Also available as a video with subtitles on YouTube.
Art therapy in healthcare settings has traditionally been used to support patients.
But it’s also a practice being used with doctors struggling with burnout.
In this episode Dr Paula Redmond chats to Megan Tjasink, Lead Art Psychotherapist in Cancer and Palliative Services, at Barts Health NHS Trust in London.
She talks about her work with doctors and how art therapy and creative practice can help in coping with burnout.
Here are some of the resources Megan mentioned:
- Her paper on art therapy to reduce burnout in oncology and palliative care doctors: a pilot study
- “Coping through Connection and Creativity” blog (this is no longer being added to but is a historic resource for art therapy-based exercises and a gallery of clinician art work made as part of the initiative)
- Megan recently wrote a chapter called “The innovative use of Art Therapy with hospital clinicians” for Art Psychotherapy and Innovation: New Territories, Techniques and Technologies, Jessica Kingsley Publishers (due to be released July 21, 2022). The chapter contains more detail about much of what we discussed in relation to the way the work has developed over the past 2 years, including the ICU nurses clay workshops (with images) , the blog and the value of exhibiting and viewing art with/by other clinicians in work spaces.
- Jordan Potash’s work in Hong Kong with hospice workers and an RCT with healthcare workers in Singapore
- The botanical drawing classes Megan was inspired by
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Transcript
[music]
Paula Redmond: Hi, I’m Dr. Paula Redmond, a clinical psychologist, and you’re listening to the When Work Hurts podcast. On this show, I want to explore the stories behind the statistics of the mental health crisis facing healthcare professionals today, and to provide hope for a way out through compassion, connection, and creativity. Join me as I talk to inspiring clinicians and thought leaders in healthcare about their unique insights and learn how we can support ourselves and each other when work hurts. My guest this week is Megan Tjasink, head art psychotherapist in cancer and palliative services at Barts Health NHS Trust in London. We talked about her work with doctors and how art therapy and creative practice can help in coping with burnout. I began by asking Megan about her role.
Megan Tjasink: I’m the lead art psychotherapist in cancer and palliative care at Barts Hospital, within the Barts Health NHS Trust. I have, however, recently been seconded to QMUL, just this last month, where I’m doing a PhD, which is supported by the Barts Charity, and the research is specifically about using art therapy to address symptoms of anxiety and burnout in hospital-based healthcare professionals.
Paula: For many of us, we won’t be that familiar with art therapy and how it might be used in these contexts. Maybe you could explain how you use art therapy with health professionals and why.
Megan: At our hospital, which is an acute hospital working– Well, with a cancer center, a heart center, and endocrine are the main kind of clinical areas at Barts Hospital. We work with physical health. I sit within cancer psychological services, which consists of art psychotherapy and clinical psychology. We work very closely with the MDTs, the multidisciplinary teams who care for the physical health and also some of the mental health of our patients. We have a lot invested in those relationships with healthcare workers on a professional level in terms of joined-up patient care.
We run things like clinical discussion groups. We do lots of psychoeducation and trainings and contribute to the MDTs. However, support for healthcare professionals beyond those normal working professional roles, it has been recognized more recently, and during the pandemic, that that is something that is very important. However, with the art therapy, within the hospital, I’d say we’ve been very well placed to address some of those needs. Have been doing so for some while, although that shifted and developed further during the first lockdown in 2020.
It started, I think it was about eight years ago. I was going up to one of our cancer wards to see a patient for an art therapy session at the bedside. I was carrying my box of art materials, and it’s quite noticeable, perhaps. Not many professionals lug around boxes of paints, and so on, onto the ward. There were some medical oncology registrars back there, the ward reception desk who saw me with these materials and were like, “Oh, can we have art therapy?” I thought they were just joking and started chatting with them, and they were like, “No, really.” [crosstalk]
[laughter]
Megan: There had been a series of deaths on the ward, and young patients who kind of treatment hadn’t been successful for. Quite sad cases and these doctors were really struggling. I didn’t commit to anything at the time and went away, and a few days later, met another of their cohort who I hadn’t originally had the conversation with in a lift. Once again, I was carrying a box of art materials, and he read my badge, which said, “Art psychotherapist,” and he’s like, “Oh, what’s that? This looks interesting.” We started talking and decided, “Okay.”
