This interview is a part of the 6th issue of our 1/4 Life Crisis Newsletter
Sorana Horsia: Why do you like to use art in your therapy?
Kim Welch: The reason why I like to use art is that it's a very useful tool in therapy. It's relaxing and easy for people to do. But it also has therapeutic benefits.
SH: What kind of benefits does art have for mental health?
KW: I think art gives my patients an opportunity to express themselves in a way that they wouldn't necessarily always be able to do verbally. If they enjoy being creative, I think it's a nice way to help them express themselves and find their own techniques and things that they can use to help them when they leave therapy as well.
I just always like to use whatever way it's applicable for each individual. So if I thought someone was sitting there and they wanted to be creative because they didn't want to be too verbal, about overwhelming emotions like feeling depressed:
"Let me explore when I'm feeling depressed. How can I represent that? What colour can I choose?" For example, maybe they worry a lot, and their thoughts just go around in circles, and then maybe they draw a spiral in a dark colour which represents depression. And then they can write down a few things on the card if they wanted to, to remind them of that feeling.
Then we can think of what colour represents them when they are feeling happy and what shape that happiness would have. Maybe they can draw a big yellow star and then on the other side explore what kind of things make them happy.
The art would be part of the therapy, but then it's something they can take home with them and use because it's in their pocket.
I thought it'd be quite nice if they did a little set of cards. I just feel that having a useful little card that they can keep in their pocket can help them cope better in difficult situations. They can pull it out and look at it and use it in and out of therapy.
"Art is a good way of expressing oneself"
When they're stuck indoors, when it's rainy weather, when they're alone or when they're bored, they can write those little notes on that card and then they can flip the backside of the card and then we say.
Maybe they say, I enjoy going for walks or chatting with a friend or just sitting in the sunshine in the park or doing some gardening at home or whatever. So then they've got a card that represents a bad feeling on one side, and ways to overcome it on the other side.
It's like a little reminder. It's a representation and a reminder, and it's also enjoyable.
I think art is a good way of expressing oneself. And I think that's also unique to each person. I mean, everyone experiences depressive moments, but what makes the person feel depressed in their own world is unique to them because something might make them depressed that doesn't make another person depressed. So it's quite nice that they can make their own unique, individualised set of cards that are relevant to them.
Also the actual act of making art is in itself very uplifting because they are being creative and they are doing something constructive and fun towards improving and helping themselves.
SH: You said that you are not pushing this technique on people that feel intimidated by it. Why do you think people feel intimidated by doing art?
KW: Some people can be quite intimidated by making art because I think there's always that sort of thought in the back of their heads from when they were back in school:" I have to make something beautiful and what I make is being judged." When I work with people, I tell them that the art isn't made to be pretty. It should be representative and meaningful to them. It's generally quite abstract, so it doesn't have to look like anything. It can be just colour on a page with a swirly… a swirly star or a sun or something like that. So it's not that you have to be an artist to be able to do art therapy.
You can have a lump of clay that they can just squeeze and mould into some form and you know, it can be an abstract form and then they can just squash it down at the end of the session. And it's a way of relieving stress.
SH: And for you, for example,when you are making art how does it make you feel like and why do you like it so much?
KW: Well, I just love art because personally I find it very exhilarating and beautiful to make art and it doesn't have to be pretty. Art is very unique to each individual.
When you go to an art gallery, you'll look at something and go, "that's awful". And you look at something else and go "that's amazing". And the next person will come and have the opposite interests and they'll say, "No, I don't like that. I like the other one". So it's all very personalised.
When we're all little, before we even go to school. I think we all play with with fingerprints and we make these wonderful, colourful abstract paintings that your mom puts on the wall everywhere and you love doing it. And every time people stop making art when it gets judged by outsiders. When others start asking: What's that supposed to be? And then you start doubting your own sel.
I think everyone is entitled to make art. An artist, in my opinion, is meant to be colourful and messy and just free. There are so many ways to be creative.
Kim Welch is a counsellor based in the United Kingdom, with extensive experience as a career advisor.
She is also an artist who likes transforming what surrounds her into expressive pieces. She finds using art in therapy beneficial.