This article presents a client's (art therapee's) conceptualisation of his experience of art psychotherapy for symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).
He was receiving treatment ...through a community adult mental health team within the UK National Health Service.
The art therapee wrote about his art psychotherapy experience, and then he and his art psychotherapist identified key themes. They related his account to art psychotherapy theory and evidence and drew out implications of his experience for art psychotherapy research.
The art therapee found that an art psychotherapy approach was helpful in these ways: having control; expressing without words; distancing from trauma; being creative and playful. He identified some aspects of the art psychotherapy which seem to be under-represented in art psychotherapy literature: the importance of the therapist's acceptance of the client's artwork for building trust; the way in which artmaking bypasses the fear of 'telling' about past abuse; and the therapeutic value of creativity and play for accessing positive aspects of the child self.
It would be valuable to gain information from other clients with C-PTSD about their experiences of art psychotherapy. Research into the identified under-explored aspects of art psychotherapy practice, the use of artmaking for C-PTSD symptom management and how artmaking can be integrated within other approaches to C-PTSD treatment would be useful.
This article describes how a client (art therapee) with symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) experienced art psychotherapy. The art therapee received therapy through a UK National Health Service community adult mental health team. The therapy sessions were on a weekly basis over an 18-month period.
The art therapee wrote about his art psychotherapy experience, and then he and his art psychotherapist identified some themes. They related his account to art psychotherapy theory and evidence and drew out implications of his experience for art psychotherapy research.
The art therapee found that an art psychotherapy approach was helpful in four main ways. It helped him to feel in control of the therapeutic process, and enabled him to express experiences of past abuse without having to use words. It gave him a sense of distance from his traumatic experiences. Finally, it helped him to connect with his creativity.
He identified some particular aspects of his experience which seem to be under-represented in art psychotherapy literature: the importance of the therapist's acceptance of the client's artwork for building trust; the way in which artmaking bypasses the fear of 'telling' about past abuse; and how creativity and playfulness in art psychotherapy sessions can enable a more positive view of oneself as a child.
The authors consider that it would be valuable to gain information from other clients with C-PTSD about their experiences of art psychotherapy and to undertake research into those aspects of the client's experience which appear not to have been explored significantly so far. Research into how artmaking can help relieve C-PTSD symptoms and how artmaking might be used within other approaches to C-PTSD treatment would also be useful.
This article describes a pilot museum-based art psychotherapy group for seven 18 to 25-year-old adults with severe mental health difficulties. We outline existing evidence for the psychotherapeutic ...value of museums and describe how we tried to harness the potential of museums as socially inclusive, accessible and inspiring venues, as well as a rich source of encounters with objects and environments which can mobilise introspection and meaning-making. We explain how we evaluated the group in order to assess therapeutic outcomes and the contribution of the museum setting to these, using quantitative data from outcome measures and qualitative data from the therapy sessions and post-therapy reflective interviews. Overall, the data suggested that the therapy group was beneficial to participants. The young adults reported that the museum setting helped them to reflect on feelings and experiences, facilitated interaction between group members, encouraged independence, fostered motivation and creativity and helped them to feel valued and connected with the world outside mental health services. These evaluation findings are an encouragement to other art psychotherapists to consider tapping into the therapeutic benefits of this rich cultural resource.
Purpose
This paper aims to describe service user experiences of an art psychotherapy group which drew on occupational therapy perspectives to help adults with severe and enduring mental health ...difficulties move forward in their recovery.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study approach incorporating outcome data was used. The data gathered comprised attendance, facilitators’ clinical notes, photographs of participant artworks, the Psychological Outcome Profiles questionnaire (PSYCHLOPS: www.psychlops.org), a post-therapy feedback form, discussion at post-therapy individual review sessions and participants’ achievements post-group.
Findings
All but one participant scored the group as “very helpful” or “helpful” and all felt that the group had helped them with the personal aims they had identified. The PSYCHLOPS questionnaire yielded a large average effect size, indicating positive change in terms of problems, functioning and well-being. Participants identified several ways in which the group was helpful, and their artwork and reflections indicate how they used the art making in the group to pursue their recovery goals. The service user experiences and outcomes suggest that this group was effective in facilitating recovery for these adults with severe and enduring mental health difficulties.