We had a few meetings and decided to see whether we could create a model, a feasible structure in which we could bring art therapy or art therapy-based workshops to this particular cohort of oncology registrars. I guess from the outset, it was really important to have a collaborator who was one of the physicians or one of the healthcare workers I was wanting to work with. I guess that was the start and was when Gehan Soosaipillai, the doctor at the time who I started collaborating with, and we’ve subsequently published a paper about the pilot to using art therapy to address burnout in oncology and palliative care registrars.
That grew out of this initial meeting being the lift and then thinking about, “Well, how can we make this happen?” There was a lot of thought that went into structuring this program. Gehan’s inout was invaluable in terms of us making it realistic, and I guess, acceptable to the doctors in terms of how they could fit it in, and so that they would actually be able to attend. Those kind of practicalities were essential for enabling the intervention to be a success.
One of those psychologists I worked with, one of the clinical psychologists had done some work in Hong Kong, and he said, “Oh, there’s this art therapist I worked with, Jordan Potash, who is doing work with end of life healthcare workers using art therapy in Hong Kong.” I got in touch with him, and he was developing this model using art therapy-based methods for supervision for end-of-life workers. He was very supportive and interested.
That really helped me see, “Okay, there’s already a framework developing here. I don’t have to make everything from scratch to develop a six-week intervention. I thought, “Well, we’re doing this. May as well do it as a pilot and use the Maslach Burnout Inventory,” which is the gold standard measure for burnout, before and after, as well as some qualitative questionnaire, and found actually that this intervention was remarkably impactful. The feedback was really, really positive. Doctors who had originally been quite skeptical about art, like, “Oh, I can’t draw,” found themselves actually, after a stressful day at work, drawing at home as a way of unwinding. It’s something that they unexpectedly gained from the experience.
Paula: How did you sell it to the department, to management? How did you get buy-in for it?
Megan: Well, initially, I wasn’t really able to sell it to the department or to management. This was just something that the doctors and I did, and we did it after working hours because we couldn’t get time out during the days. We did it after clinics. We ran it from, it was half-past six to eight at night. From those initial series of sessions, I had the outcomes measured. It was a very small sample set at that point, but even then, we could see there was real potential, and statistically significant shift on two out of three of the items on the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and positive shifts across all three.
Also, the feedback was so positive that I was then able to go to the doctors that have the clinical audit meeting quite regularly, and go to that kind of forum and do a presentation, and be able to show the difference that it made and have sort of these testimonials. Also, something that I think is hugely helpful is having amazing artwork that people have produced because it’s just so different to what the clinicians will be looking at in these types of audit meetings. It’s like, [unintelligible 00:09:59] “Oh, that’s interesting,” and take note. Presenting to clinicians, making presentations to management, and so on.
That first step where we were very much on our own in a way really helped then to kind of, “Okay, now, we’ve got some evidence, and this is actually working.” Then I got some funding after that from the Bart charity. That helped to free me up from a little bit of the patient load, or the clinical work in order to develop it further. Then ran the pilot over another three years with subsequent cohorts.
Paula: Can you tell us Megan, about what kind of work you were doing in the group? What sort of projects, what sort of work was going on?
Megan: All of the workshops were structured with particular themes which is a little bit different to the way you would generally do art therapy with– or use art therapy with patient groups. The themes, the first two weeks were on the theme about the self and self-awareness and the self, how you bring yourself to professional role. Then the middle two weeks were about the team, the collegial connection, and those kind of sessions involve making together. Making group sculptures with clay, painting exercises where the page is shared and different people work on the painting to resolve issues for each other. The final two sessions were about meaning in terms of patient relationships and also death and bereavement in relation to patients who had died.
In those sessions, there was quite a strong element of mindfulness and compassion focus therapy influenced, I would say the last four sessions in the series. It’s a range of art materials available. What was really important was having tea and coffee and some biscuits available when people arrive because often they hadn’t had time to eat during the day. The vending machines were appalling. kind of living on vending machine food, and then checking in, anything leftover from the week before, or just general checking in. Then we’d move into art-making on whatever the particular thing was.
A range of art materials available to select from and having the art-making at the start, of the session in that way was really important because I think this particular group of doctors tend to be very cerebral and use a lot of top-down processing in terms of how they solve problems within their work environment and approach things. By encouraging the use of art materials at the start of the session, it really helped to shift people into a different space and a different kind of, it’s almost a sort of relief to get out of your head and into your body. Quite a focus on the tactile qualities of the materials, noticing how they feel, touch and so on to encourage a different type of processing, so the more bottom up processing.
