Back to the Basics

I enjoy my job so much more when I'm using art with my students. Art therapy offers new ways of looking at problems and solutions, and it feels more interesting, more helpful. But for some reason, sometimes I fall out of practice. I begin encouraging my students to sit in the comfy chair rather than at the art-making table. I think it feels safer to me, and I think it protects my students from having to get out of their comfort zone and try something new.

But recently, I started Brene Brown's Living Brave Semester. And one of the "Arenas," (Arena = area of life where you want to practice courage and authenticity) that I identified was: I want to be a braver counselor. A brave counselor is one who is present, truthful, and willing to use her gifts, skills, and wisdom in order to help students foster necessary acceptance and change.

How does a person get back in the arena once she has left it? Perhaps the answer is returning to the fundamentals and beginning to put them into practice.




What are the "Basics" of art therapy?
  • Trusting the process and believing that the Process will always show up - no matter what
  • Owning the belief that art-making is meaning-making, and that we are here to create and contribute
  • Meeting the student where he is
  • Creating a nonjudgmental space where "failure" becomes a valued part of the learning process
  • Having art supplies prepared and available
  • Practicing the willingness to take small risks through our art-making-- in the hope that we will develop a friendly attitude toward playful exploration and risk-taking in our daily lives
  • Recalling some of the essential Art Therapy intervention strategies and regarding these strategies as a starting place or fodder for intuitive modification.
    1. Mad, Sad, Glad, Scared
    2. Create a Safe Place
    3. Trauma Tree
    4. Creative Lifelines
    5. Scribble Chase
    6. Mandalas
    7. Magazine Photo Collage
    8. Family Sculpture
    9. Person-in-Tree Assessment
    10. How I see myself/ How others see me
    11. Bridging Emotions
    12. Bridge Drawing
    13. Haptic Self Symbol
    14. Art Journaling
    15. Artful acts of kindness
What other Art Therapy "Basics" would you include?

In making the list of some of what I consider to be essential intervention strategies, I realize I haven't done formal posts on some of these directives. It's good to have some immediate inspiration for future posts!



Begin Again

Greetings! For a couple of years, I switched The Art Therapy Catablog to private after receiving some criticism by one of the "greats" in the field. In retrospect, I think it's fair to say that my reaction was a severe over-reaction, born of my fear of being visible and vulnerable-- of"being in the arena."

The sad effect of my public blog going private was that I stopped contributing to it. I love having a space to record what I'm learning, and I love sharing my thoughts and ideas with interested readers. Being in the field of counseling and art therapy can be difficult and discouraging at times, and we need one another to cope, to grow, to inspire, to connect.

So, with that-- I'm re-establishing this blog as a place to learn and grow and share together. Welcome!