Amelia Lichtenberg 6/15/24 Amelia Lichtenberg 6/15/24

Art is the Process: A Look into the Healing Journey of an Art Therapy Student

For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently embarking on a Master’s degree in art therapy. The school I go to requires a LOT of work, both in regards to my classes, assignments, and clinical work, and with the amount of personal growth and deep reflection we are asked to do throughout our education. Being an art therapy student, that means we are asked to constantly make response art (a practice of using art-making to process a specific experience or concept), and also engage in various art therapy directives that we might ask our future clients to use. The point being that we understand what we are asking of others.

Being a therapist as a lifestyle

They say the best therapists have therapists, and I wholeheartedly believe that. I also think that the best art therapists maintain a personal art practice, which may combine art therapy-type engagement with Self and other forms of artistic expression. While it’s been hard for me to maintain my non-art therapy professional painting practice, I have been dedicating time during grad school to explore new materials and forms of creative expression. Writing is one of those forms of expression for me, so this entry is more to highlight some of the pieces from my process I’ve been cultivating since starting this phase of life.

process-oriented artwork

‘Draw Your Breath’ art therapy group activity (2023)

The major difference between the work in this article and my professional artwork is the process. My professional work is meticulous and carefully planned out and executed. My process work is loose, sometimes based on a pre-meditated idea, but mostly based on the moment, what’s available, and what feels good or ‘right’ to work with.

This ‘Draw Your Breath’ image was the first time I experienced this activity. We were instructed to close our eyes and draw our breath, pass the sheet to the person on our right, and do the same. We did a few rounds of this, and everyone got their original sheets back. We were asked to pull out images/shapes/forms we saw in the scribbles.

I’ve continued doing this activity solo when I need to ground and regulate. On days where I’m feeling distracted at my clinical site, I would take a beat to do a breath drawing.

Another practice I’ve found incredibly useful for processing my own life and experiences is an art journal exercise, where I will write about something and then create art on top of it. Sometimes I get a flash of a visual idea while writing and go with that, other times (like the one shown here) I just go with what ‘feels’ good (physically, emotionally, etc.). As I write this piece I’m being reminded of how much I love this practice and how I need to be engaging in it way more frequently, especially when I’m feeling highly activated.

I’ve also found this particular activity helpful when I’m not sure exactly how to start making a piece of response or process art. Since my artistic background is in commercial fine art, I still often struggle with letting go and making art just for myself. It’s easy for me to get caught up in pressuring myself that every piece needs to be ‘good.’ The process of writing first helps loosen me up from that.

exploring different dialcets of artistic language

Western medical & liberation psychology views of ‘neurodivergence’ - handmade book (2023)

One of my favorite parts of the art therapy grad school experience has been how inspired I am to try different mediums and forms of expression. For my Adult Development class, which really was a class comparing the values of the Western medical model and liberation psychology, we were asked to create a book. Each page was based on the topic of the week, and we were to depict the Western medical view of the topic on the left, the liberation psychology view on the right, and discuss how we would integrate them in our practice in the middle. I chose a different medium for each page of the book, including a page of sewn buttons, glued beads, collage, and more.

‘Acknowledging What’s Here’ - clinical response art (2024)

As art therapists, we also explore the way different mediums elicit different facets of the creative process. Since starting grad school, I’ve grown to love watercolor and inks - the two areas of 2D media I always avoided. The quick and fluid properties of them entice me and have inspired me to learn how to let go.

A theme throughout my personal creative healing journey has been learning how to use artmaking to channel raw emotion. As a person living with PTSD, I struggle with dissociation and over-intellectualizing my emotional experiences. That’s why I write. That’s why my professional artwork has a refined and careful process. I am so used to distilling my creative experience, but I’ve also come to find that while that is somewhat of a strength, it is also one of my bigger shortcomings.

Blindfolded ‘affective’ tempera paint stick drawing (2024)

Vellum layer of blindfolded ‘affective’ image (2024)

As I move toward my final year of school, moving from the classroom to the clinic, I’ve been focusing a lot of my creative processing on this. My supervisor last year taught me an activity where we taped a large piece of paper to the table, I was blindfolded, and she handed me tempera paint sticks and asked me to channel my feelings into marks on the page. Letting go of aesthetics and directing intention, just emoting on the page. This is one of the most valuable tools I have learned, although also one of the hardest activities for me to stay engaged in. I will often set a timer for myself to see how long it takes before I notice myself shutting down from the emotional space. It’s about 5 minutes, maximum.

