Art Therapy. Tips? Interested?

[Changing4Best]

Listening to Classical music is therapy to me, as it is what my parents listened to when I was a kid. Even though I sometimes thought it was "square" back then, I think it is great now! I am older now than my parents were back then, but one of my last memories of them was me sitting in their sitting room with them listening to classical music on the radio with them. My inner child likes Classical music now. My adult self does too. I know as a kid, I was enthralled with the movie FANTASIA (Walt Disney's) when we saw it in the theatre, and I loved the Nutcracker! Still do, especially at this time of year.

There is a great video on Youtube of the Bolshoi Ballet doing it. What a therapeutic treat.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

I loved Fantasia, too! Enthralled is a great description. That movie is one of the few good memories I have of my dad ...

 

[SeekingAfrica]

I've done some sort of art for a long time now, in general, but I do specific things to help my therapy as well. Sometimes I plan these, and sometimes they just happen.
Things I have done/do:
-I dance as a hobby(ballet, jazz etc). It's really physically and mentally challenging figuring out a way to express emotion through dance, and so I have noticed that if I stop for few weeks, I start getting more anxious/angry/irritable
-I always write down random feelings and impressions, just to get them out of the way(on computer)
-once a long time ago, I was working through my trauma and made a fanfiction for one of the shows I liked, with one of my favorite characters going through that same thing. It helped me a lot to get out dark thoughts.
-lately, I started 2 more ways of journaling - videos for myself only(because there's something about seeing how down you are on camera, or recognizing that a lot of your rambling and worries and less issue and more just worry), and also art journal- in which anything goes. Usually I would put few images that go with the theme of the day, may be some quotes or paragraphs from a book, quotes I like, some journaling on how I feel. Other than trying to put some order in my hurricane of feelings, it helps to do all the cutting and gluing and all that. It's silly, but working with my hands is definitely calming.
-also I draw a lot. it's very nice in helping you express something...or distract yourself from something, as well

 

[Changing4Best]

In reading a book entitled "Your Inner Child of the Past" by Hugh Missildine M.D. I have concluded that I want to get some children's art supplies and do some child inspired art. My grandmother bought me a set of oil paints when I was SIX! I painted an abstract and then put them aside. I was not really old enough to know what to do with them. She even asked me if I wanted to give them back to her and have something else instead, but I did not want to do that. I don't think she liked the abstract, but that was all I was capable of at that age.

Later on in life I did many oil paintings and sold some of them too, one for $1,200 and one for $500.00 that I recall now. I did a lot of watercolors too, but not many of those sold. I am a retired artist now, but it occurs to me that my inner child wants to do some good old fashioned childish art! Maybe some stick figures and some blotches of bright colors. Just some FUN. Nothing serious.

Maybe after that, I might do something emotional. Expressions of, you know?

 

[Changing4Best]

In reading a book entitled "Your Inner Child of the Past" by Hugh Missildine M.D. I have discovered that I was a very MESSY child and loved being messy. I resented my parents super clean house, the fact that I was not allowed to sit on their fancy furniture or walk on their pristine front lawn. I was not allowed to eat the foods they served to their fancy party guests until the next mornings after these parties. The list went on... until I was so fed up, that in desperation I kept the messiest of rooms in the house, MINE! Then, to add insult to injury, my mother would stay home from work every few months and CLEAN my room. Then I was unable to FIND my belongings, until shortly before she cleaned it again! This went on for years.

These days, my inner child and my adult self have conflicts about how neat my place should be. You see, we have an inspection here in these apartments every 6 months or so, and I was once told that I could get "cited" for housekeeping, if I did not clean up my clutter. I have never been a dirty housekeeper, just a messy disorganized one. So right now, we will soon be facing another inspection, probably after the new year, and my inner child is procrastinating about doing any neatening up of the place. I can't blame her, actually, it is the holidays after all, and she is not in the mood for housekeeping, and neither am I for that matter! So we are reveling in our messiness.

