FInal: Mock Session

Panda had a rough time living in my backpack for a few days :(

I provided colored pencils and oil pastels and copy paper and I asked my boyfriend, M, to draw an animal that he could identify with. My idea was to encourage him to create a character for his animal and create a story about the character like we did with our model magic animals. I noticed that the gravitated toward the pencils. After drawing a detailed outline for several minutes, he asked if he could use pictures as a drawing reference. I thought it was interesting that this was something that came up in class, and it was one of the first things that happened in our session. In that moment, I realized that it might have put his mind more at ease if I had let him know ahead of time that he could look up pictures if he needed to. I also remembered how nerve racking it was to draw in class the first few times, and I had to take myself back to that time to understand more where he was coming from in the “session”.

As his panda was coming together, I noticed that the panda bore a resemblance to M. The hat and socks that the panda was wearing were things that he would normally wear. Because I have a previous relationship with him, I knew that the shirt and sneakers were things that he doesn’t have, but would like to have. (The shoes were designed by Kanye West and authentic pairs are currently selling for upwards of $5,000.)

Once he finished drawing his panda, I asked him to come up with a name, place, hobby, and best friend for his panda. He decided that his panda's name is Panda lived in Brooklyn and spent most of his time eating vegetarian food and shopping for sneakers. Again I noticed that some of the characteristics were true for M, but some were things that he wants to do but can’t at this time in his life.

This turned into a great self-portrait exercise, but I wanted to go deeper than that. I decided to ask him to explore conflict with Panda and his best friend Koala (a girl character). I asked him, “Have Panda and Koala ever disagreed or hurt one another’s feelings?” He said yes, and made up a story about their relationship. At this point, I felt like we were finally moving away from things that were real and into the metaphor. In the story, Koala had hurt Panda’s feelings. I asked how they resolved their conflict and he said that Koala apologized and that’s all it took to make Panda feel better and want to be friends again.

Doing this activity with someone I have such a deep relationship felt really strange because I knew things about M as his girlfriend that I wouldn’t have known as a clinician. I also think that as his girlfriend, it was difficult for me to see any other metaphor besides something related to us as a couple. Honestly, I chose to work with him because it was convenient and I didn't consider how our relationship would impact the session. I definitely learned how relationship, or lack thereof, plays a role in a session.

Before we started, I let him know that I would be writing about the experience. I wanted to make sure I had his informed consent. At first, when he was just drawing  and coloring he seemed to forget about it and immerse himself in the process. As we started to get more into the story, and he felt it was too silly and absurd, he began to be more conscious of the conversation. He asked me several times what I was going to write about him, and how detailed I would be about the story. In some ways, I think that got in the way of him being open about his character.