Art therapy and cultural identity reconstruction for ethnic clients

¶ … Ethnic Cultures' Experience of Art Therapy

The psychological needs of the ethnic child, teen, adult, and senior - from prelinguistic to senescent - have been historically underestimated and under treated. While there are many reasons for the limited offering, access, or availability, therapists are one of the intrinsic factors.

Not knowing how to best work with cultural differences - particularly when the culture is outside the understanding or empathetic realm of experience - the therapist must turn to approaches which meet the broad spectrum of cross-cultural and racial needs. A relatively new psychological tool, art therapy can - without a single word - establish trust, rebuild decimated boundaries, and minimize the prejudices and myths of cultural variations.

Racial perceptions fall on both sides of the cultural fence line. Both cultures - be they white and black, Jew and Gentile, Indian and cowboy - must expose themselves to constructive ways of self-expression and exploration. In the art therapy setting, contributing therapists are freed to examine cultural and ethnic presuppositions in their own lives, experiences, interactions with the ethnically-diverse client, and hidden foundations. Since art therapy liberates, therapists who employ art therapy in ethnic client rehabilitation and support are often considered ethnic activists for the culturally sound promotion of mental health and general well-being.

Background

Art therapy teaches the truism that something can indeed be created from nothing. During periods of artistic creativity, stress evaporates, focus is honed to the work at hand, and appreciation for the physicality of the art materials can lead to an expression of inner peace, acceptance, and power.

A well-turned piece of clay speaks of being, existing. A beautiful watercolor shouts "I live," "I exist," "I am." While the work itself is gratifying to the creator, the bridge often created while the art is emerging is one of social acceptance, peer approval, recognition of boundary-less talent, and the liberation of that which makes us all the same - our humanness.

As art therapy progresses with the ethnic client, it often begins with hesitation, doubt, and even derision. As the journey continues, however, the art stands as a vivid sentinel to the record of a life journal; a record of healing and assimilation into a new home, way of life, and culture.

Art Therapy and Landmarks

As a person grows and absorbs their native culture, certain landmarks inevitably emerge. When this same person is removed from familiar surroundings individuated landmarks are minimized and the sense of self is dealt a crushing blow.

Through art therapy, these landmarks can - with time - be reconstructed. Memory must often be refreshed in order to build these landmarks and this is where the capable therapist can be extremely beneficial to the displaced ethnic client.

By beginning, parts are constructed which eventually create a whole; a whole person, time, cultural memory, and so on. Once accomplished, the client can tell his or her story with the confidence of belonging and pride in their heritage and cultural uniqueness.

As a trusted professional, the art therapist is permitted into the ethnic client's life and witnesses the "phoenix rise from the ashes." As the client continues to grow in the newly adopted culture and continue to place trust in the art therapist's abilities to guide and protect from hidden mines of self-doubts and fears, the confidence to express through the art medium grows and ideally, the ethnic client becomes a contributing part of the new culture.

Art Therapy and the Ethnic Criminal Offender

Art therapy is being used in institutions around the country; hospitals, schools, retirement centers, prisons, and so on. While art benefits any number of psychosocial constructed groups, for the purposes of this study, ethnic offenders are in focus.

Symbolic containment" is a form of offender therapy to which art has been applied. As the ethnic offender is adjusting to the community of inmates and the culture of the social fabric beyond the walls, the loss of identity - typical in the prison setting - often leads to violent demonstrations of the self. When the offender has no creative outlet to discover his ability to grow and correct the errant behavior - within a safe setting - the problems of recidivism and cultural miscommunication can become a social nightmare.

Art therapists are now being hired for prisons all around the country. While society continues to see prison as little more than a form of housing the unruly and stark punishment, early studies are showing that the creative outlets provided through art therapy are opening floodgates of ethnic fears and adjustment issues. The true professional art therapist will see this as the crack in a previously unrevealed armor and drive the opening wider until the ethnic offender can express the fear and frustration of a new culture.

Fresh Forms of Art Therapy

Just as with any other creative outlet, mechanical repetition can be soothing to a point, but often loses its appeal. It is important for the professional art therapist to keep the process new and exciting for everyone participating in the process.

Art therapy can take the form of "sculpting stress, creating a collage self-portrait, drawing to music, creating personal logos, designing a new species of flower, puppetry, mask design, and holiday art." Many therapeutic books available today offer creativity and delight for the ethnic client wishing to find creative outlets for a life which can be frustrating.

