2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-12 20:57
Picturesque practices of psychotherapy satisfy the most fundamental human need - the need to be a creator, an artist, that is, the need for self-actualization.
Art therapists argue that if you engage in drawing practices regularly, then a person will become free from negativity and will become a more harmonious person.
The pictorial therapeutic potential has been confirmed by many studies and practice of psychotherapeutic activity. Picturesque therapeutic practices are successfully used for severe mental disorders, "borderline" states, various psychosomatic disorders, crisis conditions, post-stress disorders, etc.
Drawing practices are a toolkit that allows you to awaken the unconscious, free it from the captivity of psychological defenses. This toolkit is the least traumatic, in fact - "insight". The solution is born inside the psyche of the person himself as a sudden understanding of essential relationships and the situation as a whole, through which a meaningful solution to the problem is achieved. Therefore, it is accepted more easily, with greater confidence than that which came from an external, even authoritative source.
In harmony with myself
“I live in harmony with myself”, “I feel my soul, my body as my home” - many people know this state. “I am a stranger to myself”, “I am not in tune with myself” - this is also familiar to many.
Take a sheet of paper (A4), paints, pencils, felt-tip pens. What do you feel when you say, "Am I at odds with myself?" Allow thoughts, images, memories, fantasies to come and go. Now draw what comes to mind. What is important to you.
When you're done drawing, put aside your finished drawing and take another blank sheet of paper. Reflect on what it means to you personally to be in tune with yourself. Everyone knows this situation: we move into a new apartment - it is empty and naked. Then it begins to fill with furniture, and with each new item, if it is in harmony with the rest of the environment, it becomes more and more comfortable. If we apply the metaphor of this apartment to ourselves, if we live in harmony with ourselves, we equip ourselves, then perhaps it becomes clear that this process of equipping will never end, this is an endless path. When you see fit, take a sheet of paper, pencils and paints and start drawing a picture of how to be in harmony with yourself.
Place the pictures side by side and match them. What do you lack in a state of discord with yourself?
Many questions and concerns that bother many people are in one way or another related to the categories of the past, present and future. The past is actively present in the present and thus affects the image of the future, a look at the present allows you to revise the past and revise, re-evaluate the events that took place in it. Thus, these three time parameters are in a constant relationship.
With the help of basic spatial oppositions such as, for example, "forward-backward" and "ahead-behind", it is possible to describe not only the physical space and the direction of movement of the human body, but also the idea of space and life time. In these concepts, close in bodily experience, a person comprehends such concepts as "past" and "future": "There are many opportunities ahead", "Still ahead", or: "I left it behind", "This is a passed stage."
Take a sheet of paper (preferably A1) and tear it into three pieces. Their size can be different, do not think about it, just tear. Then find a place in the room where you can stand comfortably. Place the sheets and a few pencils near you.
Feel the floor your feet are in contact with, feel the contact between your feet and the floor. This is time and space "here and now". Now bring your attention to the back of your body: feel the back of your head, back, back of your thighs, buttocks, legs, heels. Now feel the space behind you, behind your back, this time and place “there and then”. And then start pronouncing phrases and observe what feelings, thoughts, images come to you.
- It's already over.
“I don’t want to look back.
- Turn your back.
- Look back.
- The burden of the past.
If you want, you can take a step back into the space behind where you are.
After that, take any of the three pieces of the sheet you torn apart and sketch out something that you experienced. Then look around the room you are in and again look for a place where you feel comfortable standing. You may need to shake off the feelings and sensations that you experienced in connection with your contact with the past. Do this, if necessary, you can make some kind of gesture or make a sound that will help. What you need is to feel as clearly as possible "here and now", pay attention to the feet, how they stand on the surface of the floor, you need to feel the contact with the present as clearly as possible. After you can say, "I can feel the ground under my feet," begin to straighten up internally. Try to be aware of what you are feeling and feeling, what thoughts are coming to you when you say these phrases:
- I feel the ground under my feet.
- I stand firmly on my feet.
- I know how to insist on my own.
- I am confident and stable.
- I have my own point of view.
Then take a piece of the sheet and depict what you felt and felt.
Then again find the space that is "yours" at the moment. Bring your attention to the front of your body: forehead, face, chest, abdomen, front of thighs, legs, feet. Feel the space in front of you. What do you feel when you say these phrases:
- What lies ahead for me?
- Which way do I have to go?
- What will be my next step?
- Ahead of the unknown.
Maybe you want to take a step forward and enter the space of the future. If you feel the need, you can experiment: take a step forward into the future, and then, taking a step back, return to the present. Perhaps these actual body movements in space will help you better understand the relationship between the present and the future. Now take the last piece of paper and draw what you experienced.
Then take three pieces of the sheet and connect them to form the old sheet. How do you feel when you look at this drawing, what thoughts come to mind? Perhaps there will be a desire to change something in the drawing. Do it.
