Who knew art could be so therapeutic?
Have you ever had counselling? I have, twice. If you saw my guest blog post on depression this week, you’ll understand.
The first time I was 20 and found it mildly useful, the second time was when my marriage was on the rocks and I didn’t get anything out of it at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I think counselling can be very valuable and I know plenty of very good ones who I know are excellent at their jobs.
The thing is, I consider myself quite an emotionally literate person, so it’s not often that I find someone who can help me uncover something I haven’t already at least looked at, if not fully dealt with.
But yesterday I unexpectedly found a new avenue into my emotional wellbeing through an informal play therapy session.
Well, I call it a session but actually it was just that I was working late at church and so was the play therapist who runs sessions through our family support centre, the Bourne Family Project.
She was telling me about a course she had been on that used clay modelling and other art techniques to explore deeper emotions, which sounded pretty fascinating, especially as she had pictures of all the art she had produced and talked me through how it had developed.
Sensing my enthusiasm she asked whether I’d like to try out a technique and, being the kind of person who will try anything (legal) once, of course I said yes.
It wasn’t particularly complicated – all I had to do was draw a house, a tree and a person – but as we talked through the resulting image, I was astounded at what came up.
Much of it was stuff I already knew about myself, but there were also a couple of surprises. Like when she asked me about what was in the house and I felt tears welling in my eyes as I answered: “Nothing. There’s no one in there.”
I’ve had plenty of time over the last couple of years to come to terms with my impending divorce, and in fact I am incredibly satisfied with my life right now, so tears were the last thing I had expected.
But I’m glad I got a chance to understand that there’s a little more work to do yet, that I need to keep going back to God about my new single position and making sure that I’m not putting a brave face on something He actually wants to deal with.
Even though yesterday’s experience wasn’t a proper counselling session, it has made me look with more favour on the whole concept of having a professional help you to manage your emotional wellbeing.
Whether you’re going through something traumatic or just want to be free of a long term niggle – be it unforgiveness or a past hurt that you haven’t quite shaken off – counselling might just be something to consider.
I know I won’t rule it out for the future.