ART THERAPY IN MAINSTREAM SCHOOL EDUCATION
Sibylle Cseri, M.A. Art Therapy
Calle Mariá Cubí, 28-30, Atico, 1º
08006 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: (0034) 93-4152361
E-mail:
SUMMERY
The paper will discuss the role of art therapy in mainstream school education as well as my own experience as an art therapist in a mainstream secondary school in Barcelona, Spain.
The argument for my presentation will be based on the experience of various art therapists working in this field, as well as on my own experience.
Over the years behavioural and learning problems in classrooms have become more and more of a concern to teachers and parents alike. It is a very complex and problematic issue, due to increasing cultural diversity, problematic family situations, traumatic experiences, social and peer pressure. These situations carry symptoms with them such as lack of concentration, disruptive behaviour, low self esteem, eating disorders, depression and so on. For this reason psychological support needs to be offered for the children. Many children however, often have great difficulties in expressing their problems and worries verbally, and for this reason art therapy can offer them an alternative means of expression.
WHAT IS THE ROLE OF ART THERAPY IN MAINSTREAM SCHOOL EDUCATION?
School and home are two very important places for the child, where he or she learns and socializes. Since education is a much rather outward-oriented process, art therapy can be complementary, because of its inward looking process. Teacher and therapist use the capacities of the child in two distinct ways. The teacher is a model for the child, with whom the child can identify him or herself, given there is a positive relationship between teacher and child. This positive relationship can develop towards a high self-esteem, which can lead the child towards autonomy in many situations (R. Edgcumb, 1975).
When the learning process is interrupted by internal conflicts or distortions, therapy becomes necessary. A space where children can explore their inner world should be considered part of learning, instead of an isolated experience. Therefore, it is important that art therapy and education complement each other within the school setting (R. Edgcumb, 1975).
Art Therapy accompanies creation, so that the student can re-establish communication with him or herself and their surroundings. This way, the teacher is not containing the conflict alone and can come to understand it as a manifestation of pain or a difficulty, which needs intervention and help.
If a student that shows difficulties of communication and adaptation doesn´t have a space to express his or her insatisfaction, fear or anxiety, they will continue reflecting inadaquation in his or her behaviour and will continue to act them out. More often than not, these situations unable the child to continue with his or her studies in an efficient calm way, and to integrate satisfactorily with the other pupils. Some children, however, have great difficulties expressing their fantasies, fears and / or worries. This way the image created by the child becomes an alternative of communication and to talk about it is a way to treat personal difficulties.
Another aspect to keep in mind is the social and cultural diversity in schools. Diversity is natural and an advantage to society, therefore it schould not be ignored, because school is a place where different necessities co-exist. New approaches and means are needed to attend better the differences, to facilitate the experience of identity and to establish a context, where the strategies of educational intervention make it possible to attend all individuals.
Concrete intervention with students
Art therapy is especially indicated for children and teenagers, who have low self- esteem, are shy, hyperactive, have learning difficulties, difficulties with relationships, experience in loss and grief, suffer depression symptoms, eating disorders and / or conflict within the family.
Art therapy can take place in groups or individually.
The groups are especially indicated to help the children inter-relate better with the others. Through artistic play, the art therapist helps equilibrate the forces that exist within the group, gives voice to those that have lost it, contains the excess of activity, helps to transform “ the acting out” into more secure and effective forms of expression and helps the child to share instead of competing.
Individual sessions are apprpriate for children, who need special attention; children with psychotic disorders, children who suffer any type of mental deficiency or simply children who have gone through, or are living a traumatic period in their lives ( illness or death of a family member, conjugal violence, abuse of any type, divorce, birth of a sibling...).
Individual sessions are also appropriate, when there is any type of disorder which, for its characteristic is susceptible to produce shame and embarrasment in the child such as: enuresis, eating disorders, excessive parental dependency...
Art therapy offers the children a space where they can express their worries and transform them symbolically during the process of creation within a safe and contained setting. For an instance to those children who are locked up into themselves and avoid contact and interaction which can originate from repressed anger or impotence. It could be beneficial to give them autonomy of expression and to liberate these emotions, through artistic expression ( R. Arguile, 1990).
For those children who have a disruptive and aggressive behaviour, the artistic material can be a means to channel their aggression instead of hurting someone or themselves. Through drawing, painting, sculpture, or the art work created, they can explore and associate freely what they are going through at the moment, as well as the unconscious through the transference onto the therapist.
The therapist needs to understand and interpret the fantasies, feelings, anxieties and defenses and return them. It is important to try to understand what the cause is behind the anxiety and at which moment it occurs.
As an example I would like to talk about a boy who I had in group therapy for a year in a public school. This experience formed part of my internship of the art therapy master at the University of Barcelona in 2001-2002.
The group consisted of 6 adolescents, 5 boys and 1 girl, in the age of 15 and 16. The school had asked me to do art therapy sessions with these children, because they were especially problematic within the school setting. Most of them had behavioural and learning difficulties and came from problematic family situations.
The aims of the art therapy sessions were to work out personal worries, anxieties, fears and insecurities as well as to improve their communication skills and ways of relating to each other, which was often quite violent and destructive.
