I’d imagine its impossible to write a blog on the topic of art and mental health without eventually having to consider the practice of art as therapy. So I’ve come to Belfast his week to hook up with some old friends and to take part in some of the Northern Ireland Group for Art Therapy’s summer school.
I have two aims for my time here
1) Find out what Art Therapy is and how it is practiced
2) Take part in some practical workshops and see if it works
So far the most compelling presentation on the practice of Art Therapy has been with a lady called Karen Huckvale who practices as an art therapist within the NHS in Devon and who is also an artist. Karen clearly approaches her work from a Jungian perspective as she made constant references to alchemy during her presentation. Jung saw artistic processes as accessing the subconscious through symbols and storytelling and thought that most human struggles originated in material stored in the subconscious.
She told a captivating story about an eleven year old girl with an abusive family history, with whom she had spent 30 hours separating glitter and sand in a process that seemed to be symbolic of transition and recovery. Her role as therapist was as a listener and a guide with the materials and art making acting as prompts for discussion and disclosure. This had clearly been a relationship where the development of trust was crucial with the art making providing a way of focusing feelings and images and providing shared goals.
Yesterday I also did my third three hour art therapy workshop with a group of six other women. I’ve been finding these sessions pretty tough going. Its amazing how four years of arts training has in some way damaged my most basic ability to make mess with materials and to be primitively and frantically creative. I could not in any way say that what I have produced has been part of my art practice….. but it has been oddly therapeutic. The pieces that I have made have been about my own experiences of my body, particularly focusing on heart and lungs. This has been stimulated by our workshop leader Saadia Parvez who has been leading us in a number of mediative and breathing techniques as well as more artistic and pictorial processes. Yesterday as a group of six women we all held hands and let out the most liberating and earth shattering scream as a way of rediscovering our voices and connecting with the energy in the group.
I’ve uploaded some of the images that I have produced so far. I feel a strange kind of embarrassment in doing this as they seem so naïve and unaccomplished!! But its also wonderful to rediscover that not everything that I produce has to be perfect and that not everything that I am not proud of has to remain a secret!!
