LAFAYETTE PARISH — In Lafayette, stories often surface where they are least expected, and one of them belongs to therapist Hollie French. Her journey toward art therapy began with work rooted in service.
“I was drawn to jobs where there was a service component, and so I ended up working with kids with special needs and their families. And one of my clients had an art therapist — that was the first time I had ever heard of anything like that,” French said.
That discovery stayed with her, reminding her of the ways she leaned on creativity in her own life years earlier, after losing a close friend in a crash while still in high school.
“And I had never lost anyone in that sort of way, and I didn’t know how to process it, I didn’t know how to understand what I was supposed to do with the feelings I had. And I guess it wasn’t a conscious thing, I just started making things,” French said.
French explains that her path into therapy also connects back to values instilled at home. She credits her upbringing for sparking an early interest in helping others.
“I grew up in a family that was really service-oriented. That was just part of the fabric of our family. We sat around the dinner table talking about things that mattered, things that were happening in the world,” she said.
Now, inside her Lafayette office, creativity is central to the way she works with clients. Through art, she helps people find ways to process experiences and emotions that can be difficult to express in words. French says those sessions often open doors for healing that traditional approaches may not.
For her, the practice blends professional skill with a deeply personal understanding of what it means to turn to creativity in moments of need, “This is something that’s really helpful to heal, something that helps you process and understand things, something that helps you grieve something that helps you, and gives you joy and then it was a way to help give that to other people as well” French explains.
It is a connection that continues to guide her approach as both a therapist and a community member.
Hollie says she plans to keep using creativity as a way to help people share their stories.