Really getting into that sort of body-mind aspect of art therapy, I guess. With this particular group with healthcare professionals, I think that’s really, really important because they’re very skilled and well-practiced at solving problems, but then some things get stuck. Being able to use a different way of approaching problems is bottom up processing. I think it was quite key actually to why these sessions were helpful for people and also enabling them to feel renewed because you’re able to rest one side of the brain to a certain degree and nourish another part of yourself that is perhaps a bit neglected.
There’d be the art making followed by reflection. Group reflection, people sharing, and talking about the making, thoughts, and feelings that have come up was a group discussion. That was the sort of, I guess, each session would involve checking in, making, and reflection, but the themes and materials would vary.
Paula: Megan, you mentioned those three themes though, the sort of self and identity, the team relationships, and then something about meaning. I was struck by that. Those three themes that are often really core to when work hurts for many health professionals in terms of struggles with identity often being so fused with the professional identity. When relationships with colleagues are tricky, that can be so distressing. Also, I guess, particularly with the group you were working with, facing a lot of death, a lot of really hard relationships, painful stuff going on with patients. I’m struck by the really hard hitting themes that the group was framed around. I wonder what you needed to do to enable people to access that process, particularly with colleagues?
Megan: I think, that’s really important and providing this type of intervention within a work setting, I think one has to be quite very experienced and it has to be very thoughtfully done because you don’t want to make people vulnerable with colleagues who they then have to work with. Creating safety is really important. At the start, before people opted into joining the group, there was a meeting in which confidentiality, what would be expected of respectful interactions, and also how to keep one’s self safe. Not to overshare, everyone knows their limitations, but to be mindful of this is a work setting. That’s absolutely key. Also what was quite key was in that initial session saying, “Well, this isn’t therapy.”
Also called art therapy based workshops. It’s like, “I’m not your therapist. This is not therapy. We are doing this as a way of trying to engage with difficult themes in order to nourish and enhance our working lives. Lives more generally, but the focus very much being on this is something that’s happening within a work environment. It takes skillful conducting of the group, but also these doctors are very high functioning individuals, so it’s not like working with a vulnerable patient group. They may be struggling with stress and all kinds of things, but they’re not a particularly vulnerable cohort that way. Things are pitched at a certain level.
I think if the sessions had been talking alone, I don’t think that doctors would have got to the point where they were able to share the way they did and the things they did about the patients. The sad moments, the difficult moments, how they felt when a treatment failed, or patients that died, and difficult situations. The thing about art therapy is it can be a really useful approach with highly defended people because it’s like a side door and you can talk about your artwork. You don’t have to talk about– you can use metaphor and it’s much less direct than talking alone.
There’s this indirect root in, and also because of this sort of body mind approach you’re accessing feelings without necessarily the gatekeeper being as dominant as usually the kind of your mind would be. Sometimes you can access things in a softer, or a gentler, and less direct way, but they can still be acknowledged. Even if they’re acknowledged only by the artwork that has been made, being there and being witnessed, or your own feelings, or thoughts about it. They don’t necessarily even have to be voiced. There are different levels, and some people would talk more than others, and then feel that they felt better because other people had acknowledged difficulties and, “Oh, yes, I wasn’t alone in that.” They don’t have to blurt everything out, that sense of being in something together. Also having something else to focus on, having the art-making, I think really helps people to feel, just less on the spot in terms of talking about difficult things.
Paula: Sounds like an ideal process to help people, as you say, access and acknowledge and just take a pause out of their busy lives to give room and give space to some of the difficult stuff they wrestle with and carry with them.
Megan: Yes, I mean, that slowing down is essential. The art-making aspect slows things down. During the art-making, often there’s no talking. You have these extended moments of silence, you might have 20 minutes of no one’s saying anything. During the art-making process, they’re focusing on what they’re making, but they’re also reflecting, and that is so rare for these individuals. To have that time and that space to slow down and reflect is something that very rarely happens. I think the art-making money facilitates that. To just have a silence if you weren’t doing something, I think would feel quite uncomfortable, but to have that focus and you’re doing something, but you don’t have to be talking I think is very helpful.
Paula: I know in the paper that you published, Megan, there are examples of the artwork from some of the groups which I found really profound to see. There’s something about a ripple effect of this work that I think people even, the viewing of art can also have meaning.
Megan: Yes, absolutely. In March 2020, right near the start of this pandemic in the UK, I set up an online art therapy-based group for our clinicians, along with a blog called Coping through connection and creativity, and the output of what people made in these sessions. We actually ended up having an exhibition of the artwork that staff had made, some people, not everyone, but some people really wanted to exhibit their work, and we’re happy to.
