Several authors investigate holding the complexity of intersecting identities. Contributions from both Smith and Reim Ifrach explore embodiment and integration of queer identities – the former through an autoethnographic lens on what it means to be a queer Christian, and the latter on supporting body-image healing through Jungian archetypes and collage. Both papers demonstrate how creative interrogation can support more authentic connections to self. In addition, two creative contributions from Psaila-Savona and Rye celebrate women/wāhine coming together to strengthen bonds through collective art-making. Many hands in Psaila-Savona’s collaborative artwork symbolise concepts of collective care, resilience and shared experience of what it means to be a woman, while a unique look at ‘women in graffiti’ and its link to collective identity is the centrepiece of Rye’s creative contribution. Deepening cultural investigation, the literature review from Hubbuck and Suleman examines cultural humility as a necessary and fundamental approach to art therapy within the Australian landscape, emphasising a shift from the expert-laden term ‘cultural competence’. Rather, ‘cultural humility’ suggests an openness to reflexivity and the limits of knowing, offering a more intricate and open attitude to exploring the intersection of client and therapist identities (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998).

Another subtheme running through several contributions is the holding of complex emotional and embodied experience. It takes just a glance at Sawrey’s creative drawing piece to understand the weight of emotional ‘shadows’ that clients can carry with them. Two practice papers highlight the way in which CATs contribute to improved emotional well-being in often overlooked and underrepresented client groups. Cheung offers a mixed methods study on the experience of caregivers of frail adults, while Prachakittikul and Jaroenkajornkij explore the role of a one-day clay art therapy approach in Thai office workers experiencing burnout. What these studies point to is the benefit of slowing down using a hands-on and creative approach to navigate emotional overwhelm. This is similarly true of the paper from Eckhaus and Hedlund-Nelson, which highlights how expressive arts therapy combined with a Polyvagal lens can facilitate embodied regulation.

Holding ambiguity can have unexpected and creative consequences. Authors position uncertainty as a pathway to creativity, demonstrating what can occur when control and certainty are relinquished. Authenticity and play are at the forefront of the article from Bird and Motta who utilise their separate clowning and dramatherapy backgrounds to co-create together into new territory. Insight into this experience is furthered through the podcast conversation with JoCAT editor, Deborah Green. Scarano similarly ventures into ambiguity by examining recurring motifs in response art to better understand countertransference within clinical work. Certainly, holding ambiguity is at the forefront of the writings and reflections from Jansen, Wainwright and Stevens, who investigate the idea of a ‘glitch’: ruptures in meaning through which silenced histories are reconfigured.

Holding collective experience is noticed across another two contributions, which emphasise the often-relational nature of healing in creative arts therapies practices. Sederof explores the role of a Studio Art Group in offering psychosocial support, community connections and the building of artist identities. The role of art in storytelling, exhibition and group art-making is examined, highlighting the strength of such offerings in community contexts. Along a different thread, Szaflarski presents an intriguing creative contribution that encompasses a ‘polyphonic script’ of clients participating in a virtual art therapy cancer group. The collective experience is captured through a creative screenplay that draws on narrative practices, arts-based research and performance. Client lived experience is further examined in book reviews that present new vocabulary for spatial dimensions in dramatherapy, better understandings of art therapy care practices for clients with body image concerns, the exploration of disability-affirming art therapy practice, and examinations of race, power and oppression in art therapy. Meanwhile, reviews of exhibitions held at the Cunningham Dax Collection and Australian Centre for Contemporary Art explore the dynamic relationships between art, human emotion and mental health.

The common thread of holding complexity feels particularly relevant to creative arts therapies practices today. Choosing to become a creative arts therapist is, in many ways, choosing to turn away from certainty and clear outcomes. In this sense, the contributions to this issue echo Donna Haraway’s (2016) invitation to stay with the trouble – to remain present with challenge, uncertainty and difficulty rather than rushing to premature resolution. The authors in this issue remind us of the rewards of staying with the unknown – namely creativity, insight and new pathways forward. What this issue undoubtedly reflects, is the way in which researchers and practitioners are leaning into the complexity of being in relationship to others, of sitting with uncertainty and working hard to remain curious. Reading this issue encourages me to extend an invitation to the uncertainty that peers into my practice – to share a tea with it and get to know it a little better.