EXPRESSIVE ARTS THERAPY

Psychologist and Expressive Arts Therapist Karin von Daler offers therapy online and in Copenhagen


Designed to fit you, not the other way around


Never feel good enough, even after years of working on yourself?

You’re not sure why you are still struggling. You’ve worked hard and you still don’t feel like you are living your life.

Maybe you can’t find or keep a good partner you can be yourself with. Or you have a job you’re fairly good at, but dread going to every morning. You feel depressed or anxious, or even traumatized.

You’ve always felt like you had to be everything to everybody – except yourself. You are exhausted from trying to live up to everyone else’s values and expectations. You can’t do it anyway. It’s like you can’t find your place in life and make the most basic aspects of it work.

The constant tension between where you are and where you think you should be makes you feel sad and stressed out. It’s taking its toll on your health, your sleep, your mood.

I work with sensitive, creative people who work and try hard but still doubt themselves. They are stressed and tense and don’t know why. They scold themselves but don’t know how to just be themselves. They long to live their own life without creating chaos and upsetting their families and friends.

Your friends and family don’t understand why you’re so upset and keep making the same mistakes. You have everything going for you, right?

On paper you know you do. And you’re not sure what kind of help you need.

You worry and think you might just be lazy or weak. So you pull yourself together.  Get up in the morning, get dressed and go do what you’ve have to do.

But you can’t keep living in stress, fight and flight. So you try harder and go do some talk therapy, exercise or mindfulness.

It helps a little. But not enough. You want to feel fundamentally better. You want real change but without toppling over your whole life. Without having to change everything about yourself.


Does this sound like you? You feel:

  • Restless and stressed out. Tired and wired.
  • Exhausted from bad sleep, dependence, eating disorders or trauma.
  • Irritated and short-fused.
  • In pain.
  • Out of touch with yourself.
  • Too sensitive. You’re never good enough.
  • Focused on living up to other people’s expectations.
  • Full of grief and anger that just can’t come out. Afraid others will leave.
  • Like an emotional time bomb.
  • Sad about your intimate relationships (or lack thereof).
  • Lonely and unable to be yourself with others.
  • Unable to feel your own needs. Mad at others when they don’t get it.
  • Left out. Like you’re looking at everyone else’s happy life through a window.
  • Unsure of your place in life.
  • Afraid to do what you want to do.


I’ve got 27 years of experience helping people like you to:

  • Be able to find and keep partners and close friends.
  • Build healthy families and relationships.
  • Have the courage to be themselves.
  • Have healthy self-worth, sourced from within.
  • Solve old conflicts. Make peace with others.
  • Feel and express emotions without pushing others away.
  • Setting healthy boundaries without making dramas.
  • Care for themselves and stop self-abandoning.
  • Heal trauma.
  • Let go of anxiety.
  • Get back in their body.
  • Have healthy relationships with food, sleep and exercise.
  • Find a new life after a life crisis and loss.
  • Feel safer navigating life.
  • Build a meaningful career.
  • Express their creativity or become successful artists.​


What are you looking for in a therapist?

  • Someone who can help you change your life without changing who you are.
  • You want to be seen and met – not judged or evaluated.
  • You don’t want to be “fixed” in a superficial way.
  • You don’t just want to talk about it to get temporary relief. You’ve done that already.
  • You want an experienced, empathic, yet precise, therapist who has helped many people like you.


Wonder why you are struggling right now? Maybe you are:


Not feeling seen.

Your childhood wasn’t awful but you always felt like an outsider. You were too sensitive, too emotional, different. Maybe the adults around you didn’t have time and energy to focus on you. Your focus was and still is on them and their needs. You hope that if you support and coach them enough they will eventually support you.

In your best moments you know nothing’s wrong with you. You just pick up on what’s going on around when others shut down or protect themselves.


In conflict with yourself

You feel a deep longing and you are afraid to listen to it. You need to be everything to everyone. You should become someone special – except yourself.  You try to adapt and please because you are afraid to lose everything if you don’t.


Tired of pleasing

You give and you give and it’s not working. You suppress yourself and feel resentful, sad alone. Your dreams and wishes feel far gone and too scary to go for. You’re trying to live up to expectations and you’ve never learned how to live as you..


Too much in your head

You hardly feel your body. You do notice your mind a lot. It’s always judging, criticizing and stressing you. Your poor body is struggling and abandoned.

Your body talks to you through your sleeplessness, your down moods and the pain you feel in your relationships. But you no longer understand what it’s saying. You know it holds onto your feelings and trauma but you have no idea how to let them go without letting go of control and falling into chaos.


Therapy for your sensitive child or teen?

Children and teens naturally process and express their experiences through play and creativity. That’s why expressive arts therapy and play therapy are often good choices when your child is struggling. You already know it: kids can’t always explain what’s going on with them in words.

Sensitive teens often like to express themselves or feel understood through music, poetry, imagery, movies or dance.  Expressive arts therapy can often help them reduce anxiety and depression, learn social skills, feel safe and motivated in school, get through eating disorders and process trauma.

I offer therapy to sensitive kids who haven’t found the right help in traditional therapy or within the school system.

I’ve worked therapeutically with kids for 20 years with issues such as:

Anxiety and restlessness, depression, social isolation or lack of social skills. aggressive behaviors, stomach aches and bed-wetting, absenteeism and fear of school, rocking and headbanging, self-harm and sleep problems.


What do other clients think?

“This is one of the best things I have ever done for myself”

“Thanks so much for everything you are and have been to me. Thank you for all your support and help with developing myself through the years. Without you it would not have been possible!”

