Work

Art therapy; expressive therapies; narrative therapy, arts-informed research; Risk discourse; subjectivity; feminism; postcolonialism, poststructural theory; writing as enquiry.