January 2023 - Monochromatic Emotion Digital Collage Therapeutic Art Making Intervention
Finding creative therapy interventions can be so difficult! That is why I have created a library of creative interventions so that any therapist can easily find interventions to do with their clients. Please keep in mind the importance of the terminology you are using with these interventions! Art Therapy interventions are done by a trained and registered Art Therapist. Luckily, all of these interventions are appropriate for any clinician to use as Therapeutic Art Making interventions! All of the interventions found in my Creative Intervention Library are art activities perfect for therapy sessions. Most of the interventions also have a telehealth modification for those of us who are still seeing clients virtually. Every month, I post a new creative intervention for you to use. Looking for more? For the price of a cup of coffee per month, you can get access to a second creative intervention as well as access to the entire library catalog of previous months.
This intervention is fully digital (although it can be done physically) and was inspired by the public Vision Board Workshop that was last week! This is great to help clients further process a strong emotion, and it also can give some structure if a client is too overwhelmed by the openness of a loosely structured vision board or collage.
Please note, If you do take any photos of client’s art work, make sure you have a consent form signed for this. I have a Consent to Photograph Artwork Created in Therapy Sessions Form in my products if you need one for your practice. Even with therapeutic art making, it is ethically necessary to have this consent form signed. Also make sure to remove any identifying information from any art work before photographing it, such as names or signatures.
I offer personalized intervention ideas in the clinical consultation and supervision I provide as well! When I work one on one with clinicians, I love being able to create specific interventions tailored to each client and their presenting concerns. Feel free to reach out with any questions to see if creative supervision and consultation would be a good fit for you and your practice!
Process Video:
This is a slower version (half speed of the original) if you wanted to watch more about the searching for objects, the arrangement and layering, etc
This is a sped up version of the creation of the collage. It doesn’t show all of the process of searching and arranging, but is great for when our attention spans aren’t up to a longer video!
Age range: 8+
Diagnosis: Any, but great for any clients who have sensory aversions or clients who get overstimulated by an open or vague intervention
Supplies Needed:
Canva (free version or paid version) or any other software you may have/prefer that can create digital collages
Uses: This is great to help clients further process a strong emotion, and it also can give some structure if a client is too overwhelmed by the openness of a loosely structured vision board or collage. This is also a great alternative to making a physical collage if a client has sensory aversions to glue and paper/magazines
Artistic skills needed: None!
Instructions:
Ask your client to choose an emotion that feels the strongest or loudest in their mind
Next, have them associate a color with that emotion
It is important to ask your client why they associate the color and emotion without assuming anything. Our own associations and interpretations are often different than our clients, and you wouldn’t want to miss an important piece
Once they have their color and emotion, explain that they will be creating a collage using only that color (although they can use variations of the color they chose) and choosing images/objects/words/etc that represent the emotion
Leave this as open as you can for the client, and as always only show examples as a last option. Clients can be so easily swayed or influenced by examples and can completely change or skew what they might have created without any influence
I usually will give some ideas for searching to help the client start
It can be helpful to have them choose a background image first and then build upon it, although it can always be changed later on.
Next, typing in the color they chose and “object” can help inspire some ideas if they don’t have specific objects in mind yet. If the color was blue like in the example, they could type in “blue object” and see if anything stands out to them
After trying just the color and object, you can ask them what things remind them of this emotion and to search for specific things if that works for them
If the client jumps right into searching and has objects in mind already, I will let their own process take priority and only offer suggestions for searching if they need it
We talked about if there was a way to see only free elements in Canva during the Creativity in the Clinical Room group this month. There is a filter for this which is only in the paid version (which feels backwards to me) BUT I found a workaround in this article! https://fallontravels.com/blog/how-to-search-free-canva-elements
The short version if you don't want to read the whole thing is adding the code "brand:BAAMOuJH0Ec" before your search element so if I wanted to search for flowers I would type "brand:BAAMOuJH0Ec flowers" and only free ones will come up. I did try it out on a not paid account and it seemed to work!
If you are doing this on telehealth and are using Canva, depending on the platform you use you can have the client share their screen with you, or you can invite them (or have them invite you, depending on who started the collage in Canva) to the collage. It is similar to a Google Doc where you can see what they are doing as they make it. You can potentially gain some insight into their thinking and process by seeing how they create their collage
As an alternative, you could assign this to a client to do between sessions if that is appropriate for the work you are doing. In our consult group this month, a group member shared that she does EMDR most sessions and felt like this intervention would be great to have them do after an EMDR session to continue to process things and to have a visual way of doing so
If you are in person but want to do a digital collage, you can have the client create it while you are with them. I usually have music that the client can choose while they’re working and will often doodle or do something abstract or vague just so the client doesn’t feel like I am staring at them and creating any discomfort
While the client is creating their digital collage, I will use a blend of allowing the silence and also asking questions if a certain part of their collage needs clarification or asking why they chose an object.
Once they are finished, I ask them to share why they chose the objects and items that they did, and also ask them how it felt to create the collage
Intervention Example
*A note about examples: Please be careful about sharing an example of the intervention with your client. When a client sees a full example, it can unintentionally influence what they are making and may skew what they are presenting in their art making.
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The emotion was grief! Did you guess right or were you off? Either way, hopefully this reminds you of the importance of always asking questions :)