 

[Changing4Best]

From the book "Your Inner Child of the Past" by Hugh Missildine M.D.:

IT TAKES FOUR TO MAKE A MARRIAGE

Because each of us has in us a "child of the past", marriage requires that 4 not 2 adjust to one another. If one of the four dominates, there is bound to be trouble. Not understanding that marriage basically involves 4 persons is the cause of much of the anguish of our unhappy marriages and divorce courts. Our romantic attitudes toward love and marriage, which inundate us in song and story, give us a misleading picture of marriage-- "just us two." After looking forward to marriage, we are then disappointed, frustrated and eventually embittered or resigned because "just us two" are somehow so complicated -- and not at all as compatible, appreciative, loving and sympathetic as we had imagined, hoped, dreamed....

(This is supposing that the 4 is composed of 2 adults and 2 "inner children.") SK

 

[Changing4Best]

I bought some colored markers and a sketch pad. The store I went to did not have the erasable colored pencils, so they are still on my shopping list. I will get them. In the meantime, I did a piece called "After the garden, before the Vase" in colored markers, my first experience with them. It is of some flowers that look like they were just cut, then dropped on the counter or table, before being arranged in a vase later.

I kind of likened them to us, in mid-life, after God has picked us, but before He takes us to Heaven. They are done in a childish way, not fancy or "perfect" but just pretty. I love flowers, so they were my first choice in doing this Art Therapy thing.

I sent the piece as a Christmas present to the person who most enjoys my creative endeavors. She is like a loving grandmother type to me, always with a word of praise for my creative things. She in herself is very therapeutic to me, so I get double the blessing by sending the piece to her!

 

[EmmaOwl]

Listening to Classical music is therapy to me, as it is what my parents listened to when I was a kid.

Me too! I know lots of the BEGINNINGS of things, because my dad would play music when I went to bed.
I learned classical music like that, and Bob Dylan. :)

Also I got taken to classical concerts once in a while from a pretty young age, and I loved it - a lot because I knew that after being relatively still and listening, I would get a late dinner in Chinatown and I got to stay up past my bedtime. THAT is a fun memory for me!

Unfortunately I have bad associations with a lot of music now :( though I can listen in the car, or when someone is with me (I know that sounds weird, but it is one of my "things")

But it's a good calming activity. Or listening to really loud heavy metal! I do wish I could listen more on my own, because then I could color or do little crafty things.

 

[Changing4Best]

Me too! I know lots of the BEGINNINGS of things, because my dad would play music when I went to bed.
I...

My parents took me to lots of concerts too, and to the ballet. Loved those and also Musicals! Therapy and also self help books about my inner child have helped me to overcome some of the negatives of childhood and my parents lesser parenting traits.

 

[watundah]

I was also a graphic artist in my first career. My therapist and I have used art quite a bit as I often lose my voice in session. I am on therapy break for the next several weeks but am trying to think of some meaningful prompts in the meantime. I hit a big jag of depression a few months ago and am just starting to make art again. Turning away from art was a big tell for me. At first my T said, it will.come back. It didnt. Then she tried to.convince me that.committing 4 hours a day would fix it. Ha. Not likely.

I made a fun and revealing timeline once with a cigar box that I lined with fake fur. I made a card for the box that reflected each decade of my life. I have done a lot with old photos, and collage, but I especially like boxes and putting treaures,.memories pains or wishes in them. I want to make another box before I start therapy again. I may do one about where I was and where I am, where I want to go cards, blockages, etc.

If anyone has ideas for.prompts I would love to hear them. Most I find on the internet are schmaltzy vs therapeutic. I need something more than "draw your emotion right now." Though, maybe drawing my depression from the last few months could be revealing.

I really liked the book Personal Geographies by Jill Berry. She does a lot about maps and journies, and isnt that what we're all facing?

Cheers.

 

[Changing4Best]

I did a piece called "IN THE GARDEN OF MY SOUL" and it is not a "pretty" piece, but more just something colorful and full of circles. One of these is only just starting to be forming and the rest are formed already. There is plenty of "room to grow" yet too. I sent it to my best friend, who is like a grandmother to me, when it comes to my art. She can find beauty, even in the most ugliest of pieces! This is not to say that this piece is ugly or anything, it is just not as pretty as the other piece I sent to her, which was full of colorful flowers.