Reading response (Buechler) & Relating art therapy to Zen meditation practice

The Right Stuff: The Analyst’s Sensitivity to Emotional Nuance by Sandra Buechler deeply resonated with me and made me think of the usefulness and transformative potential of art therapy for not only our clients but ourselves as therapists. I believe art therapy may be a vital resource for therapists to help build our sensitivity to emotional nuance and free up our oftentimes restricted or clinically “homogenized” understanding of ourselves and our clients during therapy (based on the inherent restrictions of clinical language and categories).

As Buechler suggests, I believe that to be truly be attuned to our clients and be most effective in therapy, we need to be attentive to our own subtle emotional states, not just our obvious feelings. To truly be aware of our countertransference as therapists requires a radical vulnerability to access some of our more nuanced — and oftentimes uncomfortable feeling states (such as shame) — that are usually less explored in supervision and clinical training. Art therapy can be one way to effectively connect with our more multidimensional selves. 

Over the weekend I went to a group Zen meditation practice in Manhattan where the teacher gave the instruction to simply “sit with the entirety of what arises moment by moment”. I normally do not practice Zen meditation but another form of Buddhist meditation where teachers oftentimes give the instruction for students to label phenomena and certain feeling states as they arise. For example, if you are sitting in meditation and notice a feeling of sadness arise, you might silently note to yourself, “sadness”. When a shift occurs and you feel fear, you might note, “fear”. The idea is to help build present moment awareness (and acceptance through time) as we are often not aware of what we are really feeling. I have found this practice immensely useful in my life, however, this past weekend I was offered another perspective which brought new life to my practice. When I met privately with the Zen teacher (we are each given a private session to ask questions about our practice) I asked him what he thought about noting/labeling emotions and other phenomena during mediation practice. He said something to the effect that by labeling emotions, we dramatically limit the totality of our human experience. For example, by labeling a certain state “sadness” we might be overlooking the subtle qualities of shame or fear (for example) that also might be present in that moment. His statement reminded me of this article. By limiting ourselves to the obvious, we are not attuned to the full truth and emotional nuance of what is unfolding in the moment between the therapist and client. Like Zen meditation practice, art therapy can be a way to access and develop an unbounded understanding of ourselves and our clients. 

Readings Response: Leclerc & Furth

I feel like both of these authors do art therapy a disservice in the presentation of vignettes. I'm not sure if it's the manner of the presentation or the content of what they are sharing, but it really gives the feeling of art therapy as magic. For example, Leclerc shares the story of a watery water color created by a client. Something about the art is striking to the clinician who comments that it looks like the view from a train on a rainy day. And what do you know, the client had a great sad experience as a child that involved a train! What a coincidence... And from such a subjective comment, yes? This bothers me - if the counter-transference, the experience of the clinician in response to the art and the client - is driving the clinicians comments, won't it necessarily be subjective and perhaps leading for the client? The idea of the art, and the process of its creation, as one more piece of the puzzle that is the client makes sense to me, but I'm not sure how to integrate in these case examples and the theories they are illustrating - they seem to be in contradiction to what we are discussing in class and what my gut tells me.

Class Experience Response: Ink Blot Assignment

Though the Ink Blot Assignment happened a few weeks ago I had such a reaction to it that I figured it would be a good topic to post about here.

First, I should confess that I was definitely one of those people who was trying to pre-plan what I would turn my ink blot into before I even had ink down on my paper. I was so terrified by what the ink would give me I didn't trust myself as a creative enough human being to look down at smudges and see something. As someone who tends to try and control things by way of organizing and planning ahead, I hated when Professor Fagen told us not to pre-plan what we would turn our ink blots into and that she would know if we had. I took a deep breath and let go of the ideas that had been racing through my head and silently told myself that whatever it was, I would figure it out when it came.

We've talked in class about how, through activities, a clinician can get so much information about how the client approaches tasks across their lives. This activity was proof of that for me. My instinct to pre-plan and try to control something innately spontaneous and unscripted is, unfortunately, something that carries over to all aspects of my life. Furthermore, that instinct stems from my own issues of esteem. Just as I didn't trust myself to be creative enough I often don't trust that I am smart enough or capable enough to handle things as they come.

When the time came I released a few drops of ink onto my paper and folded the page. When I first looked down I very clearly saw a bug. However, I wouldn't allow myself to go down that path. While on one hand I think it's good that I kept searching to see something else beyond my first gut reaction, part of me regrets not just jumping right in and trusting my instinct-- and I keep wondering whether the fact that I didn't "settle" for the thing I saw first is a good thing or a bad thing?

