Little Windows into Art Therapy

Small Openings for Beginning Therapists

Deborah Schroder

• Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781846420634
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Newly qualified art therapists often feel daunted by the challenge of actually being face-to-face with a client and are unsure how to progress after the first image has been created. In this honest and encouraging book, Deborah Schroder explains how art can provide openings into therapeutic relationships and create a safe space for exploring issues and concerns.

Drawing on her own development as an art therapist and her extensive experience of supervising new therapists and students, Schroder provides practical advice on encouraging nervous or reluctant clients, or those unfamiliar with art therapy, to benefit from artmaking. She argues for a two-way sharing of art between therapist and client, exploring not only how specific techniques can be put into practice, but also how they benefit the therapeutic relationship. Providing guidance on moving into deeper work, exploring and containing particular emotions, and bringing the therapeutic relationship to a close, this book is invaluable to new art therapists at all stages of their relationships with clients.

Part I

Getting to Know You

CHAPTER 1

Beginning a Relationship Using Art

Do you remember the last time that you began a relationship? Not any particular kind of relationship, just a friendly exchange with someone you were likely to see again. Perhaps it was someone who moved into the apartment across the hall, or a new coworker, or the newest person behind the counter where you get your morning coffee. Chances are, the relationship didn’t begin through artmaking. Although it’s kind of fun to envision that possibility. Imagine two strangers exchanging small, hastily drawn images instead of doing the usual verbal exploration of “who I am”. Think what this could do for the blind date experience!

But the reality of most of our lives involves a much more standard way of moving into relationship with one another. We place much emphasis on the verbal story, the words chosen, the grammar, accent, volume. We notice visual clues to identity through issues like age, gender, race, body language, personal space, clothing. If we’re rather self-aware we may even attend to our own inner responses to this rich flood of information, and from that point begin making subtle interior decisions about moving ahead, or not, with the getting-to-know-you process.

It is extremely rare that two strangers would normally share artmaking or images with one another. In fact, family members and close friends aren’t frequently aware of how each other draws or what kind of art someone creates, unless perhaps one is a professional artist. Art therapists are a little unusual in that we may know how our best friend draws. Our best friend may be another art therapist or artist. When we ask people to make art as part of a new relationship, even though it is a therapeutic relationship, we need to remember what an unusual request we are making.

Before you initiate the getting-to-know-you phase of an art-filled relationship with a client, I want to suggest that you re-establish an art-filled relationship with yourself. Not that every art therapist wanders away from the studio, but sadly many of us give in to the other demands that seem to make the studio a distant dream or memory. Make the space and time to make art and try this directive: Reflect on a time when someone else helped you, and create an image from or about that experience.

We can’t afford to stop looking at why we want to help and our beliefs about the helping process. After you create your image, work with it in whatever style is comfortable for you. If you like to ask questions, you might consider:

1. Who helped me? Did I want his or her help or did I simply need it?

2. What was my response? Did I resist or struggle or was I open to whatever help was offered?

3. How did I feel afterward?

I’ve done numerous images, over the years, about being helped, in order to center myself over and over again in terms of why I want to help and who I am as a helper. One of the most meaningful images for me was from a memory of a neighbor pulling me out of the mud when I was about 3 years old. I’d managed to get outside to play wearing my new shiny black shoes and while wandering around some trees at the edge of our yard, one foot became totally stuck in the mud. Some things that I remember about the experience include my fear of the helper (I didn’t know the neighbor who pulled me out), my embarrassment at needing help, and my fear about what would happen when my parents found out. These fears seem similar to many client thoughts regarding entering therapy

My experience with new clients, particularly those who haven’t seen a therapist before, is that their anxieties and fears may almost completely muffle or distort how much they are able to hear or listen to in that first session. They may not take in most of what I say about myself, my way of working or the therapeutic process in general. They seem more worried about what they should say next, what they should or shouldn’t reveal. They may even be trying to decide whether or not to stay in the room at all, as they nervously eye their watch or the door!

This is why I believe that in addition to the written intake and, if needed, a clinical assessment for safety, the first session needs to include an artmaking experience that is a mutual sharing of personal information. I know that there are therapists who would never consider this, but in the spirit of journeying with my client and initiating a safe, trusting relationship, I’ve found mutual artmaking to be very helpful. Cathy Moon discusses the fact that many art therapy graduate students are not exposed to the option of making art alongside their clients: “non-involvement in art making has historically been the more generally acceptable practice” (Moon 2002, p.200). My experience is that thoughtful artmaking alongside my clients is an excellent way of sharing myself in the development of the therapeutic relationship. It is, however, a form of disclosure, and mindfulness about the content of the images is important.

As always, when we decide to disclose any information about ourselves to our clients, we need to be very clear about what we share and why.

I remember the first time Megan came to see me. It wasn’t an entirely voluntary experience. She was escorted by her mother who was afraid that her daughter was “slipping back” into behaviors that seemed to indicate depression. Megan was 16 and sat slumped in the corner of the couch, playing with the bracelets on her arm, while I went over the forms and confidentiality issues. When her mother left the room I suggested that it might be helpful if we just spent a little time getting to know each other better. I showed her the art materials and asked if she could create an image that would fill me in a little on who she was, while indicating that I’d do the same thing.

She seemed relieved and I put on some quiet music and we both began working. She quickly found magazine pictures to cut out, while I chose to work with oil pastels. Certainly I glanced at her as she worked, taking mental note of her comfort level and visible creative process, but I also created my own image that consisted of a few little drawings of visual information about me. I don’t tailor that initial drawing to fit any perceptions about my client. Instead I just draw some things that are honest little scenes from my life at the moment. The image that I made during that session with Megan included a scene of a lake, a CD player, and a box with a big question mark on it.

