About Us

From 2008 to 2016, Dr. Monica Wong has been to the earthquake hit areas of Wenchuan and Ya’an of Sichuan Province for 15 times, where she provided psychological support services to the victims. Besides, Dr. Wong volunteered to teach at local hospitals and universities where the local helping professionals were trained to help fellow people who were in need. Since 2008 when the catastrophic earthquake hit Wenchuan, Dr. Wong has been applying drawings and narratives in conducting psychotherapy for victims. Having accumulated years of experience in dealing with psychological trauma, Dr. Wong understood deeply psychological wounds were hard to be expressed through words. However, through drawing and narration, it would be safer and easier to go into the inner world of the clients.

From 2011 to 2015, Dr. Wong has devoted herself to the development of NDI. She has recruited a group of helping professionals to be the participants of her study. Clinical psychologists, social workers and counsellors were invited to apply NDI and comment on it. Dr. Wong aimed at finding out the most efficient way to help the clients and satisfy their clinical psychotherapy and counselling needs.

In 2013, Dr. Wong hosted the inaugural International Conference on Art Therapy with the theme of “Mixing Colors and Cultures: Art Therapy in a Melting Pot”. Mr. Mark Obama Ndesandjo, the younger brother of the then US President Barack Obama, had also attended the conference. Art therapists from more than 20 countries were invited to Shenzhen join the 3-day conference.

The Chinese Proverb “a hundred flower bloom” was well expressed in this conference, art therapy was in full bloom.

In 2014, the Psycho-Art Therapy Association (PATA), chaired by Dr. Monica Wong, launched the “By Your Side Psychological Support Program”. Upholding the motto “spreading love and transforming love”, the objective of the program is to apply the professional spirits of psychology in serving the mainland and Hong Kong communities and people in need in other parts of the world.

In 2015, a number of heart-breaking suicidal incidents happened among students in Hong Kong. Combining art therapy with the theories and practice of educational psychology, clinical psychology, counselling and social work, Dr. Monica Wong and her team launched the program “Hong Kong Student Psychological Crisis Prevention and Management Scheme”. With the spirit of “By Your Side”, large scale seminars, therapeutic groups, and one-on-one psychological counselling were provided to students, parents and teachers in primary and secondary schools and universities to help them cope with the tremendous pressure of learning and examination.

In 2015, Narrative Drawing Intervention®️ (NDI) was officially launched. This innovative psychotherapeutic model was first presented to world-renowned experts in the field of art therapy at the Australian International Conference on Art Therapy. In order to provide a framework to facilitate learning by other clinicians and incorporating into their practices, Dr. Monica Wong has spent 4 years in developing the "Clinical Manual of Narrative Drawing Intervention®️", which systematically sets out the clinical aspects of NDI and guides the clinicians on how to integrate NDI with their personal style of counselling.

In 2015, when NDI was just launched, Dr. Monica Wong was invited to give a presentation at the International Conference on Art Therapy in Adelaide, Australia.

In Nov 2015, Dr. Wong joined the Hong Kong Autism Forum and did a sharing with 400 helping professionals on the topic of "The Application of Narrative Drawing Intervention on Adolescents with Autism".

In May 2016, Dr. Monica Wong organized the 2nd International Conference on Art Therapy with the theme of “A World of Healing Arts Without Strangers”. Experts from over 20 countries have attended this charitable event. The surplus of the conference was donated to the Psycho-Art Therapy Association for helping those in need of quality psychotherapy services in Hong Kong and Mainland China.

In 2017, the Narrative Drawing Intervention️®️ Institute was officially established in Hong Kong. In addition to the training courses on NDI, which Dr. Wong has developed over the years, various supplementary courses and counselling services were provided.

In 2017, after the Jiuzhaigou (Sichuan) earthquake, through the "By Your Side" program, one-on-one psychotherapy using NDI was provided to traumatized children in the Provincial Hospital of Sichuan. Since then, Dr. Wong and her team have provided NDI-based counselling to a wide range of target groups including children with special needs, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities and autism, as well as their parents across different settings in Hong Kong and Mainland China. In addition, NDI-based group counselling was used for dealing with the elderly with bereavement.

In October 2018, Dr. Monica Wong extended the “By Your Side” campaign to Indonesia. Dr. Wong led a team of volunteers to the worst hit areas and reached out to the victims of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions in Indonesia. Dr. Wong was also invited by the Indonesian government to give lectures and workshops at the education bureau and universities to train local helping professionals, equipping them to help those affected by the devastating natural disaster.

As the founder of NDI®️, Dr. Monica Wong was invited by the Ministry of Health of Singapore, the Government of Indonesia, Bihar University in India, The Institute of Psychology in Nepal, California State University, California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University and the University of Torreón, Mexico to give speeches and lectures on NDI®️.

