Deborah is a passionate practitioner of entangled praxes, embracing Trickster playfulness within her roles of therapist, educator, arts-based researcher and Head of the School of Creative Arts Therapies at Whitecliffe College. She began her career of interwoven arts, education and health in South Africa. Within the South African University and Health sectors (1990 to 2004) she studied Drama Studies, lectured, worked in educational/community theatre, and community development, then gained a Masters in Adult Education, lectured, and worked in lifeskills and HIV/AIDS education and counselling.

Upon arrival in Aotearoa, New Zealand, she trained as an Arts Therapist through Whitecliffe. She was awarded her PhD by the University of Auckland in 2016 for an arts-based autoethnographic thesis exploring her arts therapy practice during the Canterbury earthquakes. She is an ardent advocate of arts-based practices, supervises masters and PhD/Prof Doc students at various institutions, is co-editor for the academic journal JoCAT, has published on various aspects of her creative arts therapy/research work in a range of academic journals and books and has presented at conferences/symposia in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.