“I feel a new and unknown kind of power building in me and I am making room for joy and curiosity. I am grateful that life seems to be opening up for me.”

“I am really happy with the work we did together and very impressed by your competencies.”

“Many many thanks, Karin. I was reflecting on how remarkable it was for me to feel safe to do that movement. There is some vulnerability needed and trust and I think you really create that safe space. Thank you. Modalities like using movement goes beyond words. I know you know this, I knew this and yet when I moved and got some rich learning from my psyche, I was reminded how powerful the arts language is.”

“I’d just like to say a thousand times thank you for an incredible, fantastic, unforgettable and really, really, really good process. I never thought I would get this far and learn so much and gain this much insight into myself, my relationships, human beings – life. I am really thankful and will never forget these hours together. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am deeply moved and happy – and full of joy from everything I (we) have achieved. I will miss it.”

It has been a life-changing process. I am in a good place – and I have me – even when things get difficult. As I sit here, I feel love and gratitude for you and for the work we have done together. The healing work has changed the way I am able to be in relationships – and thus the quality of the rest of my life. I feel that a new journey has begun.”

“To come out of a life crisis with stress, cancer, anxiety and trauma, your competencies and professionalism are the best way to a normal life…Thank you for doing what you are doing, saving people who need a hand when nothing else works.”

“I felt your professional depth already reading your website. I sensed I could trust you and we’d have the right connection. Which you’ve proved repeatedly was right. At first I was looking for help with my eating disorder. But I found out that PTSD really was the driver behind my eating disorder. I was afraid I’d never feel better and could see my own behavior deteriorating. I wanted to learn how to navigate in a world where I could set limits and find my place. With you I have overcome all my traumas successfully. I have better self-worth and have found my inner compass. You’ve helped me learn how to give myself care and trust and to navigate in a less dangerous world. Your methods have always worked for me. I have a totally new life I never knew existed.”

“What’s great is that you give in such a way that I can do it myself now.”

“I value your insights greatly. I consider you the wisest person I have ever known…Thank you for caring so deeply.”

”I am truly grateful for our work, Karin. There is no doubt that you have helped me move forward in my life. That you have helped me release myself from overwhelming experiences and the unhealthy bonds my family and I were stuck in. For that I am eternally grateful to you.”

“The most important thing I got from the creative exercises was that I like myself now. I’ve been focusing on living up to expectations – not on living. That’s something totally different.”

“Yet again, you’ve been an amazing “birth helper.”

“You can see me. You can “hold” me. That’s what made therapy so deep for me.”

“I experience Karin as a deeply compassionate person who is highly skilled and very intuitive. She is a therapist beyond compare. I have seen her during more than one extremely challenging time in my life. She always seems to offer just the right direction of inquiry to help me explore a deeper part of my psyche. She offers grounded tools for behavior change and for restructuring one’s belief system as well as insightful reflection. Talking to her feels like sitting in an open meadow protected on all sides by a fence woven of soft ivy. My experience of Karin is both expansive and contained.”

“You are the best psychologist I have ever worked with, and I have been seeing psychologists since I was in my mid-twenties. I have never met anyone who could so quickly and exactly get my situation and know precisely what to do”

“It has made my hair stand on end in previous therapies, when I have felt pressured into something in a situation that should actually be a safe space. When that happens I shut down and close up. I either just agree with the therapist or become contrary – and ultimately end up terminating therapy. The fact that you are so validating and supportive makes me trust you completely. I know you want what is best for me and can help me. I don’t need to be so angry anymore – that’s a huge relief. I experience myself differently now, calmer. I don’t snap as much at my kids and I don’t have to suppress my feelings as much. My feelings are more manageable and I don’t have to spend so much energy on controlling myself. And because it is no longer so dangerous I dare to be more honest and direct. I just want to say that I am grateful for having met you and for your being a driver of the positive change I and my family have experienced.”

“You have helped me have an amazing experience in therapy”

“You have seen me and given me insight into depths and perspectives that I have learned from – and that can inspire me to further studies. I will miss the safety of coming to a place where I can express whatever strange thoughts I might have and get feedback. I feel quite proud of having grown and feel very strongly that I will be able to handle what comes my way in the future. I have the courage to wrestle with the Self, trust my intuition and stand up for my convictions.”

“You helped me so much and I am deeply grateful.”

“What a lovely conversational partner you are. You spread light and clarity over the issues and one feels safe and happy with you.”

“I’d just like to say a huge thank you for helping me on my path of development. It works and it is just so good to feel my progress.:) Our work together has had a major effect and more than ever I feel connected to myself and on the right path. Many thanks for your professional guidance with this. You make a huge difference for me.”

“I was questioning therapy: can’t I do this myself, can’t I just be healthy already? And then your soft words of wisdom really landed in the right place in my body and since, have sent out some ripples of trust for the process. 41 years of conditioning doesn’t change a few hours. So I am committing to the journey ahead with a soft gentleness. I wish to express my deep gratitude for sharing your special gift, to know when to nudge and know when to stop, and listen, deeply. Thank you.”

“Your great commitment and caring way of being have led me to where I am today. Your way of using your intuition and your knowledge has made me feel seen and understood. I can gradually see myself on my way through the most difficult years of my life.”

“Thank you for my time with you. It’s been so good and given me so much. Your way of helping, counseling, guiding and supporting me has been just right. You have really managed to meet me right where I was and I’ve come far in my development. I feel more at home in myself and have a better sense of what I want to do and what I long for.”