This Washington Post article tells the story of Dena Yllescas, an army wife who started a blog chronicling her family’s journey just two days after her husband’s Humvee was blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Yllescas, it seems, used writing to express and connect while her and her family coped with a progression of medical crises related to her husband’s war injuries. Hundreds of thousands of readers tuned in as she updated friends, family, and strangers: “…. They found a huge blood clot in the main part of Rob’s brain. I could either let it be and let him die a peaceful death or I could choose to do an emergency craniotomy on him.”
Might Yllescas’ blog be an example of how internet mediums can serve as an outlet, much like art or psychotherapy, during a medical crisis? There are a plethora of websites that are specifically aimed to connect individuals and families experiencing medical problems, such as Caring Bridge, Patients Web, and Family Patient. Continue Reading »
Posted in Medical Humanism, News and Other Stories, Trauma, Uncategorized, What is art therapy? | No Comments »
Tracy\’s Kids and Art Therapy on CNN
click link above
Fantastic video on art therapy and Tracy Councill of Tracy’s Kids, a pediatric art therapy program at Georgetown’s Lombardi Cancer Center. Tracy is my former professor at GWU for Medical Art Therapy class–the video illustrates her wonderful program.
Posted in News and Other Stories, Uncategorized, What is art therapy? | No Comments »
I just wrote a paper on using expressive writing with clients in art therapy, and learned about the abundance of research on expressive writing. This field is so inspiring. Here’s an excerpt from my paper:
There are more than two decades of research on psychological and physical effects of expressive writing that spans populations (e.g., college students, clinical populations, women with breast cancer) and cultures (e.g., Americans, Belgians, New Zealanders) (Smyth & Helm, 2003). Symth & Helm (2003) cite a study of people with asthma that showed “significantly greater improvements in lung function from baseline to follow-up” in the experimental group that engaged in FEW (Focused Expressive Writing) (p. 231). Petrie, Booth and Pennebaker (1998) report an immune-mediated protective effect of expressive writing (higher total lymphocyte counts) in medical students. Smyth, Hockemeyer and Tulloch (2008) found that brief expressive writing with trauma patients with PTSD resulted in improved mood states (reduced levels of anger and anxiety) and neuroendocrine responses (reduced cortisol reactivity levels in response to imagery of traumatic memories) when measured three months later. Studies such as these are abundant. Continue Reading »
Posted in Research, The Brain, Trauma | 3 Comments »
Check out this video on an ongoing collaborative research project focused on empowering people with disabilities–specifically with ALS paralysis–to make art using their eyesight. Incredible!
http://www.eyewriter.org/
Tags: digital innovations, technology, The Brain
Posted in News and Other Stories, Research, The Brain, What is art therapy? | No Comments »
I just started listening to a fantastic audio book, The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. Fascinating stuff. The first chapter focuses on the work of Paul Bach-y-Rita and sensory substitution. Bach-y-Rita’s work illuminates the power of neural reorganization, the idea that when faced with structural damage or limitations, the brain will reorganize itself to succeed in a different way (via a different neural path, etc.). Doidge even cites studies in which when suffering damage to the visual cortex, the brain can effectively learn to see using the auditory cortex! Continue Reading »
Tags: Bach-y-Rita, brain damage, Doidge, localization, plasticity
Posted in Research, The Brain, Trauma, Uncategorized | No Comments »
BIG THANKS to Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPAT, LPCC, for helping spread the word about my blog and the MAT group. See Art Therapy in Medical Settings on the International Art Therapy Organization, IATO: http://www.internationalarttherapy.org/medical.html.
Cathy is a leading international expert, syndicated writer, and author in the fields of art therapy and art in healthcare. She has contributed to the medical art therapy subfield in many ways including via numerous publications, such as her blog, “The Healing Arts,” (part of Psychology Today, see blogroll on right), Medical Art Therapy with Adults, Medical Art Therapy with Children, and more. See the References page for full citations.
IATO is a global community of “more than 1600 art therapists, related professionals, and students involved in the fields of art therapy, therapeutic art making, and art for health and social transformation” (http://internationalarttherapy.org/). The IATO website is loaded with art therapy information and joining IATO is free!
Posted in News and Other Stories, Random Musings, What is art therapy? | No Comments »
I’ve been reading about meditation and visualization, specifically how these processes create empathy and attunement through neural change. These are key ingredients for a “good” therapist. In my quest to develop my theory about looking at client art (see my post, Note: The Dictionary Definition of Interpret is “To Explain or Tell the Meaning Of”), I came across an idea in neuroscience that seems to fit well: bottom-up processing.
Bottom-up processing is the opposite of top-down processing. Top-down processing is a term that describes the brain’s automatic reaction to stimuli that involves large-scale dynamics based on prior experiences. Top-down, in a Darwinian sense, is an important process that has allowed humans to survive because it entails rapid judgment, making summations and generalizations, and behaving based on these quick assessments (Siegel, 2007). Seigel (2007) says “this is enslavement” (p. 136) because when using top-down, we are filtering our experiences through a mental model that allows for little novelty, wonder, and mindfulness. Continue Reading »
Tags: bottom-up, chilton, client art, interpretation, meditation, peterson, Positive Psychology, response, Seigel, seligman, The Brain, top-down, wilkinson
Posted in Positive Psychology, Random Musings, The Brain, What is art therapy? | 1 Comment »
We’ve started a creative conversation on the MAT subgroup of the Art Therapy Alliance on LinkedIn.
Join in! Your participation involves sharing a response in a creative format (e.g., poetry, word association, artwork) to the phrase, “lemonade from lemons.” Your response can be anything that comes up for you, the sky is the limit.
I’ve gotten feedback from people who want to participate but do not want to become LinkedIn members. I highly encourage becoming a member, because from my experience it is a great networking opportunity and a wonderful site to be involved in. However, if you still don’t want to be a member for whatever reason, you can email me your response and I will post it either with your name or anonymously based on your preference! My email address is rclareschreibman@yahoo.com.
I hope you participate!
Click here for the link:
LinkedIn MAT creative conversation
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Check out FUSION, a fantastic new e-zine that is free (!) and includes art therapy news and stories from around the world!
This pub is the brainchild of Gretchen Miller, MA, ATR-BC (Founder, Art Therapy Alliance) and Cathy Malchiodi, Ph.D., LPCC, LCAT, ATR-BC (Founder, International Art Therapy Organization). What a gift to the art therapy world (and to everyone)!
Click here for the PDF: FUSION
Tags: art therapy alliance, e-zine, FUSION, IATO
Posted in News and Other Stories, Random Musings, What is art therapy? | No Comments »
