Art Therapy Works
Photograph by Victor Bloomberg, October 15, 2023
It begins with a commitment to look inward, to take an inward journey. Are you ready for this? Is something you want? Have you done this before? Usually the most transformational work is done with art therapy because the process does draw from within and brings up unconscious material. To begin that journey, we do warm up exercises. We work with paints. I give them directives. I do a little bit of assessment. We’re always doing assessment in art therapy. Sometimes I’ll give them specific directives.
As it progresses, people create their own path. They know what they need to paint and draw. And in between, we always talk about their work. Occasionally some people don’t want to talk about it and that’s fine. The work speaks for itself. Sometimes we go back to it later. Sometimes people come in and they’re all over the place and I’ll say, “Okay, I’m going to give you markers and colored pencils to give you a sense of structure and to regroup yourself; focus and tighten up.” Occasionally that’s needed. We also work in collage to give people a lot of control, when they’re feeling really out of control. We look at the work, we go back to it. I put it up on the wall, we dialogue with it. It’s a Gestalt technique. A lot of material comes out from that. Along that process, I’m like a guide. Because people are on the path and I am there with them. Whatever comes up, nothing is too small or too large.
A client that I have been working with for a few years, has developed this amazing process. I’ll just share with you. She draws with Cray-Pas and then paints over it. She draws certain things and then blocks them out. And then she goes back in with the Cray-Pas. And not only is it rich and beautiful and textured, but there are layers and layers of information. She has been doing this, and little-by-little her images have changed. Over the past few years she had always been drawing and painting these eyes. With her history it made sense to be vigilant. The eyes turned into fish swimming in the water with a beam of light shining down. Talk about a transformation! In this kind of process, the images often appear in the work before people acknowledge what it is. It’s an amazing thing. It’s what keeps me going. It keeps me so excited about my work. That’s the most transformative work I do.
I think sometimes I’m not even sure how it works. I see it and I know it’s working. A person might say something that involves a new insight. Or like what I just described about the image transforming. The eyes were turned into fish, and I saw it happening. How does that work? I think how it works is that there’s a space that’s created. I’m sitting here and the person is sitting there; they’re talking and I’m listening. I say something. It’s the same thing with art therapy. There’s a space that’s created. We’re sitting in proximity, and I’m holding this space with people, and somehow in that space people are free to express themselves in such a way that transformation takes place. That’s the best that I can explain, because I don’t really know exactly how it happens. I just know that if the situation and the setting is right, it will happen.
There is a client who doesn’t come in every week. A lot of times he wants to talk. Recently, he did a drawing, mixed media with paint; it was sort of like a landscape. When he finished, he put himself on a bicycle in the middle. When he talked about it, he said, “I’ve been wanting to get out and ride my bike all summer, and it hasn’t happened.” I said, “It looks like you’re riding your bike, now.” He said, “Yeah but,” and he’s talking about his husband, his kid, and his job which he hates, and all of these other things. Meanwhile, he’s looking at the bicycle.
Next week he comes in and he says, “I took my car, I went by myself, I put the bike in the car and rode over on the bridge. I looked over the bay and I felt like a whole new person.” You know, here it is. We draw it and then it happens. People do this. And that was a really transformative experience for him, because he was able to do something for himself which he hadn’t been doing for ages. Then he continued, “We’re going to go riding this Sunday, all of us.” It was simple. It wasn’t deep insight, but it was important and made a difference. It led to other good things with his family.
The Art Therapist has 7 years experience and continued limited in-person practice with established clients during the worst times of the pandemic.
