When you make the decision to take part in art therapy, it is an opportunity for you to experience counselling on a different level to the way counselling normally operates. Instead of only talking, you will be creating, using different art materials and techniques. Your imagination is a very big part of your self growth and healing.
As you talk, Debra will be able to pull out those themes and expressions, which appear in your vocabulary and help you to bring them into your imaginative world. The image that your mind creates, coming from your unconscious, then takes on its own life, the story from the image growing in your mind, creating a foundation from which to work. It is then a chance for you to realise something in yourself which opens up to a new possibility, which then allows you to integrate the process and work with your issue in your everyday life, in a more constructive and meaningful way.
It is also helpful to know, that sometimes a client finds it hard to talk and that is when imagery can do the talking. Imagery can say a lot more than words could ever express. So if you prefer to just express yourself through your drawing, that is aso a workable situation.
Transpersonal Art Therapy links psychology with spirituality, creating a doorway into our unconscious. In our unconscious lies the key to how and why we operate in the world, the way we do. As we enter the creative and imaginal world, we claim meaning out of who we are and how we operate in various situations and start a journey of self realising, which leads us to our greater potential and authenticity.
We each come into this world with our different personalities, issues, challenges and ways of being, which is part of our human condition. We can either come up against ourselves, or learn to celebrate our own uniqueness.
Within our uniqueness, the challenges presented to us, are the doorways of opportunity, which when explored through art therapy, from a transpersonal perspective, help uncover those parts of ourselves that hold the key to healing and well being. By being willing to explore these areas in the gentle process of art therapy, we are lead into our unconscious realm, giving us clues on what we need to know about ourselves.
We are aiming to move through our masked way, allowing us to gain insights into ourselves, reclaiming our personal power and meaning. The shifts that we experience through creativity, show themselves in various symbolic ways and as we go through the art therapy processes, we lift, shift, reshape and then integrate what we now know, using tools to recreate those parts that do not serve us anymore.