در داخل یک گروه هنر درمانی: چشم انداز دانشجویی

Group work is an important aspect of our profession as art therapists. There are many formats for teaching art therapy students about group dynamics; however, in this paper, we will call our group time an art therapy training group (T-group) because it was a specific time for observing and learning group dynamics first hand. The T-group is one of students’ first formal introductions to group art therapy, and is often their only exposure to groups before internship and employment. T-groups offer art therapy students an opportunity to experience group dynamics first-hand, and allow them to find more authentic relationships with fellow students while enhancing self-awareness. In the ever changing clinical climate that challenges art therapists to wear several hats and to be flexible with their professional identities, group training offers an important format for expanding self-awareness and skill (Malchiodi, 1999). Although therapists in the creative arts remember their T-groups as pivotal markers in their education, the student perspective of T-group experiences is rarely discussed Carter et al 1978, McClure 1998, Wadeson 1987 and Waller 1996. Literature on group work and art therapy group work is broad and extensive, but there is a pronounced absence of literature documenting an art therapy T-group from the student perspective Carter et al 1978 and Swan–Foster et al 1999. This paper seeks to partially remedy that situation by documenting a 15-week art therapy T-group of 13 women and 1 female leader. Weekly progress notes made by all the group members as well as a follow-up questionnaire yielded substantial comments on specific group dynamics and themes from which the authors focused on relevant subsections that were later woven together into this paper. Although the whole T-group participated in making this possible, the paper predominately reflects the experiences of these authors. The T-group was regularly held at the end of a class, after the discussion of academic and ethical readings. The T-group was scheduled in the first semester of the second year when the members had established subgroups from their first year of classes. The leader entered the group as a newcomer. The leader’s goals for students within the T-group portion of the class were to experiment with personal expression through talking and art, to experiment with roles and boundaries, and to expand the capacity to tolerate the uncovering of group conflict and tension. Two themes dominated this art therapy T-group: 1) how to interpose words with art within an art therapy group, and 2) how to clarify and understand group conflict and resistance within a multirelationship environment. The paper is organized into two main sections. In the first section, we provide background information that is relevant to our T-group experience. The relevant areas that we discuss are: the transpersonal paradigm, a contemplative context, the feminist perspective, multicultural issues, group ethics, and resistance. In the second section, we describe some poignant stages of the 15-session T-group art therapy process and analyze these stages in terms of the background information provided in the first section.

Although this paper is by no means a comprehensive review of a 15-week same gender art therapy T-group, we have gleaned a greater understanding of the various multirelationships and the multiple layers of group dynamics and how they affected our T-group. We have seen how some members used the T-group to experiment with their art, their words, and their contemplative practice, and how, much to their surprise, mutual respect was woven throughout the art therapy T-group even when conflict was present. The group discovered that the diversity of cultural experiences established a richer ground for communication and trust, although at first it was experienced as conflict, anger, mistrust, and resistance. The T-group broke through the resistance by listening to the nontalkers and talkers, modifying ethical standards for a training group, and waking to multicultural and gender factors that affected the group dynamics. Conflict and anger with each other, with the group as a whole, and with the leader were addressed several times throughout the process, out of which tender moments of realization and intimate connection occurred. Although unclear at the time, the rhythm of making art led the group to accept the flow between words and art, and to trust in the moment as part of the group goal. In addition, the risk to redefine boundaries and safety as self-protection rather than only resistance led to greater honesty and mutual acceptance within the group. We discovered that honesty was not something that could split us, but it could change us. This T-group experience demonstrates that the ethical challenges with art therapy T-groups need to be consistently addressed with students by the leader, and that resistance is a positive reaction to the class syllabus or contract (Unger, 1990). We learned that when the leader openly revisits the various sources of resistance, the group tension relaxes and the group can progress. By learning about resistance in a T-group, we became better prepared to work with mandated or inpatient populations because our student status is much like those mandated requirements established by legal or insurance agencies. We also learned that it is helpful when the leader tolerates the group’s resistance to art making by not enforcing the “time to make art” expectation, but instead reminds the group of the available materials. By allowing this exploration, we experienced the nuances between words and art making and how it related to self-disclosure and safety. We noticed how the subtle flow between words and art is not easily navigated, and how we individually react to group conflicts and lack of progress. In doing so, we also re-established our group norms by redefining care-taking, resistance, silence, safety, and self-disclosure, while building communication skills that will support us during times of tension and conflict. We also learned how the art materials document and reflect the resistance to the contract even when the group is NOT making art but simply looking at and talking about art supplies. We discovered how art is, in fact, important to us. In future situations when resistance stems from ethical, gender, and multicultural issues or from expectations regarding art directives and materials, we will have some experience with noticing and unearthing conflicts. We will trust in our contemplative and transpersonal perspectives as a context for working as group leaders; we will accept that each group finds its own way with the rhythm between cohesion and conflict. Because we learned that it is helpful to be in the moment, to not force the progress of a group or to jump too quickly to fix the conflicts, we will be better prepared to engage in the complex layers within the group process. In particular, we did eventually recognize the practice of being in the moment as an acceptable goal without having to find a conclusive understanding of our T-group experience. At the very least, T-groups offer this valuable learning for future therapists in the creative arts. Last but not least, we understand our group’s need to support and educate the general creative arts therapy community. The process of how we came to find our voices through words and art-making within a group is now visible through printed words. This T-group hopes that our willingness to communicate and take action will make a difference for future creative arts therapy T-group members and their leaders. The following is an appropriate closing for us all to remember: “By invoking such feelings… we are stretching … against the boundaries and ignorance of our own minds and hearts. And in the stretching, painful as it sometimes is, we expand, we grow, we change ourselves, we change the world” Kabat–Zinn 1994, Beck 1989, Cortright 1997, Davis 2000, Firman and Gila 1997 and Peck 1987.