Art Therapy: The Movie | DOCUMENTARY

uh we're going to materials for the arts

and materials for the arts is a big

warehouse

that has

lots of donated materials from various

businesses

lots of odds and ends you never really

know what you're going to find sometimes

not a lot sometimes it's a treasure

trove so

we're hoping to get some other

interesting materials for the clients to

use oh we're looking at some tiles um

we have someone building a house back

there and this would probably work

really well floor

we got some zippers

clients are really interested in making

um like pouches

and they're just in fashion so

they make purses

fabric for sure ribbon ribbon

we always get too much ribbon but uh

it's very tempting so and we're getting

extra threads so that they can work on

the weekend in their rooms they could

have a thread with them

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art therapy

looks simple

but isn't

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art therapy is a

mental health profession that uses the

creative process of making art to help

people build coping skills and gain

insight and awareness so that they can

live their lives more fully and

authentically

the arts help us

they are soothing and nourishing and

nurturing it helps us actually be

healthier and be happier

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it can benefit a lot of people in

particular people who maybe have felt

stuck in more traditional talk therapy i

think it's easy to censor yourself when

you talk but with art who you are comes

out

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now a lot of people say to me gosh you

know i i'm not a good artist and that

would be really stressful for me to try

to draw something and that's where the

art therapist comes in to help people

access

that healthy thing to do which is create

something and to help people find the

right medium and then learn something

about themselves from that experience

and grow

it doesn't have to be

using clay using oils using acrylics

whatever it can be anything it's it's a

surprise

each time

the arts are so universal they really

are they're ancient it goes back to the

caves every culture has had myths

stories performances and in many

cultures it's part of life

it's a language that is beyond barriers

beyond any kind of written word it can

be done anywhere it can be done with

anybody

drawing is a touching

it's a pen and crayon or a brush on the

paper if we change the color or we lift

drawing material

we are observing ego this is something

like

breathing

we need exhaling and inhale

watching and

experiencing

and getting insight

through this reason and you're really

helping that person to figure out who

they are

and who they want to become

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so at brightpoint they have a lot of

