THE EXPERIENTIAL ART THERAPY GROUP

IN THE TRAINING OF ART THERAPISTS

Carles Ramos i Portas. BA Fine Arts & Dip Art Edu., Barcelona Univ.; Dip AT, London Univ. Head of Studies of the Art Psychotherapy Unit of Universitat de Barcelona. Director of Metafora centre d’estudis d’art-teràpia, c/ Papin 29, 08028 Barcelona, Spain. Tel. 00 34 93 330 00 89. Email: Webpage:

Summary

This paper is based on the experience of five years work in the Masters in art therapy of the University of Barcelona. It discusses the experiential art therapy group as an essential element in the postgraduate training of art therapists. It describes the features of the experiential art therapy group, its aims, its contradictions, and it also gives some guidelines on how the conductor can assess his interventions in order to better help the group achieve its goals.

Substantive paper

Introduction

The practice of art therapy requires a deep understanding of group dynamics. The rationale for this is that a good deal of the art therapist’s work consists of running art therapy groups, and also because most art therapists work in the context of larger groups, like health or educational institutions, whose dynamics have a direct influence on the client population with whom they work. Accordingly, the aim of the experiential art therapy group here is double sided, on the one hand to acquire experiential knowledge about group phenomena in general, on the other hand to learn experientially about art therapy groups in particular.

All human groups bring up by default a conflict of interests between the needs of the individual and the needs and tasks of the group (Foulkes 1964). The experiential groups of art therapy training courses are not free from this conflict of interests. Moreover, the nature of this group in particular, its theoretical orientation and particular kind of setting, will add other difficulties that need to be properly understood.

The objectives of the experiential group are primarily didactic. However, on many occasions the group steps into the field of therapy. Exploring group dynamics mobilises inner psychological resources of the individual. The members of the experiential group will see aspects of themselves reflected in others as well as in their art work. They will confront their own resistances to the group process. They might have to solve problems of communication. Therefore, the dichotomy between the therapeutic and the didactic is sometimes a cause of confusion for the members of the group. Furthermore, it is not always easy to fit this kind of teaching into a university system which has not been designed to contain experiential work within the curriculum.

Context of the group

The Masters in art therapy we are running at the university of Barcelona is a three year part time course with 1.120 hours of tuition and 600 hours of clinical practice. The core of the course integrates different streams of psychodynamic theory, mainly, group analytic theory, object relations school of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic oriented art therapy theory.

As Dryden and Connor recommend (Dryden 1995 y Connor 1994), all the activities of the MA should contain the theoretical essence of the course. Those activities embrace all subjects and course content, the teaching methodology, and the relationship between members of staff and between staff and students.

The MA is divided into three different blocks: the first block includes the theoretical subjects such as art therapy theory, psychoanalysis, group theory, psychopathology, art theory, research methodology, etc. The second block includes clinical practice and supervision. The third block is made up of the experiential subjects, such as studio practise, experiential art therapy groups, a large verbal group and individual tutorials. Aside from the course, the students are also required to be in therapy during the three years of their studies. The scarce number of art therapists working in Spain obliges the students to choose “verbal” psychotherapists for their own therapy. This being so, the art therapy experiential group becomes the only space where the students will see the art therapy theory they are learning put into practise.

The MA is a three year course. Each year is divided into nine intensive weekend blocks, plus a full time week during the summer. The experiential art therapy group meets four times every weekend block during the first two years. The total number of sessions is 72. Each group has seven students. Sessions are one hour and a half long. The facilitators of the groups are properly trained art psychotherapist with experience in clinical practice.

Groups and individuals, paradoxes and contradictions of the experiential group.

As I said when I quoted Foulkes in the beginning, any human group brings up a conflict of interests between the needs of the individual and the needs and tasks of the group. When these needs do not coincide it is likely that situations of ambiguity and confusion will come about. If the group or part of it does not allow, or makes it very difficult to express and resolve these contradictions, the difficulties will tend to increase. When these difficulties cannot be properly worked out, the group may turn into an inoperative entity unable to fulfil its purpose and might even become a damaging experience for the individuals.

