After listening to the Art Therapy Decoded podcast with Dr Amy Backos, and finding out about the American Art Therapy Association (AATA), I have taken a look at the website and there seems to be a section called Art Therapy in Action where there are videos detailing a variety of therapies for different needs. These can be anything from the needs of adolescents, to those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), eating disorders, culture and community needs, medical needs, LGBTQIA community needs, memory care, to PTSD.
ART THERAPY IN ACTION
Exploring the unique power of art therapy to help people improve cognitive and sensory-motor functions, foster self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivate emotional resilience, promote insight, enhance social skills, reduce resolve conflicts and distress, and advance societal and ecological change."
I decided to listen to the videos that apply to me and take some notes:
Eating Disorders
"If you have a need or want and you\"re not able to meet that need or want, overtime your body will express it for you. "
Michelle L. Dean, MA, ATR-BC, LPC, CGP speaks with art therapist Juliet King about the transformative potential of art therapy for those with eating disorders, and the role of the therapist in supporting their recovery.
When it comes to eating disorders, why do you think that arts therapies such a good match?
"I'm glad you asked! When I first started working with people with eating disorders it was at a general psychiatric unit. The people who came who also had eating disorders, they weren't there with eating disorder as their main primary diagnosis, responded so Powerfully using art image and the symbolisation to discuss and engage in what was happening for them partly because they lacked the words to express what was happening to them symbolically. It wasn't because they weren't educated or articulate, it was because there was a disconnect between how they felt and what they were able to actually say. The people I work with can often times express themselves eloquently on a range of subjects but when I ask them to explain how they feel there was often a disconnect. This is often referred to as Alexithymia meaning having no words for feelings and it comes in various degrees. You see it a lot of times if there\"s been trauma or other types of ruptures earlier on in their life and eating disorders on a symbolic disorder meaning that people who develop eating disorders typically it is an expression or a voice when a regular voice cannot express what is going on it isn\"t just a matter of being stressed or experiencing a single trauma but a constellation of multiple factors that has come together at a particular time in someone\"s life that needs to be expressed at that moment and so it emerges as disordered eating. There is a whole continuum of disordered eating from not eating to overeating and a lot of behaviours in between. There is also eating disorders that may not meet clinical diagnoses criterion but can still be pretty debilitating to someone\"s life and so those can be addressed through our psychotherapy interventions.
Can you speak a little bit to how you have emerged throughout the process of becoming and practising as an art therapist?
"I think we are all emerging all the time it\"s all about becoming conscious. I tell my students that it\"s really important for them to not only be active artists but also engage in their own therapy process because I think it\"s very difficult for someone to take another on a therapy journey if they themselves do not know what that journey looks like. I always encourage my students, new professionals, supervisees and even fellow clinicians to take that journey themselves. Physician heal thyself. Healing doesn't happen in a vacuum. A lot of the clients that I have with eating disorders that I have come in I told them if they can heal themselves they would have. People don\"t come in for treatment and unless they have been struggling for at least two years and so getting help to have that journey, that supports, to heal that relationship, is part of that process. Often times we feel wounded or injured by those we are closest to and likewise healing or transformative experiences are a big job of the therapist to have that space to help nurture that healing process. "
Reflection: I wasn't expecting too much from a five minute video but I did feel this lady was rambling a little bit and I would have liked a little bit more insights into the process of what our therapy looks like for someone with an eating disorder. What kind of techniques are used what kind of exercises perhaps a very quick case study of someone who has found peace with what they have been through. There wasn't really any closure in this video. There was still some interesting soundbites and quotes.
Medical
"I saw immediately the emotions The psychological states of people who were about to undergo surgery, or post surgery, or had strokes, or lost limbs, or had cancer and frightening diagnoses."
Irene Rosner David, PhD, ATR-BC, LCAT, HLM discusses the evolution of art therapy in medicine and working with people in hospital settings.
"My ideas were how do I develop this merge this substantiate this in medicine with medical issues? Even though I was now in the course of being formally trained none of that included medical art therapy so early on I longed for the field to evolve in that sub specialty and I felt like the odd man out. But I Felt so certain that this was the right thing.
"You've been on the vanguard and at the forefront of the country undergoing a lot of issues and changes. When people were writing about HIV with art therapy, it was you."
