TOUCH IN ART THERAPY IS "OVER" LOOKED

I recently stumbled across an interesting book titled ‘Touching Space, Placing Touch’ by Dr Mark Paterson which was written in 2012. Dr Paterson is visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.  His PhD in 2003 was in Human Geography exploring the relationship between space and touch using a phenomenological framework.  In 2006 he was on research leave in Sydney Australia writing a book titled ‘The senses of touch.’ This current book was published in 2012

In a series of edited chapters Dr Amanda Bingley has a chapter titled “Touching Space in Hurt and Healing: Exploring Experiences of Illness and Recovery through Tactile Art.”  Imagine my excitement. I devour her article. Amanda is not an art therapist but she could be.  I google her to see what has led her to this paper.  She is a lecturer in health research at the University of Lancaster in the faculty of health and medicine.  She has come from the world of cultural geography and her PhD in 2002 explored the influence of gender identity and very early infant and childhood sensory experience on the adult sensory perception of landscape.  She has an interest in homeopathy and evaluating art therapy methodologies.  Suddenly I do not feel so alone in my research interests.

She identifies herself as an outsider by emphasizing and defining a term that is integral to our language - artmaking.  There is art and artmaking in art therapy probably to delineate the process and object.  Amanda discusses the importance of artmaking – the sense of touch at the connection between skin surface and tactile art medium.  She sees this as the link between the inner self and outer world.  She quotes Lusebrink (2004) who suggests that using the tactile/haptic senses activates emotional experiences for the artist.  Amanda goes on explain that this knowledge is not really new.  Other therapists such as Klein, Winnicott and Jung recognised the power of tactile exploration  through three dimensional therapies such as sandplay (Kalff, 1980; Lowenfeld, 1979) and play therapy (Axline, 1969).  All of a sudden I want to know a lot more about Amanda Bingley.  How is it that she can not only see but sense what the field of art therapy does not?

I continue to read her chapter and I come across this quote, “An important aspect of artmaking as a therapeutic activity lies in the nature and function of touch in the physical process of exploring and expressing embodied experience through the medium of art materials.  Tactile stimulation in therapeutic art making is, however, overlooked and a gap remains in theoretical and empiricial knowledge, about its role, despite an increase in interdisciplinary literature, for example in the sociology of health and illness, social anthropology, geography and art therapy.......”(pg 72).

I sit with this for a little while and a light globe moment occurs. The profession of art therapy is like a dynasty that has bought two families together through marriage.  The art families and the therapy families.  A vast majority of art therapists are visual artists and because of this we ‘know’ the strength of art to express emotions and heal ourselves.  However as art therapists we OVERLOOK the tactile.  Of course we ‘over’ look – we are seduced by the visual.  As artists we cannot help but be infatuated by the completed art piece or the observation of the artist creating.  We are visual creatures.  Our ability to see visual possibilities is what sets us apart from other professions.  We use this to drive our creativity and our therapeutic work.  Our hands and tactile senses interpret our visual fantasies.

I did not come from the art side of the family.  I have always had a passion for the arts and created art throughout my life. However coming from a working class family, I was encouraged to use my skills to get a ‘decent’ job.  I therefore gravitated to the therapy side of the family where a ‘decent’ income was possible. Throughout my twenties and thirties I grieved a missed opportunity to express myself through art.  It was only as an adult, as my children were growing up and I was approaching midlife that I decided I had an inner artist that required release.  After a respectable career  in health (using art) with rural communities, I decided to do what had always attracted me – art therapy.  I was inviting my artist self into my adult world.  I could still earn an income but could also justify my need to create.

I have long recognised the power of artmaking in my personal development.  I have strong childhood memories of creating sculptures from household objects and using clay to sculpt very expressive figures.  My art was always disturbing to friends and families.  No one ever said they liked it.  Without encouragement, I decided that I was not an artist.  Consequently I did not go to ‘art school’.  In some ways my lack of training allows me to ‘see’ and ‘feel’ artmaking somewhat differently.

My lack of training in art seeing and looking means that I perhaps  do not ‘over’ look the tactile. I use my visual and body senses to see and feel the effects of art.  I never thought my deficits in the art world would ever lead me down an exciting path of researching the touch basis of artmaking.   Amanda is perplexed by how little discussion there is about the sensory processes  - especially touch – in the arena of therapeutic artmaking.  She acknowledges  a well established literature base that focuses on examining and applying psychoanalytic theories and measuring its effectiveness with various populations of clients.  (Perhaps the art side of the family is wanting to try and impress the therapy side of the family?)  She suggests that there is growing interest in the creative arts and neuroscience and specifically the cognitive behavioural therapeutic movement.  But specifically touch in tactile arts therapies remains unexplored.  She quotes Dr Paterson and believes that the art therapy world mirrors a cultural hierarchy of senses that places sight before touch. 

And that my friends is the topic of another blog....

 

Paterson, M & Dodge, M., 2012. Touching Space and Placing Touch. Ashgate Publishing, Surrey.

Chapter  3:  Touching space in hurt and healing: Exploring experiences of illness and recovery through tactile art. Amanda Bingley

 

Axline, V.M. 1969. Play Therapy. New York: Balantine.

Kalff, D.M. 1980. Sandplay. Boston, MA: Sigo Press.

Lowenfeld, M. 1979. The World Technique. London: Allen & Unwin.

FROM SELF HARMING TO SELF HEALING

A felted heart

 

Yesterday I had one of the most profound experiences as an art therapist.   

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.

A FELT SENSE

Felt just warms my heart!