different programs there they're getting

substance abuse treatment mental health

treatment education i provide art

therapy which offers a different way of

exploring their feelings and emotions

and learning new coping skills sometimes

we have people there over two years so

that's considered long term so we do get

to know the clients

i run an open studio type of group i

mostly try to create an atmosphere where

people feel comfortable to play and

experiment a lot of these clients

haven't done art since they were kids i

try to empower them as much as possible

to make their own choices and follow

whatever creative impulse they have

it's got leather on your leather covers

do you need a window

lace on the front this was an old broken

belt buckle and the inside is uh

aluminum foil and wallpaper and

wallpaper and the paint joints right now

put this one here

you got your hands

i've been there for about seven years

and

still i'm i'm always amazed at the

creativity that comes through there

oh my gosh you're great

okay now

so he'll be like

an inch and something right

and it has to come down to

you know

working in substance abuse there's a lot

of relapse that happens a lot of the

clients there have been incarcerated and

it can be

disheartening you know especially when

we work with clients who are there for a

year and they're doing so great and then

two months later they're back

it's hard to see that because of course

i want the best for them and i i think

that's the great thing about the art

therapy is i really get to see the good

parts and the strengths that they have

and so it's always really tough when

someone's doing such great things and

then they kind of fall off but that's

the nature of addiction and there's a

very high rate of

people returning and we hope you know at

a certain point that they're that

they'll make it it's a very lonely world

you know getting

pills and

for your depression because usually you

just go on taking more and more pills

because men many people stay here in

their heads as soon as they start

doing some movements getting in touch

with themselves some artwork

their energy changes and then they start

doing that on their own too you know we

don't have to live in a drudge we can

live in beauty

you know i'm there as a support and like

guidance but people have to change their

own lives i think realizing that and

stepping back and letting people take

more control made me realize that i

don't have to

solve every aspect of their life for

them

it's always most important what it means

to them so i really try to help them

find meaning in it versus me saying you

drew it like this it must mean you're

depressed or something it's not so cut

and dry like that

so i try to elicit their feelings about

it and ask questions to get them

thinking about how it relates to what's

going on for them in that moment

it's safe to keep boundaries for both

the therapist and the client like it

would not be

appropriate for me to be their friend

especially this population where they've

had so many boundaries violated and you

know they've got a lot of them have

really significant trauma histories what

do you call this one

baggage

certainly i care about them and i

and i wonder what happens to them after

they leave but

having that container where you know the

therapist is not

spilling over with their own problems

you know it's important to keep that

clear defining line for both parties and

that's that's how the work gets done

you know how to fix it

that's pretty good because it's it kind

of is that dry but the only thing is

absorbed

our mission is to

enhance the quality of life for those

with physical cognitive or emotional

challenges through the therapeutic use

of art people come to us when they're

looking to build skills and express

themselves in a setting that is really

supportive and engaging and goal

directed so they're working on something

in themselves

i'm working on a still life and it

expressed how i'm feeling it's a little

sad painting but you know sometimes we

got to do that to be truthful to your

feelings

so i'm trying to figure out what um

what main elements i can use

to keep this you know pretty much equal

so you got main elements going on and

it seems like if you're if you're able

if you're feeling like you're able to

express how you're feeling at the same

time it seems like you should just keep

doing what you're doing okay and then

you know let it kind of evolve maybe

they have had a stroke or a

brain injury or something and they're

trying to kind of rebuild their

flexibility and their range of motion so

that that comes into play too so art

becomes a way for them to express

themselves and um and communicate

how about you how are you doing

i'll say i'm okay

i'm working on being okay

that's good amy

the bottom you have these little clumps

here

so just try to either smooth them out

and if you can like pick them off and

there's a few of them that got stuck

that's why you want to keep your board

clean

i have to make it back into a bowl which

i'm really kind of upset with patience

is one of my virtues

yeah

if you think it's good enough

i'll go with it okay okay so you can

start

oh that will grow for you it's good

for

many women

who come to the art therapy open studio

cancer

is

traumatic and they're dealing with this

and the art therapy

can be a way to help them

cope with the symptoms that they're

experiencing perhaps their self-identity

may feel in question and they're using

art therapy as a way to reconnect with

that person who they feel may have

changed since the cancer diagnosis

i love doing collage and

a lot i started doing it when i was in

college so i really love it so that was

i didn't i went right to the paper when

i came in here this is it's more tactile

i can touch it and feel it and build it

and uh that's what i felt like i was

doing every day coming here i was just

building towards my healing and then

this was a very big part of that process

and it gets it out of me

so it makes me feel better it definitely

does printed version right

i mean

this is one of my favorites

because

it really shows what i can do

with art therapy that i can't do with

words there really aren't enough words

if you want to say

it's scary

i mean that doesn't even begin to cover

it so what can you say i'm really scared

or i'm terrified it doesn't even come

close

but

in this i was able to show

myself jumping off a mountain

and knowing

i'm going into the abyss of life and

there's no net

i don't know what's going to happen

so that's a lot better than just saying

i'm scared

it's like having a good cry or talking

about it with a friend to me you know

it's

just spending time with whatever the

feeling is

and

being able to move past it

and they leave the room transformed

lighter and brighter and in a totally

different mood

it's it's a it's an amazing thing to

witness

the idea of opening up to a stranger is

really anathema many cultures talking

about yourself is not something that's

comfortable i think it's important to

help people around the world to

develop art therapy in the best possible

way but it has to be presented in a way

that's comfortable for the people in

that culture and that is the challenge

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is

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and i think the goal for us is not for

them to feel the shape like stay in the

line if they want to just cover all the

all the boundaries that's okay

because

our goal is not for it to be pretty or

to have a

result for our exhibition is for them to

just explore

and for us to accept whatever they're

doing

no matter how they draw their person or

whatever they say about their super

superhero

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i think we're also not just doing art

