Creative arts therapy is a way of expressing oneself using non-verbal methods like painting and performing. Such psychotherapy has proved successful across all age groups and sections of society, including schools, care homes, hospitals, and prisons.
“For a lot of people, verbal communication is not so easy at the best of times,” says Dr Deborah Green, head of creative arts therapies at Whitecliffe College, New Zealand’s leading private research institute. “But studies have shown that the part of the brain that manages language essentially goes offline when experiencing an extreme event or trying to recall trauma.”
Zambia-born Deborah has witnessed more than her share of trauma having grown up in South Africa during Apartheid and the AIDS epidemic. Already involved with the theatre, Deborah began to use performance as a way to work with disadvantaged communities and soon realised that she really needed to be trained in counselling: “We were inviting people into these theatrical spaces to explore life threatening issues and that opened a lot of emotional shift.”
Deborah furthered her creative arts therapy studies in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, finishing up in Christchurch “slap bang in the middle of the earthquakes” where her experience with trauma stood her in good stead.
“I did a lot of work during the quakes – particularly with young people – which drew upon that approach,” Deborah tells Verve. “The process of using the arts harks all the way back to a lot of early indigenous cultures. There is now the recognition that when you work with the body, you work very close to the emotions.”
DISCOVERING YOURSELF
“Working through – and with – art can be a great way of telling or discovering your story,” says Maggie van den Heuvel, one of four art therapists at Kidz Therapy in Auckland. “Art therapy helps you process, recognise and change thinking patterns within the safety of the art materials. It’s a great tool to use to help people to find their inner world. Working in this way with children is very natural and brings about amazing results.”
Maggie begins most sessions with a body scan and the question ‘how do we feel today?’ Once the client is “present and grounded”, the creating begins. “Usually, the client will have a project to work on – most art therapeutic projects take weeks to finish,” she continues. “They may be directive projects – ‘draw yourself as a circle in the middle of your paper. Then draw a circle for everyone in your life and place them in a way that reflects your closeness to them’ – or it can be a very symbolic work, like ‘make a tree that represents your worries. Be mindful of how it looks, the type of tree, the season’ .”
Other times, free artwork sessions allow clients to work on their own ideas. Once the projects are finished, discussions are held around what they resemble, how difficult – or not – they were to create, if changes are required, and if so, how they would be implemented.
“If I notice I’m working with a client who’s really tight in their body, I might go there first to relieve the tension,” says Deborah. “However, for some it can be overwhelming. So, we might start with the visual arts, play with that a little bit, then I’ll invite them to lift that off the page and into the body in very gentle, subtle ways. By the time we finish, we’re actually moving the body. A lot of our form of psychotherapy is inviting people to be playful and find alternative ways of experiencing themselves and their world.”
Deborah sometimes utilises nature, too, inviting clients outside to “arrange leaves or stones in a way that moves the body in different ways”.
Creative arts therapies can also work well in tandem with traditional practice – registered psychotherapist Luba Kabanov incorporates arts therapy into some of her sessions. “When I tried art therapy for the first time, I realised that sometimes words are simply not enough,” says the private practitioner. “Creative arts therapies can also help to ‘trick’ our logical mind and uncover beliefs, convictions, and repressed feelings that we may not be able to access otherwise.”
Luba also uses metaphoric associative cards – or MAC – with each one adorned with an image or metaphor, such as a tree, a bridge, or a bird, all without pre-set meanings.
“MAC is mainly used to facilitate introspection, self-reflection, and communication,” she says. “Clients select a card that resonates, which helps them gain insights into their feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. It’s often easier for clients to talk about characters on a card than to talk about themselves, but the beauty of the cards is that we are always talking about ourselves. Using MAC can be easier for people who don’t like to draw.”
While those that study creative arts therapies predominantly come from arts and mental health backgrounds, such skills are not prerequisites. Deborah says that what is essential is lived experience, meaning students are mostly mature ones. One such Whitecliffe student is Auckland artist and photographer Paul Nathan who hopes to eventually split his time between painting and practising therapy.
“I couldn’t think of anything I would rather do, and they are such a complementary fit,” he says. “At this point, I’m thinking I’d like to focus on prisoners or palliative care as potential areas of practice. I know what I have gained on an emotional level from my own painting practice, and I wanted to help.”
As a painter, Paul obviously presumed art to be the logical medium to “explore a therapeutic treatment”. “But surprisingly,” he adds, “it appears far more helpful to look at other techniques where there may be a resistance which may represent a blockage – dance and movement seem particularly interesting to me at the moment.”
“In order to have a really good life, you need to be flexible, alive, and spontaneous,” says Deborah. “And to improvise, you know, meet life as it comes. So much of the work that we do is built from that absolute baseline.”
FINDING MEANING
“Normally I am not allowed to share stories, but for this one I have consent,” says Maggie when asked about any particularly meaningful experiences. “I was working with a girl in a palliative setting who was nearing the final stages of her disease. While making a life book of memories for her family, one of the themes that kept coming up was courage – courage of accepting her fate, letting go of her family, and of finding peace.”
The girl told Maggie that she wished she had the superpower of courage which led to the pair creating superhero costumes. “She made a pink one for herself, and one for her mum, dad, and sister so that they could have courage after she was gone.
“A month after my client had passed on, I received a parcel from her mother containing a cape that she had made for me.”
I ask Deborah if the purpose of the work is to get clients to the point where they are finally able to verbalise their emotions.
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I am less convinced about the supremacy of conscious, cognitive language in the mind. Some of my clients have made their biggest breakthroughs while remaining at the creative level and in the body.”
Deborah says that clients’ artworks are often dark, and I ask if creations becoming more positive in nature is a sign of emotional or spiritual healing. But again, it works both ways.
“I can become quite anxious about people that are wanting everything to be beautiful and happy and shiny, because that’s often quite suppressive,” she says. “We’ve got to be able to feel fury and disgust and hatred and everything that goes with being complex creatures.
“I will get clients to the point where they’re able to truly find a container for that dark stuff, to express it with me.”
Breakthroughs manifest by way of transformations such as the appearance of a gold leaf on a clay work, a streak of yellow on an otherwise black canvas, or the body loosening in a certain way.
“There’s almost like a purging, or catharsis,” adds Deborah. “We’re not so much trying to heal, but give blessings to those feelings. After all, we all carry wounds.”
