A successful professional 42 year-old woman, the adult child of an alcoholic, was at the height of her career but felt empty and despairing. When asked to express how she felt, she drew a high black wall. A tiny red figure stood at the bottom. The woman talked about her drawing. " The red figure represents me. I want to get to the other side of the wall, but the figure has no arms so (it) can't climb."

As she examined the drawing, the woman saw that she was confronting her own despair and feelings of helplessness. She then noticed that the wall in the picture was not solid; there were small chinks in what at first had seemed a solid mass. She realized she could get through. The image she had created gave her hope.

The woman was involved in a process called art therapy, which draws on the creative potential in each of us, and uses it as a healing tool. Using art therapy, this woman was able to contact a place of strength within her.

My approach as an art therapist is to work in partnership with clients as a compassionate witness, rather than interpreting or evaluating their artwork. Each client's work is self-guiding. I provide a safe environment for expression, exploration, and experimentation to occur. The art-making process becomes a catalyst, a safe laboratory to acknowledge patterns and try new behaviors. Artistic talent is irrelevant. What is important is the person's willingness to express himself or herself.

During individual art therapy sessions, I help each client get in touch with his or her own sense of self and purpose. For example, I will suggest that someone draw what he or she is feeling, and then we will discuss it. I might ask, "What do you feel when you look at this picture?" Or I might suggest, "Let's look at the picture from the point of view of the bird up here, or the person in the corner."

Art therapy addresses the same life issues as other, more traditional therapies do: "What do I want to do with the rest of my life?" "How can 1 have a better relationship with my partner?" "Why do I feel so depressed?" I however, because imagery emerges from the unconscious, it rapidly gets to the heart of people's emotional issues. It is often a safer way to express feelings and to reconnect with memories than talking would be. Making art can provide people with concrete images that help them reflect and find the power to change. This is true for children as well as adults.

A 15-year-old boy recovering from drug addiction painted a picture of his inner battle "between good and evil," as he described it. "The serpent is the negative forces in me, trying to get me to use drugs. The light in the center is the good in me. I am these orange blobs moving into the light." As he interpreted his own work, the experience began to empower him. Creating and exploring the meaning of these personally significant symbols was a key point in this boy's healing process. By reconnecting with himself, and later with others, he eventually let go of his addiction.

I first begin using art with children when I was a teenager. One summer, working as a camp counselor with mentally retarded children, I gave a young boy art materials. He began painting fires. Before that, he had been setting them. I was fascinated by the powerful connection between visual expression and emotional release. I began to explore this phenomenon in my own artwork, and found that I wanted to study in the field of art therapy.

In 1981, with ten years of experience and training as an art educator and art therapist, I founded the New England Art Therapy Institute with the premise that we are all inherently creative beings. The philosophy and techniques of the institute emphasize stepping beyond the critical and analytical, toward an acceptance of the life spirit that exists in each of us. Our framework addresses what is healthiest within us: our creativity. With this as a starting point, individuals begin their healing journeys from a place of inner strength.

In a child's drawing, two simple figures; a woman and a girl-stand apart on the page. In yellow crayon and barely legible, words float above their heads - a remembered conversation. "Mom, I have to tell you something," say the words above the girl. "Dad touched me in my private parts." "I'm too busy now, and I don't believe you," says Mom. The process of creating this art was an emotional breakthrough for this young victim of incest. It was the first time she was able to express her feelings about what had happened to her. Art helped her to contact her deep suffering. Subsequent drawings reflected her journey of recovery from the abuse. Most significantly, she was able to review her work over a period of time, and reflect on how she had grown.

Art helps us express feelings and ideas for which we might no have words. Art also gives us a safe form of expression that does not depend on words.

People who have had a stroke or Alzheimer's disease often feel trapped due to their inability to communicate. I have gone into nursing homes and rehabilitation centers and watched people as old as 103 draw stories of their lives. Many of these people had lost the ability to give coherent verbal accounts of the same events. Art serves as a tool to reconnect them with a time in their lives when they felt in control and healthier. We found many people who had lived beside each other in nursing homes for years and discussed nothing more than the weather in all that time. As they observed each other's artwork, they began enthusiastically talking with each other about their pasts for the first time.

Art therapy even works with those who cannot see their creations. One elderly man I worked with was legally blind. Living in a nursing home he felt closed in and confined. After talking with him, I suggested he draw something he recalled from memory. He drew a favorite tree that had grown in the backyard of his childhood home. He said, "I got the feeling of claiming that tree, just from drawing it." That man experienced a joyful moment of going beyond his physical and psychological limitations. By drawing the tree he was able to simulate the sensations of climbing a tree.

The creative process provides direct access to our human qualities. Art therapy offers a safe place for us to experiment with new ways of being. When we use this learning into the rest of our lives, we can develop more loving and rewarding relationships.

This article was first published in The Valley Optimist on April 27, 1992.  For more information about the benefits of the art therapy process, contact Dale Schwarz.

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