I’ve added to this practice by taking a piece of translucent vellum (a type of tracing paper) and taping it on top of the tempera piece. I will take a marker and draw/write on top of the page, which has served as a way to ground the experience and provide me context in case I revisit the piece. The two images here show a blindfolded tempera piece and the layered vellum. Sadly, my sharpie was almost dead in this session and it impacted the experience. It was a valuable lesson in making sure that all the materials available are properly working before diving into, or leading someone into, an experience like this.

Eco-art: nature as art material and subject

‘To Be Held’ - response art to wilderness therapy class (2023)

Probably the most significant portion of my creative journey through grad school has been the evolution of my process and identity as an emerging eco-art therapist. Through engaging with the creative process in new ways, through curiosity in exploring new media, I’ve opened myself up to what it means to work with nature in the creative process. This both refers to subject and material. The ‘To Be Held’ piece is still one of my favorites that I’ve created in grad school. During my Wilderness & Adventure Therapy class, I felt held by the trees and moss of the forest where we stayed. I was struggling with heartbreak, and the soil absorbed my tears. I felt loved and at home. I asked the land if I could take some moss and bark to add to my image, to use some berries for the ink, and she enthusiastically consented. To work with the more-than-human world in this way, to create art and meaning from and with nature, has brought a deeper sense of purpose and meaning to my own creative work and the work I want to facilitate for my clients.

This particular creative adventure started with my first Ecotherapy class, where we were asked to practice ‘place bonding’ throughout the semester. We were to visit our chosen place at least 3-4 times per week, at different times of day and during different weather conditions. I chose a spot in a local forest, and each visit I created a watercolor painting of the area from a different angle. At the end of my place bonding experience, I collected fallen branches and other materials to create a final art piece to reflect my experience. Place bonding gave me a practice of tuning in to the beings around me, and offered me a space to prioritize these relationships. I saw myself as part of the ecosystem, rather than a separate visitor. Hence, I created a self portrait out of Douglas Fir needles from the area. It has also been a fun and interesting process to watch the needles dry and change color, changing the way the piece looks over time - a reminder of the impermanence of all things.

This final piece was created during an open studio session facilitated by my cohort peers. We were asked to roam our beautiful campus and forage materials to create a burnout buddy. The process brought about a playful engagement with both the campus ecosystem, while also addressing the experience of burnout that is so pervasive in grad school. Bringing play and childlike joy into the creative process, while also fostering engagement with the more-than-human world has helped me find playful moments in everyday life. Creating burnout buddies out of easily foraged materials like Fir cones and rocks made the activity accessible, able to experience in a wide variety of locations.

In the end, a lot of my art therapy education has been a collection of learning new ways to heal myself through art-making, and thus building a repertoire of directives to use with clients on their healing journey. While it has been, and will continue to be, a tough journey of deep self reflection, I am so grateful for the way we are learning.

— Emily Lichtenberg

Amelia Lichtenberg 12/4/22 Amelia Lichtenberg 12/4/22

Existential-Humanism, the RA Counseling Theory

As I’m wrapping up my final few weeks of my first semester of graduate school, I wanted to write a reflection on what I’ve been learning. In my program, our first year is focused on finding our counseling theoretical orientation. Existential-Humanism (EH) is the one that has really lit my fire…

What I love about EH art therapy (EHAT) so much is how well it blends with my pre-existing Relationship Anarchy (RA)- inspired worldview and the Intentional Peer Support (IPS) model I use at work. As part of my final project for my Theories of Counseling course, I decided to write a piece about these intersections.

From Existential Philosophy to Existential Psychotherapy

EH pulls from existential philosophy for its theoretical underpinnings. Specifically, it works with existential phenomenology and considers its historical pioneers to be philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. From my understanding, EH draws predominantly from the ideas of Kierkegaard and Heidegger as its foundation. Kierkegaard believed that angst, or anxiety and dread, was imperative for becoming fully human, and Heidegger believed that living a meaningful and authentic life was the best way for someone to cope with their angst (Story, 2007).