Originality/value
This group was innovative in integrating approaches from the different professional specialisms and the findings encourage further investigation into this way of working.
The call for articles for this special issue of the International Journal of Art Therapy, on the theme of art therapy with people who have experienced trauma, led to submissions from art therapists ...and other professionals working with a range of client groups in different ways and from a variety of perspectives, across the world. As a team of Guest Editors from different professional backgrounds (Ali Coles: Art Psychotherapist, Naomi Murphy: Clinical Psychologist, and Neil Winter: Barrister and former Art Therapee) we welcomed this diversity, and the selected articles challenge the profession to consider a variety of perspectives on this area of work.
This article focuses on art psychotherapists' experiences of using museum and gallery settings for group art psychotherapy.
It aims to explore the impact of museum settings for group art ...psychotherapy on the dynamics of power between therapists and service users, and between service users and the wider community.
Interview transcripts from five art psychotherapists working in museums were analysed using an interpretative phenomenological framework and arts-based methods.
Service users may feel valued and socially included by participating in art psychotherapy in museums and using museum objects can help service users to feel empowered within the therapeutic process. Museums offer service users choices, which can engender a sense of autonomy. A museum environment where therapists and service users explore together, and diverse perspectives flourish, may facilitate a flattening of hierarchies. This levelling of the potential power differential is enhanced by a sense of informality and human relating in these settings.
Conclusions
: The findings suggest that a museum environment for art psychotherapy can influence service users' experience of power and autonomy within the therapeutic relationship and within the wider social sphere.
Art psychotherapists may consider using museums to foster social inclusion, autonomy and a more equal sharing of power with service users, whilst it is recommended that art psychotherapy training courses teach about non-traditional practice and settings, such as museums, and power dynamics.
Plain-language summary
Sometimes art psychotherapy groups are run in museums and galleries rather than in traditional settings such as hospitals or community clinics. This article describes a research project exploring how using museums (including galleries with collections) for art psychotherapy groups can affect the group members. It focusses on how these museum environments can affect the power relationships between therapists and service users, and between service users and the wider community. Five art psychotherapists were interviewed about their work in museum settings. The data from the interviews was analysed using a variety of methods, including art-based methods.
The research found that museum-based art psychotherapy can affect power relationships between therapists and service users and the wider community in several ways. Service users may feel more valued by being in a museum than in a more usual therapy setting, and connecting with museum objects can help facilitate the therapy process. Museums provide people with choices about how they want to interact with the collections and to move through the spaces. Therapists and service users can explore alongside each other and a wide range of responses can be expressed and experienced, helping to encourage a sense of equal worth. Finally, a sense of informality in a museum setting and its connection to the community can also help to level the power difference between therapists and service users.
The article encourages art psychotherapists to explore using museums in their practice to encourage a more equal power relationship between therapists and service users, and to help service users to feel valued and socially included. It also encourages art psychotherapy training courses to include teaching about power dynamics and the use of museums. It suggests that more research into certain aspects of museum-based art psychotherapy identified in this research, such as increased informality and humour, would be valuable.
This research aimed to investigate our experiences of facilitating museum-based art psychotherapy groups for adults with complex mental health difficulties, identifying key themes to help inform the ...practice of other art psychotherapists working in museum settings. Drawing on concepts of tacit knowledge, action research, reflexivity and arts-based research, we engaged in structured discussions and reflective art-making in three areas of focus, and then carried out a simple thematic analysis of the data. The areas of focus were: the role of museum objects within the art psychotherapy process; the movement between and within the private artmaking space and the public spaces of the museum; and the potential impact of the public nature of the museum. The themes we identified relate to familiar theoretical concepts such as containment, mentalisation, transitional objects and space, attachment and joint attention. Our research led us to challenge our feeling that we were 'breaking the rules' of 'orthodox' group art psychotherapy practice by working outside the framework of a traditional therapy room. We conclude that there is potential value in this particular way of 'flexing' our practice and encourage other art psychotherapists to explore museum-based work and share their experiences.
Plain-language summary
This article explores the issues involved in running art psychotherapy groups for people with long term mental health difficulties in museums instead of NHS outpatient centres. It is written from the perspective of three art psychotherapists who examine their own experience of running these types of groups. The research gives insights into the opportunities and challenges of working in this way.
