Introduction
We had the opportunity to do an Art therapy taster workshop with Beyond Words Art Therapy, based here in Hong Kong. The art healing facilitator, Kelly, taught us a lot about how the process of art healing works and how it was beneficial to her clients. It was a really beautiful experience overall, and we’re so excited to share with you all what we took away from it.
Kelly’s journey with art healing started with her passion for psychology and art. Although there were no particular qualifications in Hong Kong that reconciled the two subjects, she chose to pursue an art healing degree overseas. She felt that Hong Kong lacked this sort of creative therapy- and this, along with her success experimenting with her friends and colleagues led to her kickstarting a business, Beyond Words Art Therapy.
Beyond Words Art Therapy consists of several different workshops, including Inner Child, Mindfulness, and Stress relief. These are all different aspects of well being and put you through different experiences that allow you to truly open up and share how you feel.
What is art therapy?
In order to gain a good grasp on the work that Kelly does, it’s necessary to have a concrete understanding of what art therapy is. This falls into the category of expressive therapy, a genre encompassing all of drama, poetry and art. In terms of dealing with mental health, it is a much less clinical/invasive approach, popular (especially for students!) due to its flexibility and ease for performing within the comfort of your own home.
Psychology.org describes art therapy as a tool therapists might use to help patients interpret, express and resolve emotions/thoughts. Let’s delve a little deeper into this – essentially, art healing is a process where the art healing facilitator guides you through art activities. One to one therapy can typically feel quite invasive, but art healing shifts some of the focus to analyzing what you produce. It does so in a way that doesn’t put you on the spot or make you feel vulnerable during sessions you would rather not be.
Conclusively, it proves to be a pleasantly revealing process allowing clients to learn about themselves. Through drawing, you might discover that you are in fact someone who tends to overly judge yourself ( unnecessarily harsh towards your own drawing) or perhaps you compare yourself constantly with others (art work). This provides an excellent foundation for us to then begin brainstorming tactics with your therapist in order to resolve/overcome these negative thought patterns.
Something important Kelly reveals is that we must learn to avoid being too demanding regarding how “artistic” our drawings are “supposed to be”, as this is self-criticism in itself.
Activity 1: Scribble
Perhaps you’ve heard of this activity before, or maybe, you’ve accidentally tried it yourself. All you have to do is draw one fluid line on a piece of paper, and fill in the gaps or color around the scribble- sort of like this::
This is a really good starter activity because it requires basically no thought. It’s soothing and carefree, and there is practically no pressure to make it look perfect. The rule of thumb is that people who color in the lines tend to be more introverted, and that people who color more around and outside the line tend to be more extroverted (although it was the opposite for us). Overall, this was brilliant for relieving anxiety. It really kept us in the moment and temporarily effaced any lingering worries in our lives- whether it be social drama, academic pressure, or just plain stress.
Activity 2: Hand drawing
Here, we started off by tracing both hands on an A4 sheet of paper. We usually start with this as clients are naturally unsure what to start off with when offered a blank piece of paper. For one hand we draw what we would like to let go of in our lives and for the other, what we want to let in. This could be letting go of toxic friendships, the need to impress, academic validation etc. Or perhaps it could be letting in more time with families/friends, sleep etc. It’s really up to you and essentially this is what’s so great about the exercise. You are left with a reflection of your own life; a literal roadmap of both goals you can strive to achieve as well as areas detrimental to yourself that you should learn to work on.
Activity 3: Body & Mind
In this activity, we drew a random outline of the human body. Then, what we did was add little drawings or highlight the parts of the body that we’re really appreciative of, or what we feel like we might want to take care of more in the future. It could be physical, like wanting to heal an injury, or thank a certain part of your body for its strength. But it could also be spiritual- something related to your mind or your soul, an abstract idea or personal thought that you feel like you want to express.
The purpose of this was to keep us in touch with our body and mind. In order to achieve optimal mental well being, you musn't neglect your physical well being. Perhaps there are some aches and pains on your body that you’ve been ignoring, or an injury you have yet to tend to…
If you try this activity, it’s likely that the body will look disproportionate and perhaps slightly wonky in places. Don’t let it disrupt the process! It isn’t about how pretty or perfect your drawing looks, but what we can learn from it :)
Review (Rou)
As someone who isn’t particularly artsy, I wasn’t quite sure what art therapy could do to help me. But Kelly created such a safe space; alongside the candlelights and ambient music, drawing was very therapeutic, much to my surprise.
I was able to discover a few recurring detrimental habits I tend to fall into especially during the last two exercises; a sort of wake up call that nudged me towards making that first step towards taking better care of my mental wellbeing..
All in all, this was such an invaluable opportunity for self reflection, growth and stress-relief. We urge you to try out any or all of these activities (feel free to contact us with any questions!) or sign up for one of Kelly’s workshops.
We really hope you’ll be able to benefit from this as much as we did :)
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