Existential psychotherapy was born from existential philosophy, largely due to the work of Frankl, May, Bugenthal, and Yalom (Story, 2007). Each of these psychotherapists played a significant role in developing the Existential psychotherapy model.

Both existential psychotherapy and EH share an assumption that there are 4 universal concerns of life:

1. Death – angst is a natural part of being aware of our mortality

2. Meaninglessness – life is without meaning until we give it meaning

3. Isolation – we are, in the existential sense, always alone

4. Freedom – the weight of our freedom can create angst

What sets EH apart from existential philosophy/psychotherapy is the added assumption that people are capable of healing and knowing themselves (Moon, 2009; Story, 2007).

The reason I think EH and RA work so well together is because of the strong emphasis on each person finding the meaning of their own life. Through this process of finding meaning, a person can heal and know themselves. When I think about the self-reflection that goes into an RA lifestyle, it feels like a similar process. Finding meaning for one’s life is like identifying one’s core relationship values.

Finding Meaning Through Adversity

EH is largely influenced by the work of Viktor Frankl, who is someone I greatly admire. A Holocaust survivor, Frankl created a school of therapy based off his experiences in the concentration camps, called logotherapy. ‘Logotherapy’ means ‘therapy through meaning,’ and operates from the assumption that finding meaning in one’s life and through one’s struggles is the path to freedom (Frankl, 1962). From my own experiences of growth-through-adversity, I find this worldview deeply moving.

My values and RA-lifestyle are a result of my own process of finding meaning through adversity. Wanting a life filled with authentic connections and intentional relationships came from painful experiences of trying to fit in the status quo and getting burned. Having experienced what it’s like to be disregarded and unseen is what motivates me to do my best to see and regard others in their authentic truth.

‘Finding meaning’ is like the final task of IPS, ‘moving toward.’ After the other tasks of ‘connection,’ ‘worldview,’ and ‘mutuality’ have been explored, a person is encouraged to find what they’re moving towards. This approach emphasizes the need to look forward at what is next, rather than looking backward or ‘away’ from. An example would be instead of saying ‘I want to stop being lazy,’ saying, ‘I want to be more productive.’

The Therapeutic Alliance – Authentic Connection

Bruce Moon, a prominent existential art therapist, uses logotherapy as the foundation for his work and expands upon it with creative action. Something I admire about his therapeutic style is how seemingly hands-off he is. His sessions are organic and fluid. There is no agenda for his clients, and he is a mutual participant in the exchange. In his book Existential Art Therapy: The Canvas Mirror (3rd ed.), he uses several case studies to describe the chapter concepts. He talks about 3 ways to be genuinely attentive with clients: (1) doing with, (2) being open to, and (3) honoring pain.

Doing With

When Moon (2009) talks about how he participates in his art therapy sessions, it sounds like how I hope to conduct mine. He stresses the importance of the art therapist maintaining their own artistic practice, and modeling therapeutic art-making from the moment the client walks into the studio. He often works on his own projects during sessions and invites conversation about his work.

I believe that it’s unethical to ask someone to do something we aren’t willing to do ourselves. The best leaders and guides are those who have gone through the depths of themselves; they are people who pull from their own experiences to provide insight and wisdom to another.

In ‘Relationships are Like Gardens,” relationships are likened to the process of creating and maintaining a garden. We are responsible for tending our own garden and if working in a community garden bed, we work alongside other gardeners. We ask what they’re planting, how their bed is developing and share our experience. We don’t tell them what to plant or how to plant it, and if someone asks our advice, we pull from our experiences of past seasons. Honoring autonomy like this is how I advocate for folks to engage with their relationships, it is how I approach my consultation and peer-support work, and this is the type of therapeutic alliance I plan to model in my practice.

Within the EH model is the belief that meaning and healing can only be found in relationship with others. This truth constantly reveals itself to me with my own struggles, and when I’m engaged with callers on the peer-support line I work with. I hear so many stories about folks feeling ‘stuck’ until a particular call or interaction with another person. Connection brings growth and can guide change or new perspective.

Being Open

Moon’s openness with his clients about the meaning and experience of his own artwork is the kind of Radical Transparency I discuss when writing about RA. I believe a professionally appropriate amount of self-disclosure is imperative to the therapeutic alliance between client and counselor, and I try to embody this in my relationship consultation and peer-support work.

