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| A felted heart |
Let me introduce my client to you. He is around ten years of age and attends Primary School. He
is a fairly serious child with a worried and sometimes withdrawn expression. Occasionally I see an infectious smile that
lights up his face. His sense of humour
is sophisticated. He is smart. His eyes
are soft and brown. He appears awkward
in his body.
He has experienced terrifying episodes of family violence by
his father and step father – having been physically assaulted and
witnessing his mother being injured by his father, step father and his
brother. It would be fair to say that he
has experienced terror a number of times and feared for his mother’s life and
his own many times. He has been
subjected to repeated experiences of terror and powerlessness.
His relationship with his father has been a source of pain
for him. A year ago he
rang to say hello to his Dad on Father's Day. His father
responded by saying he did not know anyone by his name and hung up. My client
responded by hitting his head against the wall and drawing an image in grey
lead pencil. The image was set in a
graveyard with his father as the grim reaper.
He was kneeling before his father who had stabbed him through the heart
with a knife. This image described the impact
from his father’s rejection and cruelty.
Unfortunately due to the family violence they have had to
move home many times to ensure their safety.
He has changed school a number of times.
He started at the current school at the beginning of the year. He has generally been a popular child and at
previous schools he made friends easily.
He has struggled to fit in at his current school which is in an area
of disadvantage. He explained that he had to wait to be invited by
children to participate in their games. He often feels alone. He is struggling to
survive in the playground at lunchtimes and recess with repeated episodes of
bullying, exclusion and loneliness.
When I first met him he appeared sad and withdrawn. He struggled with eye contact and would
occasionally look at me from under his long fringe. Despite this, when I addressed him directly his
responses displayed a sense of warmth and openness. He displayed an avid
interest in the world and showed an intelligence well beyond his years. He is a
talented musician and artist.
His mother is a supportive and strong parent. She has experienced childhood sexual abuse and trauma from
familv violence. Addiction has been an
issue since she was in her teens. Despite her own trauma she has maintained
strong relationships with her children and is a protective, warm and creative
parent. She has made big changes over
the last few years that have improved her mental health and safety. She verbalizes her own personal growth and
states that she loves ‘the feeling of healing’.
She describes healing as similar to putting together the pieces of a
jigsaw. Each time she finds a piece of
the puzzle she symbolically adds it to her story and feels a deep sense of
relief and healing.
I have had 5 sessions with this young man focusing on
developing a trusting therapeutic relationship and exploration of different art
materials. He is a very competent drawer
and at the beginning said he preferred working in pencil. Due to his level of competence and confidence
with art I have offered him a range of materials. In his second session he requested clay and enjoyed
using the therapeutic space to explore the material. He often invites me to create my own art
alongside him.
At the beginning of the session he often looks sad and
withdrawn. He gradually relaxes and emotionally
opens up after playing with the art materials. When we were using clay he struggled with
the material. I was also having a
particularly difficult time with the clay and made an oval object that he named
the ‘holy potato.’ It was such a dull
piece of work that I pretended to be an art critic and acclaimed the miraculous
nature of this art piece. He joined in
the play and extended the silliness of the drama until we both were laughing
heartily about the ‘holy potato’ artwork.
He seems to enjoy laughing with me and after this session, he uses
humour in most sessions.
He has the ability to intuitively know what materials he
needs to use. I encourage him to request
the materials and art activities that
feel right for him at the beginning of each session . I introduced him to felt in the third
session. When I have attempted other
interventions with paint he has refused and asked me to get the wool so that he
can make felt.
I have enjoyed watching him make his felt pieces. He has learnt to manage the resistance of the
wool fibres when he lays out the wool.
He articulated that the harder we pulled the more the wool
resisted. He has learnt to gently pull the
wool from the fleece tops with minimal force.
We were able to talk about letting go of the desperate longing for
connection and to accept that often in relationships people can feel consumed
and pull away from this type of connection. He states that he likes the gentle
nature of the wool and how it responds to his gentleness. I imagine it is very different to a lot of
his relationships that have been based on violence and coercion. He is always gentle, considered and calm as
he lays out the wool. He chooses colours
carefully and wets the wool and invites me to help him massage the fibres.
He particularly enjoys the fulling of the wool which locks
the fibres together. I take him outside
and encourage him to express his anger by throwing the felt at a wall. He likes to take a run up and throw the wet
felt as hard as he can. He has stated that the sound of the wool hitting the
wall is particularly satisfying. It
makes a loud ‘thwop’ sound. I use my voice to encourage this expression of
anger. I say things like ‘Let it out’ in
a directive but playful way. He takes this process very seriously. We continue
till he or I say something funny and he feels relaxed. I voice the importance of releasing anger and
that we all experience this emotion. We
talk openly about the main ways that people express anger. Following family violence children seem to do this one
of three ways. The first is by bullying
others, the second is by being the victim of bullies and the third is by self
harming. He acknowledges that he usually chooses to hurt himself.
