In
due course, I was able to move from the second shift to the day
shift. Being on the day shift gave me a wider diversity of things to
do besides playing Pinochle. There were more activities for the
patients in the daytime and more of a need for the aides to take them
here and there in the hospital.
 |
| Art Therapy with children |
One
day I was told to escort some patients to “Art Therapy”.
Immediately on hearing “Art Therapy” I was intrigued. I had taken
some Art and Psychology courses at the university, but I had never
heard of using art as a kind of therapy and was curious to see what
it was all about. I brought a few of our patients to the Art Therapy
room. While they were there I had to wait for them, so. I had a
chance to look around and watch what was going on pay particular
attention to the Art Therapist. I didn't talk to him that first day
and when the time was up I took the patients back to the ward.
 |
| Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night |
The
next time I brought some patients to the Art Therapy room I
introduced myself to the Art Therapist and asked him if he minded
talking to me about what he did with the patients and how he used art
as a therapeutic device. He was surprised, I suppose, by an aide
showing an interest in his work so I told him that I had a B.A., did
some drawing myself and thought the idea of art therapy interesting.
After that, whenever I brought patients to the room, he was delighted
to show me their work and explain how they often expressed their
fears and anxieties symbolically in the forms and colors they chose
or in magazine or other pictures they might choose for a collage.
He
explained that he didn't “interpret” the pictures, that the
process itself was therapeutic and sometimes cathartic. He would also
let the patients talk about their pictures and how they felt about
their work. The picture on the right is pretty self explanatory about the boys
feelings towards his parents. The therapist might nudge the
conversation towards exploring why the boy is so angry with them.
This process could help patients to resolve some of their issues and
improve enough to leave the hospital.
We
talked about symbols and how they work in the sub-conscious mind and
can be difficult to interpret. Some symbols are thought to be
universal, as in Carl Jung's archetypes, and can be
interpreted fairly consistently. One of the most easily recognizable
archetypes is the Marlboro Man. He represents the virtues of
masculinity: strength, independence, self-reliance. Furthermore, he
is the warrior and hero of myth descended from Odysseus and Achilles.
The highly successful Star Wars movie series owes much of its
popularity to archetypal symbols. The most endearing one, of course,
being the Sage personified or caricatured by Yoda. Other symbols can
be highly personalized and may not even be understood on a conscious
level by the individual creating them. Discussing an individual's
work can lead to a surfacing of the symbol into the conscious mind
and contribute to an understanding of the issue(s) that led to the
patient's being in the hospital.
An
idea began to germinate in my mind. I started thinking about the
possibility of going into a graduate school program in special needs
program for primary school children with emotional problems.
To
be continued...
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