Week Eight: Therapeutic Interventions in Art & Horticulture

This week I've been exploring the difference between art therapy and art as a therapeutic activity. I've been questioning the ethics behind art as a therapeutic activity and the boundaries that are needed to ensure the emotional safety of both the participant and facilitator. This is helping me to define my own approach to Creative Health as I re-establish my work within the arts and cultural sector.

Self Portrait

One of my favourite activities this week was drawing and painting a series of self portraits without being able to see. It involved drawing with both the right and left hands, and painting whilst wearing a blindfold. At times this felt a little uneasy as I was unsure if I was even making any marks on the paper, let alone having any idea of the colours that I had mixed in my palette. The perception of how big or small the drawing is changes and the big reveal of what you have created is a moment of humour and joy. I am thinking about cathartic exercises that bring the right balance of vulnerability in a participant, and the emotions that are experienced when embracing this and truly letting go of getting things 'right'. Artmaking becomes a playful process to self discovery.

Seeds of Hope

Also this week, I have started some training with the Eden Project on Community Action and was asked to complete a Story Canvas. A Story Canvas is a powerful storytelling tool that helps you to focus on your own life journey and how this has influenced your vision and goals for the future. We were asked to present an object that represented us and I learnt how the simple act of holding an object can help us to tell our own stories. I chose to talk through the seeds that I had produced in the growing of plants for natural colour over the last year. I thought about the sowing of seeds as the starting point of a project or idea. I reflected on the fact that sowing just a few seeds had resulted in the production of hundreds more seeds to grow in the future. I reflected on the stepping stones to creating bigger projects and the way things can naturally evolve at the pace that it requires.

At the same time, I have been continuing my studying in Social & Therapeutic Horticulture and have found it particularly interesting to learn about the emotional qualities that horticulture can bring. I have been learning about the recovery model of mental health and how actions such as the sowing of seeds can help us to think of the future. I've been reading about the restorative nature of horticulture programmes and the role that they play in supporting individuals with PTSD. I've been thinking of my own journey with this diagnosis and the hopes that I have to use this lived experience to help others in the future. How the seeds once sown in my own mental health recovery have gone on to produce so much more than just the flowers that bloomed this summer.