Since July I have been participating in a great online art workshop - 6 Degrees of Creativity. The workshop was developed with Art Therapy Alliance and offers six different art workshops that can be completed at your own pace through December. The workshop was developed as a way to bring people together, no matter where they are in the world, in the shared love of art-making and creativity. Registrants of 6 Degrees of Creativity have access to a social networking site that allows them to join … [Read more...]
Origami Therapy: 10 More Ideas
In my post last week, I discussed how origami (or the related art of kirigami) could be used in therapy. Today I would like to share ten more ideas for how to use origami. There are many more ways you could use origami, but I hope this list will help give you some new ideas to try out. 1. Puppets: Making puppets is a popular intervention in art therapy and play therapy with children. The puppets can then be used to have a conversation or play interaction with the child. Children may be … [Read more...]
Origami in Therapy
Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. Created piece are often made from a single sheet of paper that has been folded without any cutting involved. More involved pieces may be assembled from more than one piece. A related art form, kirigami, involves both folded and cut paper. I have always been fascinated by origami--it amazes me the multitude of things that can be created from folding a single piece of paper. It was not until another psychotherapist gave a training at my clinic, … [Read more...]
Art Therapy Collage (Part 2)
This is Part 2 of my posts about the use of collage in art therapy. In Part 1, I offered an introduction to collage art therapy and some tips to get started using collage in therapy. In Part 2, I will offer some different interventions and suggestions for collage. This is meant to give you some new ideas and places to start, but keep in mind that there is great room for flexibility and exploration. You can create a collage to explore just about anything that you can think of. Many of the … [Read more...]
Collage Art Therapy (Part 1)
Collage is a great activity for art therapy because it feels less threatening to clients than other art activities like painting and drawing. Many clients may feel nervous about drawing because they may not have done art in many years, have a feeling that they are not "good" at art, or don't know where to start in creating something. Collage pictures can be a great way for a client to find an image that represents what they want to say. The collage process can also be a great way to spark … [Read more...]