ART THERAPY CASE STUDIES

By Patricia L. Scott, MSW

Tweedy bird in working with a 7 year girl who had been sexually abused by her uncle. It was suggested in list of various art therapy techniques to use cartoon characters. I was a little dubious at first of this technique but I asked her what her favorite cartoon character was and she told me Tweety Bird. So I asked her to tell me about tweedy bird and she told me tweedy bird was in a cage. I then asked how does Tweedy bird feel about being in a cage and she told me she liked it because she was safe in the cage. She can avoid people who tried to touch her. Then I asked do you ever feel that way and she then began to address her feelings of being touched sexually by her uncle.

Dialoging with your Anger Monster For three years I taught an Anger Management class with adult addicts and alcoholics. One of exercises for the class was Drawing the Anger Monster Inside. Think of how you express anger what happens to you face eye nose mouth teeth arms hands heart skin color voice blood pressure.

Do you repress your anger and if you do what happens to your body? Do you have Depression or anxiety because you feel you can’t or don’t know how to talk about your anger? What does your body look like when you are depressed about something that you are angry about? Now draw you anger monster and when you have finished give it a name. We then talked about the monster and had a dialogue with the monster.

Writing Songs.

I worked with teenage girls who were in gangs and many of them had abusive boyfriends. I wanted to talk to them about healthy relationships. I had them bring in songs they liked that were about relationships and asked them what words were the most important to them. This generated a conversation about what they missed in the relationships with their boyfriends. Then I had them write about what they really wanted in a relationship and what they thought would be a healthy relationship.