Within the hospital, we had an exhibition of the artwork with people’s little paragraphs about their reflection about their piece or their experience of making it, and that was just– it was remarkable how other staff members who went to see the work. Their comments about it was such a relief, someone else was feeling those same things, and to view that in an artwork, I think, gave it a different type of impact or it resonated in a different way. People could connect experiences. My art therapist colleague and I put artwork up in some of the clinical spaces, for example, the corridor, leading to the clinical nurse specialists’ office, with artwork or photographs about noticing the every day that staff had sent into our blog.
These posters that we put up, essentially collages of different artworks and photographs people have sent in became these hubs of conversation. People would stop and like talk to each other around these and then start showing each other photographs on their phones that they had taken. They became a way to connect within [inaudible 00:24:46] stop, reflect, connect, share images and feelings. That viewing and witnessing what is really important in terms of feeling connected. It doesn’t have to be the making.
Paula: I know there’s some research that shows that viewing Arts has a physiological response that can really support our nervous systems in terms of reducing blood pressure and heart rate and things.
Megan: Along with the, as you’re saying about the positive impact of viewing art, there’s been, in the last 10 years a lot of development with art therapy researches working with neuroscience to look at what actually happens in the brain when we use different art materials. There’s a researcher in the States called Juliette King, and others who are doing really, really interesting work using imaging of the brain and scans and so on. What happens when you use clay, what happens when you do coloring in. All these different ways of engaging with art materials. That research is particularly in relation to work with veterans and trauma, but yes, it’s a growing area and it’s really changing the way we understand what happens, and why is art-making helpful.
Paula: I know, Megan, you started this work before the pandemic when burnout rates were high, and then COVID came along. What happened for you and this work? I know you’ve mentioned this, the exhibition, and the blog, but what are your reflections looking back on these last couple of years and how that’s impacted on your work?
Megan: It’s helped a lot of threads that I was already working with to come together and to be consolidated in a way. It certainly shifted my thinking, and my understanding about the role of art within the medical setting and within the hospital setting and with clinicians. I think that happened through the pandemic, we had a real issue with people being cut off from their normal support systems, wearing [unintelligible 00:27:32] cut off from their senses. There was a real disconnection on many levels. Of course, that leads to anxiety, and I guess that element of connection through creativity that had always been there just came to the fore, for me, it was like, “Okay, this is the focus now.”
For example, asked to run a workshop for the ICU nurses. It was in the summer between the two waves [inaudible 00:28:09] reprieve, and decided to use clay for that workshop, because of wanting to help people to connect with their senses, and to get into the body, and brought all the gloves and the aprons and everything. We had to do all the PPE and they didn’t want to wear the gloves with the clay. I mean, we had your sandals on but they wanted to be in there and they wanted to sit on the floor, and we put this tarpaulin out on the floor, and they were sitting together playing with this clay.
It was like, I mean, I guess the classic attachment theory is like children, it’s like wanting to play. Just relishing the connection with this material and with each other through this playful, we’re allowed to do something nice. We can use clay and be playful and then, of course, did a bit of mindfulness breathing at the start and got people into their bodies a bit and noticing the feel of the clay and didn’t give any directive in terms of what they needed to make or focus on. It was just they needed to initially work on their own and then make something in smaller groups of three or four, a group piece.
Every single group made something about their experience of the pandemic. One group made a clay COVID patient with dropped foot for being in ICU for too long, a distended belly, but then this huge heart and talking about how it was all worthwhile when– just those moments of connection with a patient, like squeezing a hand or somebody being grateful or their relatives saying thank you. It’s how that kept them going. Those themes just came out and throughout. They’d been working together in ICU all this time and they’d never spoken about their experiences. They just hadn’t. Also, I don’t know whether that would have happened once again without the art-making. I didn’t say you need to make about your experiences, knew that that would happen, [inaudible 00:30:53] felt it might.
It did because it needed to, but it was done in a way that was playful initially, and then moved into something that could be reflective. Also, talking about loss and personal loss and professional loss, and very profound themes that came out but were facilitated through being able to play together. Have that feeling of being connected, being safe. I suppose, it’s just that realizing and thinking also from a evolutionary perspective in terms of what happens when we become disconnected. We feel unsafe and all kinds of problems result from us feeling that we are alone. Really just, I think that was a shift for me during the pandemic, is the main focus is on creating connection. Whether that’s through connection with the art-making process and the sell-through that or connection to others through the art-making.