In the most recent session, he told me about an event that
had occurred at school earlier in the week.
He had made a new friend and they were making some sculptures in the
school yard. Three children came over
and wrecked their creations. He felt so
angry that he picked up a hard plastic stake and whacked it really hard on the
ground. When this did not fully release
his anger he began to hit himself across the face with this stick. He showed me the substantial bruising on his
face that was self inflicted.
I asked him about the
materials he wanted to use and he gently requested wool. He reminded me about a previous interest he
had expressed in making a three dimensional shape like a felted ball. I had forgotten to bring in the stuffing to
go in the centre so we made do with wrapping bubble wrap into a ball that we
then covered in tape to hold it together.
(I have previously
made these balls myself and know that they require a different technique than
our usual process. It is far more challenging than the technique he is used too.
However his measured response made me think he could manage this process. I had imagined
this process was possibly well suited to expressing pain, grief and loss. The felted object is often about the size of
a human heart. When the ‘heart’ is first covered in felt it requires very
gentle massaging of the wool to join the cracks and crevice resulting from
folding a flat piece of felt around the object. It is a slower process that
involves repair and the heart is held in the palm of the hand and massaged very
slowly, gently and carefully.)
I sensed he was wanting to express some of his internal pain
– possibly sadness, loss and grief that lay beneath his anger. I also sensed shame from his traumatic past and
self harming behaviours. He slowly laid out the wool, choosing three tones of
green and wrapped it around the bubble wrap parcel. I took the opportunity to describe this as
his heart. I explained that he was
holding his heart in his hands and that he needed to be gentle and loving with it. I explained that the secret of this process was
to immediately repair the holes or cracks that appeared by massaging gently.
He took the felt heart in his hands and diligently looked
for every crack. He used one finger in a
circular motion to slowly and respectfully massage these wounds till they were
healed and the wool fibres were meshed together and the surface smooth . The room was quiet with only the sounds of
our breath. He was absorbed in the process.
His gaze was completely focused on his heart. His breathing was at first shallow but
gradually became deeper. He held his
heart tenderly in his hands. Once he had repaired the wounds, one hand cupped
his heart and the other slowly massaged it.
The soapy wool allowed his hand to glide smoothly over the warm fibres. As his witness, the intensity of these
moments was overwhelming. I felt his
pain and his desperate desire to heal his wounded heart. I felt emotion wash over me and felt the need
to shed some tears for this young boys pain.. I considered if I should acknowledge
the moving nature of this by crying but decided that my tears could be a
distraction. I sat in silence holding
back tears, feeling deeply connected with him and his pain. We were seated on the floor and I was at
right angles to him. I occasionally
spoke some words trying to name his feelings – the wounds, his desire to heal,
his sadness and pain and the way he so tenderly held his own heart in his
hands. I named the sense of smoothness
as his hands glided over the wool and soap suds. I described how it neatly fitted into his
hand so he could protect it. I talked of
his courage and how the bubblewrap gave his heart an inner strength. He said, “it feels heavy to me.” At this
moment he seemed to exude both strength and fragility. I wondered whether this was the first time he
was able to lovingly hold his painful feelings and to gently care for his own wounds
and grief without hurting himself.
He looked up at me, concerned and said, “Are we going to
throw it against the wall?” I said that this was his heart and we were most
certainly not going to damage it by
throwing it against the wall . He was visibly
relieved. I was pleased that he had made a choice not to harm his heart.
Towards the end of the session, I told him that I had found
this session very moving and an honour to sit with him in this space. I
expressed that I had almost cried and he also said that it was very emotional
for him. I asked whether we could talk
to his mum about what had occurred. He
agreed.
We were still sitting on the floor when his mother came in
and sat on the couch. I explained that
we had made his heart and how he had lovingly massaged the cracks. The heart held both his pain and his
hope. His mother covered her face and
began to cry sensing the deep significance of this session. As I explained I held his heart showing her
how she too could hold his pain by massaging the heart. When she recovered her composure, she took
his heart gently in her hands and massaged it silently as the tears ran down
her cheeks. As her voice quivered with
emotion, she looked at him and said she loved him deeply and would do anything
to help him with this pain.
We were able to have a conversation about the deep pain he
experiences particularly at school and the ways he expresses this. He said he wanted to stop hurting
himself. We made plans to meet with his
school to discuss ways of keeping him emotionally and physically safer during
recess and lunchtimes.
He left the session with his heart still cupped in his
hands. As he was leaving, he used his hands as a scale testing its weight with
an up and down motion and said ‘my heart feels lighter. ‘
His mother turned to me and made a silent acknowledgement of
this poignant comment by holding her hands in a gesture of prayer and bowing
her head in my direction.
Something profound happened today.
A mother symbolically
held her sons wounded heart in her hands. She felt his pain and tried to help him to
heal.
A young boy managed to feel his deep pain and then chose to
self heal rather than self harm.
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