Art therapy?

[chookmojo]

Anyone have any experiences with Art Therapy, or are there any art programmes out there for folks dealing with Mental Illness?

I've been interested for a long time but don't really know where to start looking.

[Appleblossom]

I know a lady who runs art therapy classes in Geelong, its part of a broader mental health service. I have seen art classes popping up in community here and there .. with a therapy bent as opposed to fabulous Picasso bent.

I know it helped my husband, but we just did ourselves, (clay and paint with the kids etc) as art was one of his things and I also tried with drawing with my left hand and all sorts of things, but visual arts not really my thing. My oldest has taken it on and is "good" at art.

There is probably a website for Association of art therapists.

[eggshells]

I've had two experiences.

The first was amazing and very helpful. It was run over a number of weeks, facilitated by a qualified counsellor/psychologist (not sure which but she knew what she was doing) at a womens health centre. There was a long waiting list for individual counselling and they offered this group art therapy in the meantime. The sessions consisted of an unguided art time where you had plenty of time to produce an artwork from a huge range of materials from paints to collage etc  There was also room for privacy so you were totally unaware of what the others were doing until time was up. Then there would be time as a group to discuss... or not... what each person produced. The facilitator was not an artist herself so there was no pressure to produce works of art only to express how you were feeling. Some people took a while to warm up and understand the process, others just let loose. There was also no pressure to discuss your art at the end of the session and even if you chose not to the stories of others would sometimes help.

The second was disastrous. It was held over a number of weeks at a community centre and run by a someone who was somehow connected to the centre and liked to think of himself as an artist. We had limited materials only crayon pencil and texta and we were required to produce a drawing around a particular theme of his choice. We sat at a long narrow table across from each other where you felt very self conscious about what you were doing. At the end of each session we were forced to comment on our drawings and listen to innapropriate remarks by the facilitator. The facilitator also insisted on producing his own work each week and we spent most of the time analysing his own slightly disturbing view on life! We all agreed he needed more help than we did.

So... I highly recommend art therapy as a way of exploring what is truly at the heart of your distress. I looked forward to it each week even though I often found myself sitting down without any notion of what I was going to draw and then all of a sudden IT would happen Afterwards i still wasnt sure what I had just done until we started to discuss it.... and it was so revealing. Amazing.

But... do your research first. I had a friend who attended the second art therapy with me (I was just expecting it to be like the first where I had gained so much) and because she was in a fragile state at the time it really set her back in her recovery.

Hope this has helped...

[Appleblossom]

That sounds like a fair assessment and reccomendation to me.

It is a distinct skillset to help people depth and work through feelings.  Research and trust your instincts.

[chookmojo]

Thank you, that really did help.

I am getting very 'into' metaphor work at the moment and so art therapy feels like a natural extension of this, but I guess as with everything else you need to find the right fit.

I'm also a sometimes dabbler in arty stuff and have been feeling super blocked for a long time, and felt like it might help loosen me up and get over my fear of 'spoiling' the page.

[Appleblossom]

@chookmojo

what is metaphor work? I think I have been doing it instinctively but am curious what you mean.

spoiling the page, smudging my lines and shooting myself in the foot lol  are all things I need to work on.

[chookmojo]

@Appleblossom

There are lots of things you can do with metaphor.

I was into tarot for a long time and enjoyed it from a metaphoric and archetype perspective. I've always enjoyed analysing my dreams, and recognising the patterns in the stories that have great meaning to me. 

I first got exposed to the uses of therapeutic metaphor when I was doing NLP, and the thought that you could use a story to help heal someone or to make changes in the way they think was fascinating.

These days I am very interested in a process called Clean Language (check out clean.co.uk) which is a way of exploring the metaphors that underpin our experiences and beliefs in a very non-interfering way. There's probably a better word for it, but essentially means that the facilitator influnces as little as possible while helping the person explore the metaphor.

I have found this pretty powerful for self work, especially as due to my background with NLP I am pretty good at 'Un-NLPing' myself. Essentially the more nifty tricks your conscious mind learns the better your unconscious mind gets at them too. It can end up as a stalemate. With the metaphor work I am much less resistant to it, because it is just expolaration and learning, and so I don't tend to 'undo' the work.

There's an introductory course about Anxiety on Udemy by Judy Rees (a world leader in Clean Language) which is worth doing if you get a coupon which has a very brief taste of Clean Langauage/Metaphor work in it. She also does some more advanced courses on Udemy, but I haven't taken those yet - though I did get to train with her in person when she came to Melbourne last year. She also has loads of free videos on her site http://learncleanlanguage.com/ if you are interested in checkig it out.

Quite apart from how effective I find it, I also find it deeply interesting and very enoyable stuff to play with and explore - and as I would lieto get itno art more, it has the potential for excellent creative idea fodder.

Most recently I have been interested in Andy Austin'smetaphors of movement. Again lots of resources online.

[Appleblossom]

Thank you @chookmojo for the references and links.

For the last 7 years I have been discussing metaphor and tropes at my church (which I am on holiday from). I had a literature major and tried to be polite and fit in and relate to people as I found them, but also to open up conversations beyond stereotypes, cliches and biblical quotes. So in some ways I have been acting as a change agent. I shocked some by saying that "God" was a personification of humanity's hopes and dreams for goodness

I have been trying to make sense of my ancestral traditions and bridge the gap between old ways and the world I have actually encountered most of my life. My parents both had religious psychoses ... or was it just a sense of the mystic?

The scientist in me meant I only ever considered tarot as metaphor, but is good to see the range of things people on this forum have as interests.

Very interesting links. I will explore them also. Only had unfettered access to the internet for a couple of years, was very resistant for a long time, and broke. I let the internet be what my son shared with his dad, Now it is my turn. Thanks again.

[Appleblossom]

What city do you live in @chookmojo?

I liked that Clean Language was started by an almost local boy from NZ just over the ditch. I like that it emerged from bi cultural experience and is about lthe questioner/therapist keeping assumptions and prejudice out of his questions whilst allowing the personal metaphor of "client" to blossom.

I like the ideas available on the net and now I have had a good forum experience.

I also try to make sure I am anchored in the world around me that I can see and smell and hear. I have been thinking of doing a course based on "Ideokinesis" by a movement instructor who is also an Alexander Technique teacher. Similar in to the Andy Austin.NLP in some ways.

[chookmojo]

I'm in Melbourne.

Ideokinesis looks interesting, I'm going to have to look into it.