Expectations and Anticipations Concerning

Results and Their Usefulness expect to learn new and highly useful methods of incorporating art experientials toward other cultures. Anticipating that this understanding will increase my cultural sensitivity to ethnically-specific needs, wants, and biases will be clinically useful because different cultures react to the same issues in unlike ways. People within the same culture often react to the same issues differently leading serious therapists to the understanding that the differences between clients is typically based on their exact situation in life at a precise point in time. Often, however, therapists are not sensitive to the consistent underlying influence cultural traditions have on how people think, perceive, judge, act, react, and understand their life situation at all times. This primary, innate characteristic is - in the therapeutic setting - often an ignored, sometimes merely unnoticed factor.

Research Question

How do various ethnic cultures experience art therapy?

Despite the innate differences in skin color, religion, language, eye color, cultural mores, value systems, and other endemic elements, ethnic cultures may experience art therapy much as the global community would; with easily understood symbols.

For example, the ethnic client who paints a huge red heart with an arrow piercing its center is communicating a universally understood message: I have been affected by love/passion/emotion.

Natalie Rogers, founder of the Person Centered Expressive Therapy Institute is a strong proponent of expressive art. In this form of art therapy, the ethnic client is encouraged to "express inner thoughts by creating outer forms."

When treating a client with art therapy, Ms. Rogers uses many techniques of expressive art: drawing, coloring, dancing, musical demonstrations, and the like.

Once these exercises are completed, the participants are encouraged to explore the nuances involved in the interaction: did communication occur? Was it a pleasant experience? Were boundaries an issue? Who led? Who followed?

Despite the fact that this work is not done solely with ethnically displaced clients, the premise remains the same; through expressive creativity, one's self may be realized, recognized, and embraced.

Any professional art therapist can see many advantages to this exercise when dealing with the ethnic and unattenuated client. The understood but often unrealized fact of communication is discovered in language and cultural barriers; body language, expression, and tonality all contribute to understanding.

Limitations and Delimitations

Overview of Procedures case study method will be used even though I felt an ethnographical approach was more appropriate at certain junctures. I chose to exercise the case study method because although I plan to study cultures, in which an ethnographical approach seems more logical, they can also be seen as the bounded system necessary to conduct a case study approach.

A qualitative approach must be taken in order to do justice to the data. Determining the quality of life, progress, and level of accomplishment in study cases is crucial to finding ever new and emerging ways of helping the ethnic client through the use of art therapy.

Terms

Art Therapy

Viewed as a cathartic and non-threatening way of venting repressed feelings, art therapy can help people gain confidence and bolster self-esteem. Art therapy has been shown to be highly beneficial for people battling with eating disorders, addictions and stress. It has also been known to help those coming to terms with bereavement, and those suffering from Alzheimer's and other terminal illnesses. Art therapy is a human service profession that uses art media, images, the creative process, and patient anxiety, aiding reality orientation, and increasing self-esteem.

Psychotherapy

The fundamental task of the psychotherapeutic relationship is to create an interpersonal environment in which we can discover, become and deal more creatively with who we are, so that we might engage more realistically and with deeper fulfillment in the world. The therapist is there to offer empathic involvement in our unfolding, without judgment or blame, but with curiosity, compassion and respect for our distinct being and unknown destiny.

Anticipated Procedures for Study Verification how will you judge the quality?

Methodology

When initiating the ethnic client into various art therapy modalities, the House-tree-Person technique can be highly effective.

In this method, the client is asked to draw a house, a person, and a tree on plain white paper. The person in the drawing provides the therapist with information on how the ethnic client views themselves in a world perspecitive. According to Fleshman and Fryrear (1988), the figure can reliably be measured as a reflection of the client.

Care must be taken to not overreach with this analysis, however. As with all tools, this is one of many available to the art therapist with more emerging every day.

Generally, the affect of the person can reflect the inner attitudes of fear, insecurity, grandiose attitudes, and the like. Profiles may indicate an uneasiness and unwillingness to face the challenges in a direct manner. Lightly drawn lines may be an indicator of 'selflessness' or 'weightlessness' and may justify exploring a diagnosis of depression.

If the tree bends toward the ground, a competent therapist might infer that the ethnic client is carrying a great emotional weight. If the house is far from the person or tree, the client may be expressing isolation or distance from their surroundings.

Plan for Data Analysis

Outline for the Study's Overall Structure

Introduction

Historical Timeline

First Approach

Optimal Client-type

Selecting the Interviewees

Challenges

Measurements

Success Stories

Demographics

Statistics

Qualitative Analysis

Case Studies

Variables

Findings

Clinical Innovation

Future Art Therapy Goals

Follow-up

Closing Summary

Art therapy is an emergent form of psychotherapeutic tool which is highly beneficial to the ethnic client. Culture differences can be safely explored, trust issues can be identified and restored, learning can occur, and adaptation can take a natural, progressive form.

For the ethnic child, woman, or man, art therapy is a solace in a new world; an ability to freely express the soul inside us all.