>> We use a lot of different techniques and a lot of different art materials.
And what we tend to do is design a process specifically around a particular
individual client or a particular group, depending on their needs and
the issues we'd like to explore.
So different materials work with different people more effectively or
less effectively.
And different processes are designed to really use metaphor as a way to look at
their situation and their issue.
So just to give some examples, some of the processes I love to use when I do group
work, I do a lot of group work with art therapy, we often begin with mandalas.
Mandalas, at their most simple form, although there's a rich
history of using them in different spiritual and religious practices.
Their most simple, it's really an image within a circle that has symbolism and
symbolic shapes, textures, colors that have deeper meaning.
So I like to use mandalas as a way of grounding and
holding clients when they first arrive, just to explore their current situation.
In that sense, it's open to their interpretation, and
they can express themselves freely within that safe container of the mandala.
When clients come, what I find is that they're often kind of estranged from
creativity or their own art making.
Sometimes they've had a negative experience of art making in childhood, or
someone's told them they're not artistic.
They can actually be very scared of the blank page.
So I like to use different materials over the weeks I work with them and
help build up their confidence.
We build up the complexity and
the complexity of the materials as their confidence builds.
So to begin with, I might use collage because it's very quick and very simple,
and you really don't need any technical skills to do it.
Most people don't feel daunted at the idea of cutting and pasting,
it's kind of child-like, and people can dive right in.
Then as the weeks progress, we introduce pencils,
we introduce oil pastels, drawing, we might use acrylic poster paints.
We might use water colors, we also do sculptural work.
We start to work with textiles and multimedia.
>> How do you integrate the psychotherapy into the process of art making or
vice-versa?
>> Art therapy is informed a lot by many different threads of psychology and
psychotherapy and
especially the kind of humanistic client centered counseling and psychology.
So a big part of our work as art therapists is to be empathetic and
to listen attentively.
And what we tend to do is use the artwork itself as almost like a third person in
the room.
A transitional object that we can speak about really takes the pressure off of
the clients speaking about themselves in their own experience,
to start looking at the artwork as a mirror and exploring it for symbols.
And so that's one of the ways we use the artwork in the process.
So one of the things that comes up a lot in art therapy is bringing
an awareness of the inner critic.
So that voice inside our own head that often tells us that we're no good,
that we don't know what we're doing, that our art making is stupid.