Atelier für Kunsttherapie Freiburg
Accompanied painting with children and adolescents
Accompanied painting supports the development of the child’s self and aims to meet his or her deepest need for pictorial representation. In accompanied painting you are not taught how to paint and talent is not the issue. The pressure to succeed and ideals of beauty have no role to play here. Through the free choice of subject, format and colours in an atmosphere
While painting, the child is in dialogue with itself and its social environment. This enables it to confront its everyday experience as it explores and grasps things not understood till then, exploring what is new alongside seemingly insurmountable challenges, things that frustrate and still others that awaken its curiosity “symbolically” enabling it to explore and better understand.
While painting, the child gains scope for decision-making. The challenge is to come to its own conclusions thus training its sense of judgment. The solutions that are developed while painting a picture can then be tested in its everyday life, where they can then be confirmed or rejected.
Every child develops and evolves in the studio. Sometimes the changes are visible, but a lot of what happens is unseen. What is important is the experience with the child’s self. Thereby the child comes in touch with itself and discovers its own creativity. In the process the child becomes aware of the support it gets from its very own individual personality.
It’s important not to judge or make too much of the child’s pictures, not to analyse them. The most important thing is the attitude of respect towards the child and what it has produced from its own feelings.
"Herr Keuner looked at the drawing of his young niece. She had produced a hen that flew over a farmstead.
“Why does your hen have three legs”, asked Herr Keuner. “Hens can’t fly and that’s why I needed a third leg to push it off!”
“I’m glad that I asked you" Bertold Brecht
Art therapy with children and adolescents
“A child, even when it cannot speak, gives expression to its soul while painting. In this way, it can create a link to itself, to adults, to the world, perhaps even to God.” S. Bach
Accompanied painting is of therapeutic benefit when frightening experiences have to be explained and dealt with. Problems and tensions can be worked on calmly and consciously through creative acts. The urge to be creative survives existential crises and can emerge as an important companion in the process. Creative acts allow for the painter to discover their own sense of balance (again). Accompanied painting enables you to confront the complex demands of life at a symbolic level within the protected atmosphere of the studio.
In my opinion, it’s important that there’s a space in which the shortcomings are not at the centre, in which the question “what do you need?” is not asked It’s important that there’s a space that simply starts with what you can do already, one that links up to one’s natural curiosity, the willingness to learn and the joy of living. Naturally, the problems of the child or adolescent will be dealt with in art therapy through the paintings themselves and discussions while painting.
No topics are suggested nor given. Instead you find your own topics. Each individual has their own way of expressing themselves. Alongside their pictures, which are appropriate for their age group, children and adolescents evolve their very own subjects through which their very different personalities find expression. What counts is the perseverance and regularity. It is these that make depth, repetition and workmanship possible.
Thus, for example, the issue in art therapy with children and adolescents might revolve around the free expression of feelings, conflict management on a symbolic level, easing the burden of irksome experiences, as well as the reduction of tension, about the easing of compulsive and anxious behaviour. The promotion of the ability to form relationships and to communicate is also central. Likewise is the improvement of social skills, the ability to concentrate and persevere. Equally, self-esteem, self-confidence and independence can be reinforced along with the capacity to take action. Delayed development can be worked on while perception and the fine motor skills are promoted.
Here inhibited children have the chance to find release, while disinterested children find a place in which they can experiment and discover something new. In the painting studio aggressive and hyperactive children have the chance to overcome their problems through creative activity and learn to cope better and become calmer.
Accompanied painting/ Person-oriented art therapy with adults
People come to painting for a variety of reasons. Some are looking for a form of release after a tiring day at work, while others feel weighed down by something and it’s easier for them to paint than to speak about it. Still others simply enjoy painting. But soon you will realise that this is not the issue.
Some people paint in silence while others want to say something as they paint. If you want me to, I listen. Sometimes I’ll say what I see and develop perspectives with you. But you will always know more about the picture than I do. All I can see is what you have painted. It is not my role to come up with an analytical theory.
We all have access to a rich inner word of images. We have dreams, wishes, needs, fears – depending on the way in which we experience the world. Often these images are set aside, eluding the control of the mind and creating their own reality, having a manifold influence on our lives.
Accompanied painting offers a way to get closer to these pictures. In a direct and sensuous way the painter gets the chance to engage with these pictures and to check them against reality. The painter can experiment with giving more space to his or her own needs and wishes. Thereby he or she can learn something about what has hindered or blocked him or her until this point.
Accompanied painting is about getting to know the hidden, blocked parts of one’s self and confronting oneself with them. It is therefore a process of self-discovery.
This is what makes the experiences while painting and the ensuing creative solutions supported by the art therapist very significant. One day the painter realises that these experiences or solutions can be applied to his or her everyday life. She or he may come to surprising results which were previously unimaginable.
The fascinating thing about the process of painting is that, even when the painter finds him or herself in an apparently hopeless situation, he or she suddenly faces his own, powerful pictures. These are moments in which inner energy that was thought to be lost is rediscovered. This energy can be integrated by the painter into his or her individual situation.
When life is seen as an ongoing process, accompanied painting offers the painter the chance to actively shape this process.
As a process and resources-oriented form of work, accompanied painting not only promotes creativity but also initiates extensive development in the entire psychological and physical area. The “transfer” of feelings onto the large-format of the picture is experienced by the painter as pleasant relaxation and in part as success. What appear to be mistakes are recognised as the gateway to positive change.
You can find a short film on accompanied painting here: http://www.youtube.com
Solution-oriented painting LOM®
The method
“When people come to solution-oriented painting they may already have many serious but also partially effective attempts at finding solutions behind them. It would be inappropriate for me to assume that I have a better solution. A further attempt at finding a solution can never be found through understanding and awareness, for these possibilities have usually been exhausted by the painter. In this sense, the solution cannot lie in the contents, in what is thinkable, but only in the expansion of perception.” (B. Egger) Lecture: The Brain is an Organ that Produces Pictures.
LOM® is a form of short-term therapy in which, through a solution-oriented methodology of painting, an attempt is made to explain concerns and symptoms, to create realistic perspectives, to explain dreams and work through traumatic experiences. In LOM® we work with metaphors and picture sequences. Work with trauma combines these two approaches. It gives clear hints about what the main issue is.
Surprisingly, exam anxiety, for example, disappeared after painting a metaphor picture. When asked the question, “If your fear of writing exams were a fruit, what kind of fruit would it be?” the answer might be a picture of the inside of an orange. This orange is then painted.
Traumatised people usually carry stark, encumbering pictures with them. These pictures lose their destructive effect when they are painted accurately and concretely however. The result is then anchored in the future within a picture.
With the help of LOM® a variety of problems can be dealt with:
Trauma following accidents, violence, sexual abuse, conflicts of all kinds, panic attacks, physical pain with no organic cause, excessive grief. Decision-making when the decision-making process is blocked and rational considerations no longer help towards a change of perspective. Finding a way of dealing with situations in the past or seemingly unchangeable ones, public appearances, improving concentration, resilience and learning ability.
LOM® works through pictures using a method that can be used in groups as well as one-to-one. To make appointments and receive further information about LOM®, please take a look at our dates or mail me.