In these relationship dynamics there is always a power differential. Even in my peer-support work, although the IPS model holds ‘mutuality’ as one of its 4 tasks, I am still in the paid position and am the one with the training. Being radically transparent about these dynamics is the first step toward establishing mutuality. In the art therapy setting, following the ‘seldom initiate, always respond’ model can help find balance between sharing too much and too little and allows the client to lead the discussion.

Moon (2009) says that the success of the client’s journey ultimately depends on their willingness to share their story with the counselor. By being open and responding to, the counselor allows space for the client to grow in trust. By allowing for self-disclosure, the power-differential becomes less-so. This model provides non-judgmental acceptance and honors the client’s autonomous self by avoiding agendas.

Honoring Pain

*“The Patriarchy Has Major Side Effects” (2021)*

I think this may be the most important of the three ways to reach authentic connection in EH. Suffering is a universal experience among humans, although it looks and feels different for each person. Those who’ve experienced significant pain (and healed from it) tend to be the most empathetic toward others’ suffering. In order to truly honor another’s pain, one must honor their own pain first.

IPS talks about ‘sitting with the discomfort’ when providing support. This means that when someone comes to us with their pain, we don’t try to diminish it or fix it. We sit with them in it. Moon (2009) talks about a similar process in EHAT, saying that less pain is a side effect of therapy, not the goal. Instead of trying to make the client feel better, the art therapist’s task is to help them understand their pain and discover the meanings of their suffering.

My ‘Theories of Counseling’ professor is an EH therapist. When discussing this part of the process, he said: “I can’t take your pain away, but I’m here with you every step through it,” (J. Rock, existential-humanism, October 18, 2022). To me, this is compassion in its highest form and is what I strive to embody in every relationship I have.

I think about the sometimes-uncomfortable space when honoring another’s autonomy and honoring my boundaries may cause conflict. In rule-based relationship structures, one might hold another accountable for solving their discomfort by forcing them into action or inaction. In RA, each person is held accountable for their feelings, and action falls on each person to do what they need for their wellness and safety in a way that doesn’t impede another’s autonomy. Sometimes that means changing relationship agreements, sometimes it means changing an internal belief. Similarly, in EHAT, the therapist doesn’t take on the client’s pain, but sits with them while they work through it themselves.

EHAT Across Cultures

One of the most beautiful things about EHAT is how adaptable it is across various cultures. Something I’ve noticed in my studies is how most counseling theories are difficult to adapt outside the Western-European ideology.

Although EHAT originates from the ideas of Western-European, cishet men, the open-ended views of this perspective encourage adaptation from other backgrounds. Across different cultures who use EH/EHAT, the methods look very different, but the core beliefs are still the same. There is not one right way to ‘be with’ a client, just as there’s not one specific definition of what ‘suffering’ is or what the meaning of one’s suffering is meant to look like. Embedded in this theory is the idea that everyone must decide these details for themselves.

This may sound very individualistic, and in some ways because of its Western-European roots I think it does, but the emphasis on growth through relationship with others opens these ideas up to collectivist interpretations. EHAT is about the process rather than the techniques, making it very open for adaptation (Story, 2007).

Translating EHAT into my RA work feels like a seamless process given these intersections between the two worldviews. For me, RA is based in Radical Transparency, Radical Acceptance, honoring autonomy, authentic relating, and personal accountability. EHAT bolsters these beliefs by emphasizing mutuality and authenticity in the therapeutic alliance.

EHAT encourages a client-led practice where the therapist responds more than they initiate; the therapist is there to facilitate a process, not implement a program or series of techniques. The word ‘existential,’ can make this orientation seem unappealing to some, but I find it to be the most natural therapeutic orientation I’ve learned about so far.

Helpful Resources:

Frankl, V. E. (1962). Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. Boston: Beacon Press.

Mikayla. (2018, September 11). Relationships are like gardens. Medium. https://medium.com/@mmmikayla/relationships-can-be-like-gardens-98827d8dfdfa

Moon, B. L. (2009). Existential Art Therapy: The Canvas Mirror (3rd. ed.). C. C. Thomas.

Story, M. L. (2007). Existential art therapy. Canadian Art Therapy Association Journal, 20(2), 22-34. https://doi.org/10.1080/08322473.2007.11434771

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Intentional Peer Support (IPS) official website

The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy — Andie Nordgren

— written by Emily Lichtenberg