"First thing you have to realise that I work in a hospital that is the trauma Centre of the city. We have had, for well over a decade now, A unit set up on our pulmonary floor that is an isolation and quarantine unit. In that unit we've had a very long-standing and very successful art therapy program. The goals are all of the basic expressive yourself, you\"re in isolation, but also it brings the humanity into restricted quarters. Patients, while infectious, have to be in a private room. So it brought us their world they would bring in - photos of landscapes, realism, and always have to think about and deal with our own feelings of wearing Personal Protective Equipment or PPE as it\"s called in the medical world (Kim\"s note: how apt is this during these during times in the pandemic???) We had our mouths covered with, not just a simple mask but, a specially fitted covering. So we must take care of ourselves in terms of not only our physical but also our emotional well-being. But it enters the therapeutic relationship, right? So we have to think about what we look like to patients, we have to compensify or make moditory efforts because patients can\"t see our facial expression. I lean forward more, there are various things we do to modify that. And we have the art and people become more compliant to treatment because of a positive experience and feeling better about themselves feeling motivated."
Reflection: This video started out quite promising which is why I played it. I have experience with/through my mum, I have experience with having many surgeries from having my retinas detach recently and having many emergency surgeries which gave me severe PTSD. This video got quite heavy though and mirrored modern times especially with isolating and PPE. The lady was well spoken and I\"d like to find out more about art therapy and medical but this video wasn't a very good introduction.
Trauma
"We all recognise the circumstances of the world we are living in and people are experiencing all kinds of traumas but one thing that has kept me going no matter how challenging these cases are is the response to using art therapy."
Cheryl Doby-Copeland, PhD, ATR-BC, LPC, LMFT and Gretchen Miller, ATR-BC, ACTP discuss how art therapy can help individuals or families who have experienced trauma express what they’ve been through safely, and tell their stories without needing to talk.
What is inspiring for you? What comes to mind as a case I currently have with a young girl, who is now five but at the age of three, a stray bullet shot her in the leg. Her response to that trauma was to stop talking to anyone but immediate family. She didn\"t come to me until two years later that I was able to use art therapy and evaluation, with the family too, engaging the families that they could understand how I could use art therapy, to address her concerns, to develop the treatment plan, and so on. I went to her school and met with her teachers to see how they were interacting with her and because of her age and her interest in drawing, despite the fact that she did not talk to me in the beginning, she responded to our making. I met her where she was and allowed her to draw whatever she wanted to do. She eventually at the beginning of the school year transformed into the typical youngster. She now talks to her teacher, goes back to her previous teacher, and all I did was allow her The space to tell her story along with the family. I used the family. I am out of the family step-by-step to engage in a series of drawings to tell their story. Telling without talking.
Gretchen Miller MA, ATR-BC, ACTP "The "telling without talking part" is very significant and totally sticks out in my mind. Safety and establishing that safe place through the art and so it\"s containing that is so important with youth and women and survivors of domestic violence. Talking without telling, the art can serve as a visible voice for being able to express feelings and experiences especially in situations where you may have been threatened not to talk and not to use the words so you can use the arts in a less threatening way. Tapping into parts of the brain, the cognitive part, that may be hard to use words. The art, the sensory base really helps brings that out.
Cheryl: "another piece I would add is that we are using the arts to meet people where they are so they feel their particular lens is reflected and respected. So no matter what their cultural, racial, ethnic background is they can see that art can be a vehicle to explore whatever the presenting concerns are. "
Gretchen: "Again helping to restore and reestablish safety and restoring hope as well. I'm really try to come from a strength-based approach with the trauma stuff with the clients I work with and to view the trauma as an experience that has happened to you, not necessarily something that is wrong with you. And managing that. The art interventions and materials sessions with clients help with coping and to help build resiliency relating to managing what\"s happened. I think we can rest assured there will always be a need for art, the need to use art and the art making process as a way to stay connected with one another and to communicate."
Reflection: I feel really empowered after listening to this video. The two ladies really knew what they were talking about in regards to trauma and managing trauma and using a case study as well really helped bring home how impactful at therapy can be to somebody. I'm much preferred this video to the eating disorder one and trauma is probably an avenue I will explore further for this project. Eating disorders is a huge part of my trauma but I didn't really get too much from that video and I don't want to make it to specific to my eating disorder. I would rather focus it around trauma in general. This video was really helpful and insightful.
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