Paula: Gosh, that feels like such meaningful, profound work. You mentioned that you’re doing a PhD, or you’ve just started that process. Are you going to be extending this work through that?
Megan: PhD is, yes, it’s building on the pilot. Looking at burnout testing in a proper RCT, which is a bit daunting, but I’m with the right people to help me with it. Randomized Controlled Trial to test group art therapy model to address burnout. The primary endpoint is burnout with a focus on emotional exhaustion, and then the secondary endpoint will be anxiety. Then expanding beyond doctors to include other healthcare professionals, hospital-based healthcare professionals who are primarily working directly with patients, so nurses, doctors, and AHPs.
Paula: On top of my to-do list now is find an art therapy group near me, but I wanted, Megan, for those of us who may not have access to an art therapist, what your thoughts are about how we might be able to use these ideas and techniques to support us in our everyday life?
Megan: Well, I think it’s very easy to use a lot of these ideas and techniques in your everyday life. You absolutely don’t need to have an art therapist to do that. A couple of things that come to mind, one is for my own well-being, I think it was really important for me. I think it was during the first lock-down, I reconnected with an old friend, professor of drawing in South Carolina, Sarah E. Nichols. She got in touch, she was running these online botanical and geological drawing workshops, which I joined. She helped me to, I suppose, engage with my own creativity and be a bit playful, which was really important.
I learned a lot from her in relation to simple things that I could do for myself in terms of my own art-making. One of the things that she got us to do was, in preparation for the workshop, to go and collect botanical objects or subjects that had lots of small removable parts or a front leaf with bits or a flower with petals. Then we came together and explored with touch, what we had found and did slow looking, just noticing everything. What did the back of the plant look like, and the veins, and the ridges, and the imperfections.
Then, mindfully, I guess, culturally that’s the right word, but destroying the plant. Systematically plucking every leaf or every petal. Then, what does it feel like? Just noticing. Does it come away easily? Does it fight back? It’s the sound, the smell, everything of that experience. Then it’s like, “What does that feel like?” It’s like, “Oh, I’ve destroyed this beautiful plant.” It’s quite mixed, and then creating something beautiful with that and being playful.
Her big thing was that you don’t have to have lots of art materials, if you go to your kitchen and use all of these products that you have at home, and to be playful in trying to experiment with mark-making in lots of quick exercises. For example, dipping the leaves in paint and then printing or drawing around them, or just lots of different ways of using them as a starting point.
Moving them around the page, the different parts of the plants. Dropping them on scene where they land and create a drawing out of that. For me, engaging with those kinds of art workshops that really embraced nature and playfulness, but in its destructiveness as well as the creation was just really helpful and also really meaningful when you’re in a space where lots of things are broken or have been dismantled and needing to create a new reality. There’s lots of metaphor that can be found in quite simple art-making exercises.
The blog I mentioned earlier that created for clinicians at the hospital has a lot of examples. The workshops, the different weeks, there are different themes we put up, and then there’s a gallery with people who wanted to send in what they’d made. The interpretations of these themes by nurses and psychologists and various different health professionals who engaged.
That’s a good place, I think, to go to look for examples, and it’s called Barts Arts and Well-being, Coping Through Connection and Creativity. There are a number of themes, some very much inspired by Sarah’s botanical art workshops and then taken with a bit more of a art therapy slant, and others that are from informed art therapy practice such as, there’s a workshop on there called Create, Destroy, Transform. There are a number of different examples, also including some mindfulness practices such as mindful walking as a precursor to some creative activity. Weaving being outside in nature, but also noticing and slow-looking as part of the process.
Paula: It strikes me, I guess, one of the things that I think comes up for lots of people and certainly comes up for me is some of the barriers or worries or anxieties. When I hear the word art and art-making in terms of, particularly for me, I really struggle with perfectionism, and experiences of school, being graded on how good or bad your art is, and not quite being good enough. How do you support people who might be struggling with those worries about getting in touch their creative side?
Megan: It’s very important to acknowledge those fears and even biases, I guess, from the outset. Most people have those, it’s at some point in your life and interestingly, very often around the age of eight or nine, you become either good or bad at art. Lots of people can remember the conversation. Whether it’s with a teacher, they get a bad result at school or a parent, or there’ll be a moment where you move into either category. Before that, it’s just a natural form of communication or expression. With art therapy, it’s very much about the process. Whether there’s an end product or not very often, it doesn’t even matter really. You could tear something up or throw it away. It’s this process that we focus on generally, obviously, there’s a range of practice.