We started by agreeing on three specific questions: what significance might the museum objects hold for the service users, how might physically moving between a private art-making room and the public space of the museum impact on the service users, and what are the potential issues involved in delivering art psychotherapy in a public building rather than the more private space of an NHS building?
For each of the three areas we met twice. At the first session we discussed our experience of running the museum-based groups in relation to that area, and at the second we used artmaking to expand our discussion. We recorded and transcribed our discussions and analysed the transcripts. The analysis produced several themes, which we then related to existing psychotherapeutic theory. We used a simple research process that helped us to think about what we do as art psychotherapists and why - a process which other art psychotherapists could use for their own research.
We conclude that there are different issues and opportunities when working in museums compared with working in NHS buildings. The work challenges traditional expectations of how art psychotherapy is carried out and requires creativity and flexibility on the part of the therapist. We found that using museums for art psychotherapy was an interesting and valuable extension to our work. Other art psychotherapists who wish to run groups in museums may find our insights useful.
This heuristic, art-based study looks at how experiences of time might affect the practice of art psychotherapy. The author's art-making related to various ways of experiencing time which have ...particular relevance to art psychotherapy practice: presence, marking time, being in time, containing time and making time. The research yielded three main insights. Firstly, thinking about time as intimately linked to space seems to be a valuable perspective on therapeutic work, in terms of: considering therapeutic presence as a spatial 'ground' for the temporal marking of moments; imagining and attuning to the shape and gestural quality of a moment; and creating 'containers' in which to hold client and therapist in the 'now'. Secondly, an existing theoretical framework of different organisational experiences of time provided a valuable perspective on how using different art materials affected how time was experienced, and suggests that further research applying this framework to art-making within art psychotherapy could be productive. Finally, this study can be seen as evidence for the value of heuristic, art-based research in informing art psychotherapy practice, and suggests that a therapist's personal sense of temporal agency, of 'being time', enhances the capacity to work with experiences of time within therapy.
This article reports on the evaluation of an online art psychotherapy group for adults who were under the care of a UK National Health Service community mental health team. The group aimed to help ...participants to move on in their recovery journeys, and used photographs and videos of objects and artworks from two local museums as inspiration. Participants completed questionnaires and gave written feedback which was used to assess changes before and after participating in the group, and to find out how the participants felt about the group.
The group consisted of six sessions, once a week. Five women participated in it, and four of these contributed towards the evaluation. Participants' sense of wellbeing after each session was high, and recovery scores improved after participating in the group. They valued feeling supported most of all, but wanted the group to have been longer. Half of them liked working online better than face-to-face, and all found the museum objects helpful and enjoyed the artmaking. All group members reported that the group helped them to understand their recovery journey and express their emotions better.
In conclusion, this group contributed towards participants' mental health recovery and the museum focus was valued by them. The evaluation findings suggest that it would be worth researching this way of working.
Whilst there is evidence of the value of museums for art psychotherapy, evidence about online groups to improve mental health recovery is still scarce. The aim was to assess the impact on mental health recovery of an online museum-based recovery-oriented art psychotherapy group.
The group was designed to help adults under the care of a UK community mental health team with their journey of mental health recovery.
The group consisted of six, weekly online sessions and used the collections of two local museums. Quantitative outcome measures and qualitative feedback were used to evaluate the group.
Five women participated in the group, and four in the evaluation. Generic wellbeing after each session was rated 4 out of 5. Participants scored higher in the Questionnaire about the Process of Recovery (33.25 vs. 42) and a Visual Numerical Recovery Scale (3 vs. 3.25) after participating in the group. Feeling supported was what participants liked most and found most helpful, and they liked the short duration of the group least. Half found the online setting preferable to face-to-face, and all felt that the museum focus was inspirational, and enjoyed the artmaking. Participants gained a better understanding of their recovery journey and were able to express their emotions better.
This group contributed towards participants' mental health recovery and the museum focus was valued by them.
The evaluation findings encourage further exploration of this way of working.
This paper explores how the writing of art therapy clinical notes can be a creative practice and discusses implications for associated therapeutic work. The author argues that the process of writing ...clinical notes, as well as the aesthetic qualities of the notes which are produced, can be considered as part of the wider artistry of the art therapist. Through reflections on her own experiences of clinical note writing, the author describes how a creative approach to this activity might benefit the therapeutic process and be helpful to other professionals involved in a client's care.