If I'm honest with myself I know that I didn't move forward with the insect because I was judging my level of creativity based on what I was seeing and didn't feel like seeing a bug was good enough. I was so aware of my process and so judgmental of it. As I type this I feel like it sounds kind of silly--but it's true. I was judging myself for what I saw, upset with myself for not seeing something more interesting and so forced myself to keep searching for something else. While in the end I did see something else in the ink blot I keep wondering if that sort of pushing myself was a good or bad thing, or maybe a little bit of both? Just thought I'd share my experience in the event anyone can relate.

Q?: When is a piece done?

Hey all! So, I had the experience the other day of sitting in with my agency’s Art Therapist. My agency was hosting a sort of open-house event to showcase all of the services it offers.  As we sat in the Art Room drawing, clients came in and sat with us and began to work on their own pieces. One client began to work on a piece using watercolors. He expressed great delight in partaking in art seeing as he hadn’t done so since he was a child. He mentioned numerous times that he has a problem with messing with things too much and eventually ruining them.

At one point the client decisively put down his paintbrush and said his piece was done. The Art Therapist however would not accept this and instead encouraged the client to keep going and fill up all of the empty space on the page. As someone who also tends to continue to add flourishes until eventually I feel I’ve added too much and wish I could undo some of my additions, I related to the participant’s plight and felt annoyed with the Art Therapist for pushing him to keep going even after declared his work was done.

The whole experience got me thinking…how do you know? How do you now when to accept that it is the patient’s artwork and to respect that when they say it’s done, it’s done? How do you know when to keep pushing someone further even when they think a piece is done? I can see the value in pushing someone to explore a little more but also feel that sometimes it is just as hard to stop as it is to keep going and that should be respected. Curious if anyone has any thoughts or insights on this topic?

Art AS Therapy

I've been deeply affected by the writer and philosopher Alain de Boton's campaign for art AS therapy -- for using already existing art to help us feel better. Here's an article describing six works of art and the states they may evoke. His point is that art is not some arcane high culture project that should be difficult, but that it should be used to help us get in touch with and process our emotions.

http://thephilosophersmail.com/perspective/six-works-of-art-that-could-help-you-to-live/

Last spring, he curated an exhibit at a museum in Holland. He actually got a lot of flack saying that art should not be "used" this way, that it is demeaning to the artist, superficial and subjective. Art critics want art to be about something else -- technique, ideology, aesthetics, I guess. But Boton points to how making art is absolutely integral to humanity and that access to it should not just be for the well-educated and informed, but for everyone.

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/art-is-therapy

"Birds Nest"

Yesterday's Class was very interesting. "The bird's nest" was such a simple exercise, yet so much can be depicted. I did some research about this exercise and found a great article that shows the uses for the bird's nest exercise and origin, and talks more depth about how it relates to attachment, the critiques of it, positives, and limitations:

http://www.housecallscounseling.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Assessing-Attachment-with-the-Birds-Nest-Drawing-A-Review-of-the-Research.pdf

I went home and did this exercise with my siblings, and it was very fun to try it out with them. I would love to learn about more kinds of similar drawing assessments.

Class experience

I found that this exercise spoke a lot to where I am emotionally in my internship (I am selectively ignoring the childhood attachment reference.. :)). I work with adults with severe mental illness in a hospital setting and the other day I noticed an artwork by a patient that depicted a landscape using many intersecting bold straight lines. It looked as though he or she used a ruler to create the image. It was striking. When instructed to draw the nest today I wanted to see what it felt like to create my own object using lines in this way. But when I completed the nest, the work didn't feel right to me. I felt like it needed something else so I added the colors. I strangely felt as though by doing this I was cheating and moving away from how this particular patient saw the world that day but it wouldn't have been my own without this addition. I want so badly to understand what goes on for these individuals. However, I can't lose myself completely into that perspective, I have to keep some of my own.

Drawing App

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share with you all that I discovered a really cool drawing app called Paper on FiftyThree, if you don't know about it you should check it out. The app provides lots of tools pertaining to drawing such as sketching, painting, color mixing and so forth. I like it because you can erase the drawings if you don't like something unlike doing it on pen and paper. However, the only downside to it is there is a charge which I don't remember how much it is maybe $2.99 for the basic essentials.

I'm debating whether I should use this for a creative arts group I will co-lead with two other clinicians in my placement. The group will be starting September 25.
Being that I'm working with adolescents I think teens should become comfortable with making mistakes with their art and working around those mistakes to make something (although I'm sure that'll be a challenge). Nonetheless I would like to know what any of your opinions are on this?

I will appreciate your input.

Thanks!

Welcome to our class blog

This blog will be a place to process and discuss our discoveries during the semester.