Not only does the experiential art therapy group not escape from those contradictions, it also has others that are generated by the nature of a training group, its particular theoretical orientation, its specific task and the boundaries and setting where the group takes place.

The experiential groups in the training of art therapists are different from the art therapy groups run in clinical practice. In clinical settings the aims of the group (Dalley 1984) are established according to the therapeutic needs of patients and the health politics of the institution. The composition of the members of the group, the setting and the kind of interventions the therapists use, may vary depending on the client group and the context where the group takes place. Broadly speaking, the task of the group may consist in diminishing or if possible, eradicating a given pathology, helping to solve some kind of conflict or giving support and containment to the members of the group while they are going through a painful life process, whatever that may be.

In the experiential art therapy training group, the aims are not therapeutic but educational; we want our students to learn what is art therapy and how to put it into practise. We do not pretend to offer them therapy (they have their own private space to do so), though, as I said before, on many occasions the group will spontaneously enter into therapeutic territory. In my opinion, there are two reasons why that happens:

The first reason has to do with the nature of the experiential group itself. As I said in the introduction, exploring the dynamics of a group implies the mobilisation of inner psychological resources. The members of the group may have to deal with powerful emotions like, anger, sadness, loss, etc. Depending on the level of maturity and psychological balance of each individual, the group might evolve one way or another.

A second reason why the training group will step into therapy points to the student’s hidden motivations for being in the group. Students -supposedly- apply to an art therapy training course because they want to become art therapists not because they want to overcome personal inner conflicts. However, reality sometimes teaches us the opposite. Some students come to training because they may think that by becoming art therapists they will put their inner world together. Some people find it safer to undertake a therapy course than a therapy process. Obviously, this is not an entirely conscious decision, because most students if asked would categorically deny they come into training to overcome difficulties or to receive therapy. However, the process of the group will sooner or later confront the participants with their denial and with their real motivations for being in the group.

Although the facilitator of a training group is basically a “teacher” he or she will have to respond to the psychological needs of the members of the group, and that is when we are confronted with the paradox. How do we do that without becoming the therapists of our students? The ups and downs the group will probably have to deal with during its life will be real, they will not be a simulation. The art therapy and group analysis literature when describing experiential training groups use the term “as if” to differentiate them from the clinical groups, ‘as if they where therapy groups’. In my opinion this term causes confusion, as it makes us believe that the group lives an “as if” experience when the reality show us the opposite. The group is not a therapy group but it is also not an “as if” group.

The task of the experiential group does not consist in alleviating or solving personal pathologies. The main objective is to acquire the necessary tools that will bring the students the expertise to understand and work in the future with the dynamics of client groups. However, the process of acquisition of these tools cohabits with the ambiguity of having to deal with difficulties that belong more to the clinical setting than to the educational. Students often find themselves confronted with the dilemma of not knowing if they are in the right place to express and explore personal issues. Somehow, the other members of the group are students like them who also want to become therapists. Furthermore, the facilitator of the group is seen as someone who is also assessing their learning process. Both realities can easily generate fear of exposure, as students may feel that if the others get to know their “inner secrets” they might think they are not appropriate for the job.

Finally, the third component, that makes the experiential art therapy group paradoxical, is the limitation that time imposes on the art making process. The kind of art work that can be made in one hour and a half is quite limited, especially if we think that ideally there has to be time for discussion as well. Gilroy (1995) talking about the same problem says that this is an issue that needs revision in art therapy training. The art in art therapy is a very valuable channel of communication within the group (Waller 1996). However, alongside the advantages that the art making provides there is also a limitation imposed by time. One hour and a half, or two hours at the most, is not enough time to make an art work that goes beyond the sketch or the model. At the same time it is not enough time either to explore in depth the amount of images and objects that often are produced during a single session. The solution to this “paradox” is not easy, so it would imply substantial changes to the setting that have yet to be tried. Therefore, there is neither theory nor research to supporting such changes.

