Art as Therapy

“I believe that with its many subspecialties, art therapy has the key, or perhaps a key, to our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning change in all kinds of psychological treatments… because art therapy is closest to what we now understand to be the embodied roots of human consciousness and cognition.”

(Peter Fonagy, 2012)

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend BAAT’s Attachment and the Arts Conference: Neuroscience, Attachment and Creativity. The conference is the fourth of its kind, running annually since 2010. The premise of the event is to recognise the impact of attachments on human development, particularly from the field of Neuroscience, as well as highligting the role of art in this process.

Among the speakers was Jan Lobban who presented In Two Minds, a talk on the use of art therapy in treating ex-soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As part of the talk she cited the following Culture Show special, Art for Heroes aired in 2011(on Armistice Day). Well worth a watch.

References:

Fonagy, P., (2012), Forward to special edition of International Journal of Art Therapy: Inscape on art therapy and personality disorder, International Journal of Art Therapy: Inscape 17 (3) pp.91

Walker, R., (2012), Art for Heroes Culture Show Special, [YouTube], Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k93iAmPKyG0 (accessed: 07.10.13)

Walker, R., (2012), Art for Heroes, [YouTube], Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4K6zGV_5Is (accessed: 07.10.13)

Related Links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lr5nv

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lr5jj

Art For Heroes (Culture Show Special)

The Art of Play (part 1/2)

‘Psychotherapy takes place in the overlap of two areas of playing, that of the patient and that of the therapist. Psychotherapy has to do with two people playing together. The corollary of this is that playing is not possible then the work done by the therapist is directed towards bringing the patient from a state of not being able to play into a state of being able to play.’

(Case & Dalley citing Winnicott, 2007: 78)

A few months ago I pondered the relationship between art and play and suggested how in my own practice the business of making art work often lacked the sense of discovery and experiential learning that I had associated with art therapy. Incidentally I’ve recently been reading a lot of literature around art therapy with children and adolescents which positions play as an important part of basic human development. It has been interesting to learn about how play becomes an important developmental milestone in our transition from children to adulthood, even modeled in our earliest relationship with our parents.

Case and Dalley write that there is overwhelming evidence, from video playback and frame-by-frame analysis, that infants want and actively seek social engagement and play from their primary caregiver (2007:25). Good attachment between the infant and their caregiver is essential. Without it the infant’s sense of self is lost and changes to the brain occur (O’Brien, 2004:6). Interestingly the brain is born prematurely though continues to develop during childhood and into young adulthood.

The Art of Play (part 2/2)

Left Brain: Verbal, analytical, logical, rational, sequential, successive, directed, cautious, linear, factual, words, objective….

Right Brian: Non-verbal, relational, intuitive, creative, random, simultaneous, random, holistic, visual, colours, sensory, spatial, emotional, divergent, imaginative, subjective….

Within the context of this blog it is useful to think about the developing brain as being made up of left and right hemisphere (see above). The right brain of the brain focuses on the visual, and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details. The focus of the left brain is verbal, processing information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole. Case and Dalley write that before the left hemisphere, with its language and its structure of time and place, has fully developed at around age 3, infant memories are held in the process-dominated, emotional, limbic and cortical areas of the developing right hemisphere (2007: 39-40). During this time the infant uses his senses to gain information about his environment, and this becomes a template for future understanding of the world and other people. However if the child is subjected to maltreatment at an early age this can in turn affect language acquisition between the ages of two and ten. O’Brien describes that normal development enables children to organize a story into a continuous narrative that has a beginning and end, but chaotic narrative construction results from trauma experience, affecting reading, writing and communication skills (2004:6). With this in mind one can begin to think about art psychotherapy with children as offering visual clues to particularly traumatic or painful experiences. As Case and Dalley describe….

‘The art process is a right-brain activity, it accesses the right hemisphere’s emotional memory of abuse and neglect; at the same time the relationship with the therapist activates the left hemisphere. Words are found by the therapist to make meaning, gradually integrating left and right hemispheres and unifying the explicit construction of a narrative….’

(2007: 41)

Whilst these descriptions give some incite into the function of play as an important precursor to language acquisition, it’s also important to note the therapist’s role in being able to facilitate play. It struck me that in becoming a fully-grown adult one can feel discouraged from play though this seems to contrary to being an artist, someone who often works in an intuitive way and is open to sensory experiences. I wonder how art and play could be reconciled with my own practice. It also struck me that in these descriptions play is often characterized by a shared interaction or working partnership between the client and the therapist. Perhaps what I’m needing is a community of like-minded individuals (external to this blog) who are gonna push me and my ideas further, other artists to bounce ideas off and to collaborate with. My immediate thought is I need to align myself with a studio again though maybe it need not be this.

References

Case, C. & T, Dalley (2007), Art Therapy with Children From Infancy to Adolescence, Sussex: Routledge

O’Brien, F. (2004), The Making of Mess in Art Therapy: Attachment, Trauma and the Brain, Inscape, 9:1, 2-13

Creative Block

Wow, I haven’t contributed to my blog for some time now, two months in fact. Since my last post I have moved out of my studio space at Hotel Elephant. Although this now leaves me in the same predicament I found myself in prior to the summer. It’s sad not have a space though the logistics of commuting from Bracknell to Elephant and Castle in London was proving to a bit of the strain.

Having moved all of my work out of the studio last Tuesday I started to ruminate on what I’d made these past few months and became frustrated by my lack of creative output. Given that I had access to the space for three months I kind of felt like I hadn’t made the most of the opportunity. My overriding feeling was a desire to make art. Although now without a designated space to work from I felt kind of stuck.

Given my training I started to consider how drawing out these feelings on paper might enable be to process them. With a biro in hand I started to furiously scribble blindly into my notebook, not knowing what I’d come up with. I began to envision a tubular form, something like a vein or an artery. I imagined how the tube might be transporting fluids from one part of the body to another. I then drew a tourniquet around the tube, blocking its flow and causing a build up of pressure. Evidently the drawing compounded a lot of what I was feeling inside – a creative block that I was perhaps yet to overcome. I started to think about the resonance this drawing with containment and bodily functions, themes I’d become preoccupied with in my work. Seeing as I was just about to start personal therapy again I also thought about bringing the drawing along to my next session. I wondered what G (my therapist) would make of it.