When Megan and I shared our images she asked that I “go first” and I briefly told her how I’d spent some time over the weekend at a park by Lake Michigan and how calming it is for me to be by water. Looking at the CD player, I told her that one of my favorite things to do is to play my favorite CDs really loud, and that I’d bought a new CD on Saturday and had driven my kids crazy when I played it over and over. She looked a little surprised and said that she liked to play her music loud but that she used headphones so that nobody yelled at her. She asked me what the box with the question mark was about, and I told her that I’d recently moved into a new apartment and I’d lost the box that held most of my shoes. She glanced down at the rather sorry pair I had on and smiled.

I think that I probably seemed a little more human and approachable at that point. I’d shared honest little pieces of my life, but I’d certainly not shared others. In the process of looking for the box of shoes I’d had a full-blown moving day emotional meltdown, but that didn’t feel appropriate to disclose!

When I do this initial sharing with smaller children, I might draw my pet, my favorite food, or some soft abstract swirls of a favorite color. I draw simple, clear images, and sometimes kids will sneak little glances at what I’m drawing and do the same kind of images on their papers. This is absolutely fine with me at this point. If it’s comfortable for them to draw their pets, their pizzas and ice cream cones, and their favorite colors, I trust that we’ve laid the beginning of the foundation of safety with the art process and when the images that they really need to create emerge, our relationship will be able to contain them.

By sharing a little about who I am, with even my tiniest clients, the idea of talking to me and doing art while we’re together seems more comfortable. The quirks and struggles of my images often open the door, allowing my tiny clients’ own quirks and struggles to come in and be present. I tried to draw a rabbit hopping around the page once, because I’d had a day when I’d literally been all over the place. My rabbit looked more like a cat with goofy ears and little Beth almost fell off her chair laughing. But she also relaxed and quit saying that she couldn’t draw. We welcome any image into the session, even confused rabbits.

I help adult clients welcome their own imagery into the room in much the same way. I utilize the same directive, asking that we create images that will help us get to know each other a little. I trust that whatever surfaces will aid us in the beginning of our journey together and will at the very least give my clients a taste of what art therapy feels like. Any image is welcome and the client is free to talk or respond as they like. We can put the image up and enjoy the colors or we can explore what the client sees within the content of the image. It is simply a small lived moment of artmaking and sharing, and it sets the tone for our work together.

I don’t carry around any childhood memories of art as a “bad” or “difficult” thing because it seemed like the only thing that I knew how to do as a child. My experience is not the norm though, and it helps, as an art therapist, to deeply know the place of being asked to do something that at its essence may be linked to memories of feeling inadequate, embarrassed, or shamed. All that I have to do to be in that spot is to remember having to work math problems out on the blackboard in front of the class. From those horrible moments of feeling exposed and stupid, I developed the belief that I had best avoid any contact with math if at all possible.

So I speak very gently about the process of artmaking in art therapy with adults who have struggled with difficult memories or experiences of making art. While trying to calm any concerns about the quality of the art or the skill level of the client, I also try to share my belief that whatever image shows up is the image that needs to be there. For example, if I ask someone to create an image that tells me something about who they are, and all that shows up on the paper is a big dark tornado, we’ll certainly welcome the tornado and see what it’s about: no rules, no wrong answers, no forbidden image.

We have a gift in art therapy that I don’t think we always acknowledge. We have a clear, concrete way of demonstrating acceptance, by accepting the client’s image. If I show you that I can sit with or be present to whatever shows up on the paper, chances are you will also understand that I can be present with your pain, you “ugly” memories, your scary dreams, your deepest fears.

Sometimes the situation of easing into artmaking is more complicated, particularly if the hesitant adult is part of a family art therapy session. Imagine the potential discomfort of being in a first-time therapy session with your spouse and children, only to find out that you are supposed to draw in front of the very people who you can hardly sit in the same room with. Parents often struggle with the idea of doing something with their children in the vulnerable space of the therapist’s office that has the potential for making them feel even more vulnerable and exposed. The approach and tone that I take with families in that initial encounter is the same that I take with individual clients – let’s use art to tell each other something about ourselves. Make an image that tells us all something of who you are.

The tension in the room almost immediately starts to decrease as family members learn that therapy can be simple and safe to experience. All that I’ve asked is to learn a little about everyone. We already know that there’s a problem or they wouldn’t be there. We’ve already even explored the problem a little, or the short version of the story, as we’ve completed the intake process. Stepping back a little and finding out through imagery “who’s in the room” gives everyone a chance to just think about who they are, not who or what the problem is.

Beyond the warmth and openness of the sharing of our own images, and the acceptance of their images, how else can we help our clients know that therapy will be a safe place for them? I find it important to somehow communicate that I see or hear their good qualities, strengths, hopes. Someone in the therapeutic relationship needs to believe that movement toward health, self-fulfillment and/or happiness can happen, and so I may need to share some of my optimism with them: not a false statement of”everything’s going to be all right”, but more of a belief that life can feel better:

Communicating a belief and hope in the client’s ability to change and an optimistic expectation that change will indeed occur is essential, especially in the beginning phases of treatment. (Asay and Lambert 1999, p.46)

How surprised some clients have been when we see “what’s working” or what’s going well in the image or hear it in their story. What relief to understand that therapy isn’t going to feel like an agonizing scavenger hunt for pathology.

As the first session ends, I have the opportunity to let my client know that he or she is in charge of the artwork. It can be taken home or left with me. If it’s a disturbing image I often offer to keep it safe, in my office. I am also pretty clear that “this is what it feels like” so that clients know that even though it was one pretty short experience of art the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I – Getting To Know You
• PART II – Deepening The Relationship
• PART III – Moving Toward Good-Bye
• Epilogue
• References