This is, I think an issue when referring patients to art therapy. Patients will often say, “Well, I’m not good at art.” In a way, actually, it’s almost better if somebody is naïve in relation to art because they don’t have these ideals or I need to do a really good drawing. It’s like, “Well, I don’t even know where to start.” They’re able to be more spontaneous. I have lots of conversations with referrers and also with patients about exactly this. My take is really that art making, if you consider it, I suppose, from more anthropological perspective, we’ve as humans, I think it’s just an innate one way that we communicate. We’ve been using symbols to express things and communicate with each other for as long as humans have been around or that we are aware of.
This construct of fine art that developed later in lots of ways, it’s quite unhelpful for art therapists. It’s not really about that. That has lots of value and aesthetics is another whole interesting area, but really this is a way of just a natural human form of expression. Meaning making, we use metaphor to solve problems and in therapy often, that’s what we’re doing. People get stuck and art-making is very well suited to problem solving. You’re using metaphor thinking in different ways in order to resolve something. I would tell somebody that I’m not going to be judging their output. There doesn’t even necessarily need to be an output. I’m much more interested in the process and how they’re feeling about the process, what that’s like, thinking about the materials as well, not just an end product.
We’re also not interested necessarily in something being representational. Could be completely abstract or just pouring paint on paper or stumping a piece of clay with your fist. I had a patient who made something that I just remember as a very powerful artwork. She had been in clinic and had had some bad news from her consultant about her cancer and our art therapy session was pre-planned. It was after the clinic time. She came in and she was just too distraught to make anything. She just cried and developed this pile of tissues in front of her on the table. She’s like, “Oh, I haven’t made anything. I just haven’t been able to make anything today.” The sun was coming through the window and this pile of tissues was this beautiful sculpture where there’s light through the tissue and then the shadow it was creating.
I said, “Well, I think you have created something and you’ve been able to express how you’re feeling and the just the terrible sadness and the despair. You’ve created this incredibly eloquent piece.” Then we decided to– well, we thought about what did she want to do with her sculpture that she created with her distress? Did she want to throw them away? In the end, she made a box and kept them in the box and that was her piece that she’d made. For me, that’s one of the most profound sort of artworks. I still remember lots of artworks, but it just really stands out and it was just like this moment of connection as well. Being able to be with somebody and to just be sad. That in itself was valuable to share that and meaningful. We’re not necessarily looking for a landscape or still life.
Megan: Maybe that’s important about the materials as you’re talking because I’m thinking about for me to get out a piece of paper and an easel and paint. It raises all sorts of anxiety, but to get some clay or I love your description of using a plant like that. The destroying and random just looking. One of the things I love my kids have taught me is junk modeling using recycling and taping it up and sticking bits together and how we can allow ourselves to be playful and kind to ourselves when we’ve got a bit of distance, I guess, from these memories or biases.
Paula: Absolutely. I think that using non-traditional materials and recycled objects, it’s brilliant and it is free. There are also things like collage and you don’t need to be able to draw. We work with patients who– Well, in the hospital, or this is probably off the topic actually, but who might be too weak to hold a pencil. What do you do if you can’t grip something? You can still use art materials. You need to think out of the box in terms of art or what it means.
Megan: Yes. It makes me think about health professionals who may also feel too weak to engage in a process. Thinking about emotional exhaustion in particular and how finding ways of meaningful self expression. Particularly when it’s hard to put things into words.
Paula: I think having that gentle indirect approach is really helpful for that, because you’re not necessarily– I suppose you don’t want to be asking for something more from people who are already giving too much. It needs to be nourishing. They need to be getting something back. I still remember the first ever session of that first series that we ran of art therapy workshops with doctors, one of the first drawings one of the doctors made was of a plate of food. He was hungry. He hadn’t eaten all day, but also I guess my therapist mind afterwards, and I was thinking, yes, they need nourishment. They want feeding. They’re always feeding everyone else. They’re always giving out and here they’ve got these art materials displayed like sweeties.
Well, not sweeties, but it was like a table of food. These art materials, like, “Oh, for us.” The glitter. I’m amazed doctors love using glitter, but I’m not a huge fan of glitter. I’ve realized it has its place with this group, because it’s like something shiny for me and that’s so important.
Megan: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you’d like to help support the podcast, please do share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. I’d love to connect with you. Do come and find me on LinkedIn or Twitter. You can also sign up to my mailing list to keep up to date with future episodes and get useful psychology advice and tips straight to your inbox. All the links are in the show notes. Thanks again and until next time, take good care.
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