we're also exploring things

like the cell and giving the opportunity

of talking about these things through

art

not going too deep into it but

deep enough

that can be therapeutic and can provide

self-exploration

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foreign

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is

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there's a lot of people

just gotta process for a minute

lock it up

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wow

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right now i head

an institute that works with all kind of

learners all ages all abilities

all levels of society

i've been helping schools out

to try and integrate a lot of creative

art into the curriculum and try to teach

cognitive subjects through art

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okay what about you welcome to gold

dance together

art is such a huge part of our culture

i've grown up with art whether it's

making the mandalas and doing the

rongoli's on the floor it's something

that

we learn

to do naturally

and i feel using art we can learn

naturally

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i want this to be a learning space for

all kind of learners for everybody which

has no barriers

more than that i wanted to be a place

where everybody learns

because if i'm not learning

chances are my student is not learning

either

and at the center of it

is our core philosophy which is the

actualization of individual potential so

to understand that there is a genius in

every child to give the opportunities

for it to actualize

and to understand that everybody is so

beautiful

in their own way

they're very well behaved today

yeah and i think it takes a lot of

motivation

to be able to come and study in such

circumstances but they all have

aspirations they all look around these

very affluent so-called affluent society

and they all aspire to

achieve and i feel why not

education is that one way

in which

we can help them actualize their own

potential

and they are bright sparkling kids

the color really makes sense in our

lives how we see things how we

really visualize in our mind

so everyone here

some of them have the ambition printed

on ears what they have experienced

through their life

and some of them just painted what they

visualize in their mind so

it really makes sense in our life so how

we really think about colors

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on one hand we are really traditional

on the other hand we are ready to learn

we need some real experts who are

trained in the field of art therapy

to

ideally be here and run the program to

be able to teach people here

because there's nothing in this country

we do not have a recognized course of

expressive art therapies

and believe me i've looked

that is really the need it has to begin

from there

and then maybe more and more people will

take it up when you think of safety or a

safe space what is that for you and it's

different for everyone so for someone it

may be a

beach

it might be water maybe a mountain maybe

a tree it might be a person

so for one moment just take one deep

breath and really think about in your

mind what would represent the same

how are you doing are you comfortable no

okay

yeah this is

part of the process where you just sit

and observe

and just pay attention to where they

start where they're at in the middle

how they're working

okay

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i know we'll get there and we'll we'll

get there soon

i hope we can make a little change in

how people look at learning and

education in that small way

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yes

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it's very hard to accept as a

whole view of our therapy

it's easy to learn arthropies

superficially as a technique

the confusion has always been that if

you're doing art with people who are in

some kind of

painful or difficult situation it's

called art therapy but it's really not

it's therapeutic but it's not therapy in

the sense of something thoughtful

informed and intended to change

people internally in ways that will be

lasting

okay

natalie you have three choices

red green or orange

green it's a good choice

okay

i'll move these you will apparently

you're not interested

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okay we're gonna flip it over