The Tasks of the Experiential Group

Agazarian and Peters (1981) make a distinction between the manifest and latent task of the group. The manifests tasks are the objectives of the experiential group as they are communicated to the members of the group. In our case, the manifest task consists in the exploration and comprehension of the group dynamics which in its turn will give the student a basic expertise to facilitate art therapy groups in the future. The latent tasks vary during the life of the group. Generally, they are either unconscious or have not yet been articulated. For example, confronted with a holiday break, some members of the group may act out their feelings of discomfort by openly showing disagreement with any intervention of the conductor. Agazarian and Peters would say that in this case the latent task of the group consists of punishing the facilitator for abandoning them. The manifest task would be to unveil the hidden feelings and by doing that, helping the group to see the difference between conscious and unconscious communication.

The manifest tasks or objectives of an experiential art therapy group in the art therapy training I divide into two groups that could be summarized as follows:

Therapeutic tasks

  1. To observe and understand the dynamics of the group as it learns to distinguish manifest from latent tasks.
  2. To learn how to work out difficulties and faults in the communication of the group.
  3. To provide emotional support for an individual member when needed.
Educational tasks
  1. To learn how the art objects produced in the session and the process of making them may reflect the dynamics of the group.
  2. To find parallels and links between the training group and the clinical group.

The Facilitator of the Group, intervention and assessment

Since I started running groups I have been interested in finding ways to assess my interventions. I needed to know when I was being useful to the group and when I was not. I also needed to have a system that could tell me at any given time where we were and in which direction we were moving. Although in day-to-day practise we do that intuitively, more or less successfully, I have been wondering about possible ways to assess the facilitator’s work in a more reliable way than just pure intuition. A possible way of doing that could be assessing the conductor’s interventions in relation to the objectives of the group. If the interventions of the facilitator help the group to achieve their tasks we could say that the group is going in the right direction.

The conductor’s interventions can be systematized and assessed differently. I propose ordering interventions by looking at where they are aiming. This way we have:

Therapeutic interventions

  1. Interventions aiming to encourage the understanding of the hidden dynamics of the group understood as-a-whole.
  2. Interventions aiming to encourage the group to work out the faults that may appear in the communication between members.
  3. Interventions aiming to help a member of the group in particular.

Educational interventions

  1. Interventions aiming to show in which ways the art work and the art making process can be approached and how these express the feelings and worries of the group.
  2. Interventions aiming to teach the students links between their experience in the group and art therapy groups as they are run in clinical settings.

Before I give some examples, I need to say that most interventions in the experiential group are addressed at the group as a whole instead of at individual members. Individual interpretations may be experienced as intrusive by students. If the facilitator did so, they would probably feel forced by him to expose themselves to their fellows. Moreover, individual interpretations reinforce a false assumption in the group, in that they make participants believe that the experiential group is a therapy group when it is not.

An example of an intervention aiming to encourage the understanding of the hidden dynamics of the group could be like this: “…Looking at the art work that has been made today I realise that there are many images showing elements of fragmentation. I wonder if those images can tell us something about how it feels today to be in the group?” If the members of the group respond to the conductor’s invitation by exploring the here-and-now feelings we can assert that the group is accomplishing the first manifest tasks of the list of objectives. If the group does not respond to it, we may wonder whether the intervention has been made at the right moment or whether there is a latent task being glided over which prevents the group working in the right direction.

Quite often the web of communications within the group gets interrupted somewhere in the system. When that happens one may feel that there is something unsaid in the group that it is too dangerous to talk about. The group goes round and round and the main difficulty remains unspoken until the facilitator decides to put the unspoken issue on the table. For example, in the fifth session of a group of seven members (four of them foreigners), a German participant says something to the group that nobody -due to his Spanish pronunciation- understands. After his contribution there is a long silence that nobody dares to break. The facilitator decided to speak by using an intervention like the one I mentioned. He said: “ I wonder what this silence might be hiding?” Nobody answered his question. After a while he spoke again, this time he used an intervention aiming to encourage the group to work out the fault in the communication. He said: “I might be wrong, but it seems to me that there is something about being a foreigner in this group that needs to be said”. After this comment the group started talking about issues of identity and difficulties of social integration in the group, which, by the way, was the real unspoken issue.