Since 2019, several Narrative Drawing Intervention®️ centres were established in Chengdu (Sichuan), Shenzhen (Guangdong) and Yinchuan (Ningxia) of Mainland China respectively. In just 6 years since first launch, NDI has gained widespread recognition from both local and foreign scholars. Research on NDI was conducted by the Department of Sociology of Inner Mongolia University of Technology. Their postgraduates studied on NDI and published a master’s dissertation on it.

Further, the Southwest University of Science and Technology in Sichuan has set up NDI Psychological Research Centre to provide specialized training to helping professionals and facilitate research on its effectiveness. It aimed at training more helping professionals on NDI so that more people in need will receive appropriate service.  At the same time, Dr. Wong is actively expanding the use of NDI by introducing it to both local and foreign major hospitals, social welfare institutions, universities, primary and secondary schools and different communities. Our objectives are to make NDI a widely used therapeutic tool among helping professionals from all walks of life and to help improve people’s mental health.

In November 2019, Dr. Monica Wong held the 3rd International Conference on Art Therapy in Beijing, China themed “Harmony in Diversity” in collaboration with the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. This vibrant event was a celebration of diversity and a continuation of the mission set out in 2013, promoting the knowledge and cultural exchanges among professionals in the field of art therapy across different territories. This conference also set the stage for professionals around the world to share their experiences using NDI, presenting their ideas to different experts in the field, highlighting the broad applicability of NDI.

Scholars across China gave presentations on the

applications of NDI in special groups such as SEN children and adolescents, patients with long-term illnesses, students of all ages and juvenile offenders. In the conference, scholars from Beijing, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Wuhan, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Yinchuan, Hohhot and so on have demonstrated the service diversity that NDI could provide. The surplus from the conference was again donated to helping those in need in Hong Kong, India, Nepal and Indonesia.

In 2019, Dr. Monica Wong not only chaired her 3rd successive International Conference on Art Therapy, but she has also got the opportunity to cooperate again with the world-renowned Dr. Cathy Malchiodi in giving a workshop on expressive art therapy, themed “When East Meets West in Art Therapy”, at the Peking University. (Dr. Monica Wong and Dr. Cathy Malchiodi first joined hands to deliver workshops at the Ministry of Health of Singapore in October 2017).

In the same year, NDI Institute was proud to organize a series of master classes in Beijing, which were delivered by Dr. Cathy Malchiodi and Mrs. Cornelia Elbrecht. They have shared their wealth of knowledge on art therapy with helping professionals around the world. The seeds of collaboration in the field of art therapy planted in 2013 were in full bloom in 2019 with the vibrant exchange of ideas among scholars and experts from over 30 countries.

In November 2019, the "By Your Side" campaign has gone beyond serving people in China, Hong Kong and Indonesia when Dr. Monica Wong launched a new project in Nepal to provide psychotherapy to victims of human trafficking. Dr. Wong was invited by the Nepal College of Psychology to deliver a Master Class to local psychologists and helping professionals, as well as those from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. They were introduced to expressive art therapy and NDI in the workshop. The objective is to “train the trainers” and share the knowledge and techniques of NDI with local helping professionals.

In December 2019, the “By Your Side” campaign was extended to India. Besides delivering NDI® courses at the Graduate School of Psychology, Bihar University, Dr. Wong and her team of volunteers have also visited different NGOs in Kolkata and Bodhgaya to provide counselling and psychological support services to orphans and deprived groups including drug addicts and women in slums.

The mission of the “By Your Side” campaign is “Sharing love, transforming lives”. Specifically, it aims at promoting mental health without prejudice to political affiliation or religion. The demand for psychological counselling services has a significant increase at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. People from all walks of life have been mentally and psychologically affected by the widespread of virus and lockdown measures. The Executive Committee of the "By Your Side" campaign decided to form an elite team of experienced counsellors and set up an online psychotherapy clinic to provide free psychotherapeutic services to people who are in need.

On 21^st July 2021, Dr. Monica Wong collaborated with the renowned artist Prof. Zhu Yunguang to share their clinical experiences to in-field experts from all over the world including America, Europe, Africa and Asia at the International Congress of Psychology. The presentation has received excellent reception. A remarkable highlight was that clinical psychologists based in the UK expressed their interests in applying NDI to their humanitarian work in helping children and adolescents who have suffered from psychological trauma in Uganda, Africa.

NDI has continued to make steady progress in 2022. We have not only provided professional training to psychiatric doctors and nurses in hospitals, but have also started to deliver the “NDI Trainers” Certification Course and “The Lazy Parents” Trainers Certification Course for training more professionals to help more people who are in need.