and pour it in

and then it went all through

that butter

five

okay marianne is now going to mix it

stop it

i'm going to count i want this oh you

did stuff thank you so much natalie

great listening

okay marianna mix it around a bit

in a clinical setting the biggest

barrier is oftentimes people just see

you as the person

there

to have fun

and that has consequences where people

interrupt what you're doing with a snide

comment about something they that looks

like something my grandchild does things

like that that you don't realize can be

very very harmful when an adult is

sitting there working on something

you know you really don't want to liken

it to something that a kindergartner has

done because we're already we already

have our own insecurities about the

artwork that we do

with the brush good job

you laughing

all kinds of time you have a great color

back here let's see that great color

try it mariana you want to try some

purple

mariana

and there's a lot of misconceptions

about what art therapists do like a lot

of oh you're analyzing everything i draw

and

it's not like the art therapist is

sitting there all the time interpreting

every single mark on the page you know

we're trained to look at artwork and

help the client

see what's in it but

we're not a crystal ball i can't analyze

someone's life and

future by looking at what they create i

think getting people

to be just more realistic and understand

what the art therapist role actually is

is something that constantly need to

educate people about

what has hindered our growth has been

the fact that we don't have a lot of

clinical research that shows the

effectiveness of this service that's

something we don't have a lot of it

needs to be really scientifically

studied because what happens then is we

become eligible for things like funding

reimbursements from insurance companies

and different grant opportunities will

open up for us and and that sort of

thing i think the field is definitely

still evolving and hopefully it'll

continue to do so

it can be a very isolating profession

where often you are the only art

therapist in a facility i think there's

still this struggle to get it validated

and acknowledged as a legitimate

profession a lot of people still don't

know what art therapy is but more and

more people do or they've heard about it

or they know someone who practices

there's this

constant need to keep educating the

public about it and letting people know

what our therapy is and how it can help

it's coming over the rocks yeah

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any of the materials on your table and

to really celebrate art as therapy as

you wish

most people who come into our therapist

are artists to start with so they

understand the creative process but they

understand it in terms of themselves and

they have to learn to understand how to

facilitate evoke sustain that process

for somebody else

that takes time it doesn't just happen

like that and that's why it takes

two whole years

of full-time study to learn to be an art

therapist

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we've always been just like a team like