For practicing psychologists, I must make a reservation that, despite the seeming simplicity of the steps in the exercise and the deliberately clear algorithm of actions, in each individual case in my practice a new "solitaire" was waiting for me, played out by the client's mental life. So, in one case, a client felt inappropriate and unnecessary to draw, saying that it distracts her from those important experiences that arose in connection with past contact. In another case, the contact with the past turned out to be so tight that during the transition to the second part of the exercise, the client realized all the capture of the past, which deprives her of contact with the real present, which did not allow her to proceed to the third part of the exercise. In yet another case, a step into the future from the present was so desirable as it was impossible, which directed the course of work into a body-oriented plane.
Despite all the collisions and options for real work using this exercise, its effectiveness was noted by the clients themselves.
Right left
If we carefully consider the scale "right-left", then after the physical aspect its social component is revealed, often formed by the cultural and historical context.
The right side in some cultures and languages is associated with correctness, rightness and fairness. The left side is seen as wrong, illegal, bad (known to "go left").
Eastern schools describe the distinction between right and left as the difference between feminine and masculine, yin and yang. This is not about gender, but about masculine and feminine qualities that we all possess. The right side of the body, in both men and women, reflects the masculine principle. The left side of the body, in both men and women, reflects the feminine principle.
The following exercise creates conditions for better living and understanding of the spatial concepts of "left-right".
Take a sheet of paper (A4 can be used) and tear it in two. Place one part to your right and the other to your left. Place pencils, markers and paints nearby. Concentrate on the right side of your body. Feel the entire right side of your body from the top of your head to your heels. Feel the space to your right. Allow inner images and memories to arise in this space. Memories of what people and events fill this space? Now take a step into the space to your right. Stay there for as long as you like. When you feel ready to reflect your impressions, go back and take the pencils and the sheet of paper that is on the right with your right hand and depict your impressions. Then, in the same way, master the space on the left and express your impressions on a sheet of paper lying on the left with your left hand. After that, take both sheets and attach them to each other. What images and thoughts come to your mind when you look at these sheets, what experiences arise? If you feel the need for this, you can take another sheet of paper, which will serve as an intermediate space between the right and left sheets. You can put this blank sheet between your sheets and fill it with images and plots that create an opportunity for contact between the right and left sides.
I will give an example of work. Client, 32-year-old woman.
K: The right side dazzles with light. There is space, from which the head is spinning. Huge area. Anxiety fetters the right side of me. A fossil of some kind. And a lot of fear. I don't want to go there. I take a step to the right, and it is as if glass buildings are falling on me. I would like to go back. The left side is cozy and carefree. Images from my childhood. My friends, school, parents. Things are good. A little twilight, but not alarming, but rather pleasant. The air is spring, May. I walk in a striped sweater, examine the sleeves. Flowers are painted on the asphalt with chalk. And overhead is a rainbow. And then the image of escape comes. I don't like my shoes, and I have to go for a walk with my friends to the park. My shoes are pretty worn out. I want to run and hide. The girls come after me, and I run, cry, hide behind a pillow. I can't tell anyone why. Ashamed. The left is good, it shakes me in this direction. My left side is flexible, plastic and beautiful. I take a step there with pleasure. The dusk seemed to thicken. But again, there is no fear or anxiety. I love this twilight. He's cozy.
P: The right side of the sheet is depicted by you in white, what is this color for you? Why is everything so totally white?
K: I felt so. White is probably the coldest for me. And alarming. You can't grab hold of him. He's like a ghost. These figures arose by themselves. Unpleasant, cosmic bodies.
P: The right side is ghostly and glassy. No support?
K: Yes. I have a lot of fears. There are no supports to go to the right. In this exercise, I realized that my right side was frightened and motionless, some kind of stone. Left - on the contrary, alive, so good. I want to go to the left and that's it. But I understand that this is not an option.
P: The safest place on earth behind a pillow?
K: Yes. And there is. Warm, soft and comfortable. Nobody will touch you there. Will not hurt.
P: Is it difficult to live with an immobilized right side?
K: Yes.
P: How does this immobility manifest itself? What spheres of life are not moving, "ossified"?
K: It turns out that in dealing with people. Shyness. I'm like a stone. Rather, I am waiting when I can already stay on my own. And in a career. You need to show more flexibility. And I'm scared. I am content with little. Well, that's how you said that the safest place is behind the pillow. And so it turns out.
P: You can try to do something about it. Let's try to connect the antagonistic parts of you. If you want, take another sheet and place it between your two left and right sheets. Try it. Picture whatever comes to mind. Any imagery that will help connect right and left.
Takes a leaf. Meditates for about five minutes.
P: What are you portraying?
K: The image of the pass, somehow suddenly appeared. I'll finish it now. It seems to be getting easier.
P: You are here now, the point here and now is the "pass".
K: Yes. And I came to you because I was already worn out. I know that there is not only cold and glass. There's a lot of good stuff out there. But I get bad there. The glass does not accept me. Falling down on your head. It hurts the face. But it's easier now. This drawing is calming.
P: Easy where? How do you feel it is "easier"?
K: Well, if we talk about my right side, then it is less tense. In any case, the tension subsided.
P: Is it a flag?
K: Yes. Pass. A sign that I know where to go. Middle of me. Center or something.
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