A felted figure I created in 2009

My interest in three dimensional work stemmed from my Masters Thesis which explored felt and trauma.  I consider felt a three dimensional medium.  Wool can hold form and even flat pieces of felt have a textured surface that makes them different to paper. 

The process of felting engages the senses.  It encourages tactile exploration of natural materials.  It takes individual fibres and transforms them into a fabric.  It involves laying out wool fibres in three layers which requires some patience and attention to detail.  The wool is then saturated with warm water and soap.  The fibres are then massaged until they join together.  This is a very sensual process that is warm and soapy and can sometimes involve squirting the therapist!  As a final part of the process I get the children to 'full' or lock the fibres together by wildly throwing their piece of felt against a wall or on the ground.  I encourage the expression of anger and deliberately stimulate the children and then request them to STOP.  This teaches them that it is possible to control themselves even when they are in highly aroused states.  This is a valuable lesson for the children I work with who have witnessed family violence. 

Wool tops or roving - wool fibres dyed and carded

Over time I have documented the effect the felting process has had on my clients.  Here are some example of the power of felt to express emotion and to self soothe.

Individually with children who have experienced trauma as a result of family violence

After I graduated from my art therapy course, I started work with an organisation as a children's therapist. To my absolute delight I was able to utilize art therapy. They were encouraging and bold in the way they accepted the use of art in a therapeutic context. I was working alongside another creative arts therapist who was insightful and intuitive.  This created a space to utilize my passion for felt and three dimensional art with a peer who intuitively understood my work and saw the benefits and magic of felt as a therapeutic medium.

Laying out wool fibres in preparation for making felt

Massaging the wool tops

 

I began to use felt in individual sessions. My young clients found some of the process challenging but by the end they were at the very least proud of their creation and at the most transformed. Two brothers made a separate piece of felt and were thrilled at the way they could use it to express anger. (As part of the ‘fulling’ process we would take the felt outside and throw it against a wall to express anger.) As little boys of three and seven years of age, they had witnessed years of family violence. Within their home, their father had repeatedly physically assaulted their mother as they looked on.  They had witnessed anger and pain as uncontrollable urges that were inflicted on other people.  They had only seen strength as something that was forceful and violent. Love was a struggle between a man and woman where the man always maintained power and control through inflicting brute strength and inciting fear.

Expressing anger towards fabric was a completely new experience. Learning to express anger without hurting someone was a revelation. Being capable of stopping in the middle of expressing anger was a novel concept.  After completing this part of the felting process, the boys were visibly excited.  Previously they had been pale, listless and disinterested.  At one stage the four year old had tried to strangle his mother to get her attention.  By the end of the felting session, they were flushed, laughing and engaged little boys wanting to proudly share their experience with their mother.  They were somewhat confused by these new concepts but markedly alive and expressive boys. These children came alive through an art process that involved body and mind.

Using the felting process to release anger

 

The following week, their mother told me that they were much calmer and more able to talk about issues rather than expressing concerns through violence or destruction. They were also pleased to see me.  I had been able to make a connection with them and they were appreciative.  They ran up to me and the youngest lept into my arms. I was aware that they were grateful but I felt a little perplexed by the significant change in their behavior towards me and at home.

 

A therapeutic creative arts group with children who had experienced trauma as a result of witnessing family violence

The next time I used felt was in a therapeutic creative arts group with children aged nine to twelve years of age who had witnessed or experienced family violence. One ten year old was very withdrawn and appeared anxious. It was as if he was worried that he may reveal his family secrets if he relaxed and enjoyed himself.  When he began the group his mother had separated from his father.  However in the course of this group they reunited.  Given that the other children were talking about the experiences of witnessing their father’s violence towards their mother,  it was extremely difficult for this child to reveal his experience when his father was still part of his everyday life. This child continued attending but was resistant and negative.  In his body outline he drew a face that was frowning and on discussing this with him he said he was stuck in the anger.  The following week we utilized clay. He stroked and massaged the clay and as he did this he said, ‘I love it! I love it!’  The following week we completed a piece of felt.  At the end of the session he expressed his pride in his artwork and wanted to take his felt home.  This was breaching one of the group rules and so we asked that he leave it with us for the final week when we were holding an art exhibition for their mothers.  Unfortunately my client was unable to attend this final session and we arranged to meet him at another time. As we prepared for this appointment we were very upset that we could not find his felt piece – especially as he had not wanted to leave it with us.  After a great deal of searching and self berating we went to the meeting ready to confess our failings as therapists.  When we described what had happened, his mother asked if it was yellow and black.  It was!  Relieved we asked about this tiny piece of wool fabric.  Our client had been so enamoured with the felt that he could not leave it with us.  He was unable to separate from it.  Instead he had taken the risk to ‘steal’ it.  His piece of felt had become his security blanket that he took to bed every night.  He would rub it against his check to self soothe.  I imagined that he may do this when his father was violent towards his mother and he would have to listen to her screams and cries. 

Making a group felt

The case of the missing felt

 

Emotional wellbeing group for mothers

In  2010 I established an art therapy group for mothers of young babies who were emotionally fragile.  The group was exploring the changing nature of relationships after childbirth.  The group involved a variety of artmaking including collage, masks, clay and felting.  After I left this workplace the group continued and was run by a maternal and child health nurse and a children’s worker.  I was invited back to help develop the group with some new therapeutic art activities.  The workers have kept records of the work of the group.  But the most compelling information was that the felting was the favourite activity.  “Everyone really enjoys the felting.” 

A great way to help new mothers relax, learn new
 skills and create a great baby toy or fabric

If you want to make felt with your children this website is a great starting point. http://www.waldorfmoms.com/2013/06/how-to-make-wool-felt-with-children.html