my mom and i so that was kind of what i

did was just the the roots kind of like

grounding me and lifting me up at the

same time

i have bipolar disorder and it like i

felt very alone when i was younger and i

kind of always felt like everybody

expected me to be happy to be girly and

have a lot of friends and not having

that i felt isolated and it kind of

developed my art from there

when you understand how people develop

and what goes on in inside of them and

between them and other people then

you're able to help more it's a very

intensive program because of the

internship hours it's almost like having

a full-time job lots of reading

and it can be kind of emotional as

you're dealing with a lot of clients and

situations that are unfamiliar and that

can be draining and when you're learning

it's even harder so it's a lot to

balance

all right

let's see what size

different words that are inspired by

like what i'm saying

which you know you find in yourself

sometimes when you're just out of school

there's like this pressure i need to be

doing this a certain way or there's a

right or wrong to it in terms of i need

to give this directive but what i've

learned is that it's really just more

important to get a sense of the person

see what their specific needs are and

create an intervention that

matches what that need is

the more you force things the

more resistant clients tend to get the

more natural it is the more likely they

are to open up to you to trust the

process and work with things as they

come up because

every day is different

and there's no possible way that i could

ever predict what's going to happen in a

group

having a wide range of art skills is

really important as an art therapist you

can't just do drawing because most

people are afraid of drawing working

with a variety of materials is really

really important you're going to be

working with a lot of different kinds of

people in your career and each

individual is has a whole different life

story and you're going to need to

pick the media

and design the project around that

person and their

need and their personality that is part

of their whole worldview and that's the

groundwork for being being a good art

therapist another thing that's really

important that is often overlooked is to

be able to communicate what you're doing

to others on the treatment team you need

to be able to communicate what you're

doing in a way that is in plain language

that can be understood that you're doing

something that's goal directed that is

that is helping for this that or the

other reason i think i am probably

learning just as much as my clients are

learning it's a parallel process and we

were told that in grad school too but

you don't realize it until you're

actually in the field and working with

kids every single day i'm still learning

new things because of my patients my

patients are always pushing me to try to

to learn new and different projects that

they can kind of sink their teeth into

that creating something completely new

because of what they need

and what i can come up with very much

jazzes me the artist in me you're taking

you know this need that need that

interest that interest and putting it

all together in this project that

you know turns out to be a home run

because

you've paid attention to what they need

and what they can do and what their

interests are

i hope my interns can get exposed to

a population that maybe they've been

unfamiliar with i hope it excites them

about the field of art therapy and

helping them structure a group be

comfortable leading a group planning for

a group often they do have new ideas and

they're wanting to try things and it's

great when interns come in with an idea

of i'd like to do a group

like this and we can try it out and see

how it goes and kind of exposing them to

all the other things that go along with

being an art therapist you know there's

ordering materials writing notes all the

stuff that's like not quite as fun but

part of the job

some abstract some like landscapes

people are always asking for stuff to

cover their boards and their rooms i

think

some people would probably

this pink alligator like businesses

donate their

extra

stuff i think they get a tax write-off

or something

well um i'm gonna make a journal

right and i'm gonna use um these

materials as my cover and i'm about to

um try to glue it onto the to the paper

so i can start making my buff

great

you

materials

yeah i should have made my doll out of

that

is

okay

that would be nice

um

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this building here

the foundations completely failed and

they tipped over as you can see that's

the fire escape

sideways

there's nothing left on ground level and

it goes all the way back

up that way as well maybe a mile or two

everyone

here

that survived had to be relocated

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on the day of earthquake

um i was making for

kobe on the bridge train

and suddenly

the trains stopped i don't understand

what happened it suddenly stopped i was

a couple of hours in the train

and i got to announce

we had a big earthquake the

train will stop here

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it was a few days after the earthquake

that i was

you know cleaning up

and seeing all these beautiful pieces

kept thinking what a waste you know it's

a pity that this has to go in the

garbage

and so i just pieced together um a heart

from a pink coffee cup and i framed it

with a white teacup and i i felt so

relieved doing that until that time i

sort of i guess had a tightness or a

worriedness in me about what was going

on with fukushima and just in general in

japan and i just realized this is it you

know this is this is the only thing that

can be done with these dishes is they've

got to go into mosaic

and i imagined

people

in toku might get that same sense of

relief if they could somehow not just

throw away their precious dishes but

make them into a piece of art

so we have a lot of dishes from

the earthquake

and sometimes they ended up being

you know too big to work with so we have

to break them down into smaller pieces

you can see there's um

this is still a little bit too curved

it'll have to be broken again

and then we

we wash them and break them and then we

sort them by color

so there's some drawers here of um

these have already been pretty much

sorted so this is kind of

how we arrange them for workshops and

stuff

gathering and collecting is therapeutic

too it sort of says

says to them that everything has a place

every little piece has value still

even if

you know all the surroundings have been

lost

you know every little piece might be

um important for our future work you

know what i mean it's the metaphor of

everything is important every month

local volunteers come here and we make

very small mosaics on a cd with the hope

of someday bringing these somewhere in

tohoku and install them for example

around the sinks of a school or hospital

or park maybe in the sidewalk or maybe

in a wall i decided to open a volunteer

group and train volunteers

in how to make mosaics and hopefully

these young single people could go up

north and bring this sort of technology

to the people of tohoku that was six

months after the disaster we went up in

the summer the people in that town at

that time were still pretty

devastated they were still pretty much

in shock they came in and made the

pieces a few women really seemed to

enjoy it and asked me to come back but

a lot of other people seemed just in

shock they were still going through the

motions they just didn't have the energy

to

want to build something and i realized

at that time it was just too soon to

really start this

i was there for just three days and we

had workshop on one day the other days i

was cleaning gutters i just felt

helpless

at that time

because

one reason is i'm just a visitor

i'm not living with them i didn't do any

artwork with them at that time

but

i've i found

i cannot do

anything deep

experience with them

we just had to help the city clean up

because they weren't ready to rebuild or

make art they were still in cleanup

phase you know they have so much

rebuilding that has to be done

i think the grief work or the you know

immediate care the immediate therapy is

really necessary i think to help them

get through their grief or ptsd

but but basic survival comes first i

mean these people who needed needed heat

and food and clothing so i don't think

mosaic was an appropriate medium for

them at that time the ptsd and the grief

work was so extensive that they needed

some

psychological care they needed people to

listen to them they needed people to go

ahead and you know hear their story but

in in the culture in general therapy is

still sort of from the outside world

it's from the western culture so they're

not as familiar with you know talking

about their problems in general

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now is much better timing depending on