Roberto was a 15 year old boy who had been expelled on many ocasions from school, due to aggressive and desruptive behaviour within the school setting. He came from a family, where he received very little attention and was left on his own. He was undernourished and underweight. Very often he was nervious and suffered under many anxiety attacs as well as manic-depression.
During the sessions his moods and behaviour varied from day to day, or he was very social or he isolated himself and chose not to talk to anybody that day. He was usually dominant and a leader amongst the members. He was very popular amongst his friends, but also feard by others. He appreciated the art therapy sessions very much and was present on almost all the sessions. He participated in the sessions actively and also had a strong need for attention from me.
Usually I worked in a non-diractive way letting them bring their own ideas to work on, which was difficult for them in the beginning, because they were used to receive concrete instructions on what to do from their teachers. It took them a few months to learn how to create on their own. The session I will describe took place on a day, when they were particularly nervous and anxious and had a hard time coming up with their own ideas. Therefore I suggested them an idea to create a fantasy figure, who they identify with and its best friend.
Roberto immediately took a large sheet of white paper and began to draw with a black marker and chose to sit by an isolated table facing the others.Most of the times he was sitting with his friends together at one table, but lately he had isolated himself. He was drawing during a long time absorbed in his work and without contact with the others. As he was finishing I sat down next to him and I comented that the earth seemed very dry. He began to explain me that the earth is indeed very dry and that is the reason why it needs the water drop, that you can find on the person´s head. He continued explaining that his character is superman, but has a different sign on his shirt just to be different from the superman we know. Then we were talking about the sign he is wearing. It seems to be a warning or attention signal on top of a huge cape. I also mentioned to him that the sun seemed to be angry and to suffer. He told me that he drew it like that for no reason and didn´t want to talk about it, so I didn´t insist. At that moment I felt that he realized that the sun had a strong impact as viewing the picture and he tried not to pay attention to it. He explained to me then that the little dog is the superman´s best friend. I told him that if I remembered well he also had a small dog at home, which he has talked very affectionately about during the sessions. He responded me, that this dog is not his dog, it is the superman´s best friend. I felt that also here he was afraid to realize that in reality he was talking about himself while he was talking about his invented character.
After talking about his drawing for a while longer one of his friends came over to the table to look at Roberto´s drawing. At this point he added to his picture a flying chicken ( that is what he called it) into the sky, which made him and his friend laugh. I saw that he felt relieved to have added a comical element to his picture and to have liberated himself that way from perhaps sad feelings he felt towards his picture while looking and talking about it. Also by adding the chicken and by laughing at it with his friend, he covered up his other feelings within the picture, which he might have felt embarrased about reveiling in front of his friend.
As mentioned earlier Roberto has tendencies to be manic-depressive. He is left to himself and doesn´t really have a person of reference in his life, only his older sister, who got married and left home. Eventhough he had a lot of friends, he seemed to be feeling lonely and often times lost. He is undernourished and his body is frail and underweight. In school he was trying to cover up these aspects of himself by appearing strong and with a dominant personality.
This day he had decided to draw a superman, but it is invisible who truly is behind his large cape, but I suppose there is a fragile and vulnerable child behind it. His best friend is a very small dog. There is a huge contrast between the giant superman and this small and also seemingly vulnerable dog. The earth seems lifeless and forgotten as well as very fragmented. Fragmanted as I feel Roberto is within himself. The superman carries a water drop on his head in order to water the earth, which however doesn´t seem to reach it, it much rather seemes to be a tear. Apparently the cape neither doesn´t seem to be so strong and protective, because it is broken in some parts and eventhough there was an effort to fix those holes, you can tell that it was broken once. The sun also has a tear on its face, which is contradictory, because the sun ususally dries the water, but the tear stays on, or perhaps the sun is also crying, just like the superman. It seems to me that the sun can not decide wether to be angry or to be sad.
As I was looking at this picture I felt sadness and lonelyness and I felt that Roberto must have also felt it as looking at his picture. I felt that through his drawing he could connect with some of his feelings and difficulties within himself, which he usually tries not see.
Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, it is very difficult for many children to express their worries and problems verbally, and this may end up in frustration and anger, which in turn leads to more isolation. This difficulty is not only seen in school, but also in our everyday world, where most problems come as a result of a lack of communication. Therefore, offering students a tool, that can help them express their anxieties and fears, which often show up during the conversations about the created art work, is not only positive, but should also be included both in private and public schools.
It has already been mentioned that school is where the child learns to interact socially and culturally for quite a long period of his or her life. It is therefore, very important that therapy should be brought to school instead of taking the child to an external unit, which is strange and unfamiliar and detached from the daily experience of the child. Since the child´s worries form part of his or her growth and development as well as education does, it is important that they can complement each other within the school
( C.Case, T. Daley, 1990).
References
- Carolin Case, Tessa Daley, “Working with children in art therapy”, 1990
editorial Routledge, London and New York
- Roger Arguile, “Working with children in art therapy”, Chapter 10,
editorial Routledge, London and New York, 1990
- Rose Edgecumb, 1975, “ Working with children in art therapy”, Chapter 9,
editorial Routledge, London and New York, 1990
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