Originally found in individual sessions, fine art therapy is going for a more vigorous and built in role in family therapy, turmoil interventions such as assault in the home or alcoholism in the family, with mental health patients (e. g. schizophrenics), and children who are implemented or in foster homes. People are a sophisticated system made up of subsytems, alliances, and triangles. To be able to get an improved knowledge of familial habits and how the family operates, skill remedy "sessions with the whole family provides an unusual opportunity to observe the family device functions in a situation less formal and less subject to their established mechanisms of control than is the simply verbal pyschotherapeutic interview" (Kwiatkowska, p. 27).
Art therapy is useful for "providing an individual the chance to step back again and measure the meaning of his / her subjective artwork expressions. This stimulates a person's potential to symbolize, to believe, and think about thinking. Visual representation offers a way to express multiple layers of interpretation in a condensed format. The visual product is durable, allowing a client to review and respond to what has been expressed" (Linesch, p. 26). Individuals, family and the therapist virtually have a visual picture of how an individual views themselves, their role in the family, wishes they have for their family, or other things they have retained to themselves.
Another effective use for skill therapy is using metaphors to instruct parents and children new assignments and relationships, thus adding a fresh dimension to structural family remedy (Linesh, p. 51). For instance, if a family is struggling with their adolescent child and the kid draws his mom with a major mouth area and says that mother is obviously yelling, mom realizes how she actually is affecting the family with her yelling. Corresponding to Kwiatkowska, the concentrate of remedy often switches because of the way different members of the family present their views of the condition. The initial reason behind seeking treatment is overshadowed by a completely different facet of the family disurbance taken to their recognition through their fine art productions (p. 139).
Drawing pictures, painting, or dealing with clay may seem to be easy and fun to do but "this work demands a good backgorund in family remedy and comprehensive psychoterapeutic experience in addition to fine art remedy training" (Kwiatkowska, p. 137). Circumstance and Dalley concur that "the idea and practice of fine art therapy has improved to require that the practioners of skill therapy are highly trained and experienced people whose skills continue steadily to develop after their initial training curriculum" (p. 146). Like regular therapists, fine art therapists must create restrictions with the clients and their own families. One must be firm with households who disrupt the procedure either with constant bickering or irrelevant circulation of words. Eventually such maneuvers should be explored as one of the patterns of family patterns (Kwiatkowska, p. 31).
The basic role of the therapist is to create a non-threatening environment for the family as some users may feel troubled about dealing with art. It's the therapists obligation to remind the family that "when doing evaluations, it is important to emphasize that they can not be graded or examined on their creative skill but instead use the mass media in an effort to connect and self expression" (Kwiatkowska, p. 85). It is also important that the "room must feel secure enough expressing ideas, thoughts, thoughts. Having open up usage of materials can make avilable man posible strategies of manifestation" (Circumstance and Dalley, p. 99). Case and Dalley consider "it is not the job of the therapist to encourage spilling out of emotions but in simple fact to help the client believe that her emotions, however difficult to express, will be included, paid attention to and realized" (p. 102).
"The therapist's role is to stay open to the imagery and all its potential so this means for the individual and containt the stress and anxiety and emotions that are made in wanting to understand it. It is possible a clear so this means will not emerge until weeks into therapy where associations can made and understanding occurs" (Case and Dalley, p. 65).
During assessments or therapy sessions the therapist will give the family some directives. For instance, the therapist may obtain that the family draw "a free of charge picture, an image of your loved ones, an abstract family portrait, a picture started with the help of a scribble, a joing family scribble, then another free picture" (Kwiatkowska, p. 86). The therapist should cherish what materials each member uses and how they are describing their picture. Proulx talks about that
as the artwork therapist views the task, they keep in mind the interactions that occurred how the material was used to symbolically stand for the partnership and the quantity of personal space occupied by the child or parent. Power of media software, amount of energy portrayed: is it full of life, packed with color? Also notice in the portrait who is included, who's left out, and which area of the work becomes the parents ownership or the child's. Are there apparent projections ontothe child by the parent? Is there proposal, communication, psychological contact, excitement and caring? ( p. 72).
Although some directives are given, the therapist should not offer help the "children until the parents or siblings have responded (or not responded) to the child's plea for help. Their patterns in this regard can be an important source of information about how the parents have fulfilled their need of these adolescent or young adult offspring in their early on childhood" (Kwiatkowska, p. 85).
In a regular procedure, the therapist can get more information from the family by asking these to "explore self-perceptions. To get this done, therapist can ask family members to pull themselves as they feel inside also to bring themselves as they envision they turn to their family" (Linesch, p. 28). "To help in adaptive coping, therapist might ask family to choose pictures or attract images that summarize possible solutions to the problem. Family can also be asked to represent themselves and their families as they are now and as they wish to be in the near future. This can bring to light specific needs and family problem-solving" (Linesch, p. 29).
One of the disadvantages of art therapy is that the therapist is more vulnerable to misinterpretation in terms of the target understanding of content. Health care must be taken never to make swift interpretations which might prevent or even deny your client the satisfaction of sensing and learning for herself (Case and Dalley, p. 65). Because art work therapy includes a whole lot of interpreation, it is understandable that critiques relating to this technique are similar to that of psychotherapy. The individual's images will come across as much things but only the individual himself can explain it. The therapist is urged not to point out obvious red signs, instead they must allow the customer to create their own interpretations. Their particular interpretations by themselves are something to be aware of as it may shed some light on the client's thought process.
Throughout many cases explored, art remedy was useful in helping family members pay attention to one another, rebalance hierarchies, and "provided a car for the individuals to take benefit of increased self-expressive abilities and talk about their internal experiences as communication between family/system users (Linesch, p. 158).