the city you know different cities are

in different stages of recovery but

definitely they're most definitely ready

in some areas to start this kind of

creative restoration

my my fantasy of this whole project was

for the community to come together

and sort of if there's a little

piece of something that they find they

know that there's still a place for it i

wanted to show every person that there's

still a place in the community of things

things just get rearranged and re-put

together so i thought it would be more

of a community restoration project but i

think the reality is it's going to be

little spots within a city or a region

where there is one simple you know

mosaic installation

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some women have been coming as long as

i've been working here just about 11

years

it's such a beautiful environment of

camaraderie and it's creative but it is

a cancer

institution and

fortunately many people go on to live a

very happy long life but other people

are living with stage four advanced

disease and

you know that can be

quite difficult

today i feel more broken than like this

like that they're flying because i'm

losing the ability to walk

more and more every day

so i like that they're fine

hers can be such a strong symbol of

freedom and

transformation

it's more than

having patients come into a room and

learn how to paint or learn how to draw

there's the art therapist

who acts as a witness and there becomes

a dialogue between

the patient and therapist and the art

piece and the experience that was

happening when she was creating that

artwork

like starting out whole

and then

feeling like i'm in pieces

not quite so

so i thought i would take the bird

and

sort of

divide it up so it's disconnected the

parts are disconnected

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i've had people come back after several

years and i and i remember people buy

their artwork and i'm able to dig

something out of the drawer and be like

do you remember this and

and then they're like i do remember that

and wow i can't believe you still kept

that and and of course i'm like glad i

still have it oh jenny you still have it

that's crazy

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yeah

that's gorgeous

vincent came back after

i think it was a couple years away and

found this mask that he made you think

it doesn't matter and that this artwork

that they've forgotten about it

you know it doesn't seem important but

then they see it and it's it's like so

powerful

for me to have saved it for them and i

think the message that gets sent is i

kept this part of you safe like this

good part of you this strong part of you

i valued that when you couldn't value it

for yourself

now this that's great

that makes you feel good i know yeah

they appreciate your creativity

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often

you're left wondering is anything i'm

doing helpful are they taking this in

and so

when a client comes back

and is so overjoyed or moved to find

something that they've created before

it's it's a good reminder of

of how powerful the work can be

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i think people who go into a field like

this

want to do good they want to help other

people they want to help it through

something they're passionate about which

is art the most gratifying thing about

being an art therapist is being able to

get to know and work with people that

are

totally different from me that have had

a whole

life story that is something that i

might have only been able to read about

in a textbook read about in a novel but

to actually hear that story and help

that person put that story into a piece

of art to honor and recognize it is so

very gratifying art

any form of art is a gift

it's a miracle each time

you have broken bits and pieces

but somehow it can all come together and

give you

the most beautiful surprise so i didn't

even know what art therapy was and then

i discovered what it was and i've been

hooked ever since then and i

every week get to witness how it

completely transforms the lives of the

patients i work with and it's

transformed my own life

and i

feel like the luckiest person in the

world to have the job that i do i think

going through internship and going

through grad school i was so nervous to

kind of just get out in the field and

and

be a hands-on art therapist but

trust what you know

you've learned

as much as you possibly can and the rest

of it is going to be learned as you go

realize that you're

working with human beings and that they

are likely to be vulnerable at the times

that you're likely to be working with

them so it's a huge responsibility

and a great wonderful thing to be doing

to be helping other people to become

themselves people are never just one

thing you know you're not your addiction

you're not your disease you're not the

terrible thing that happened to you

we're all many different parts and i

feel like art therapy helps shine a

light on the good parts

there's always this strong healthy part

of you that

wants to heal itself and wants to create

change and maybe that part gets

buried under the weight of other

circumstances and that's

the great thing that art therapy can

kind of pull out for people and it's

been my privilege to see that in people

and that's ultimately what i hope they

take away and can see in themselves

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you