September 2023 - Single Line Drawing Doodle Therapeutic Art Making Intervention
This month’s intervention is a simple and easy technique to help clients focus on relaxation, mindfulness, and stress relief. It can be taught to clients to use as a coping skill or it can be used in session to help regulate a client’s emotions and body.
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:
Age range: 6+
Diagnosis: Any
Supplies Needed:
Paper
Writing utensil
If you are doing this digitally, Canva, MS Paint simulator, or any creation website or app
Uses: This month’s intervention is a simple and easy technique to help clients focus on relaxation, mindfulness, and stress relief. It can be taught to clients to use as a coping skill or it can be used in session to help regulate a client’s emotions and body.
Artistic skills needed: None!
Instructions:
If you are doing this intervention physically:
I start by sharing with my client how doodling can be a powerful tool as a coping skills, for relaxation, and also for movement but that some clients can struggle with the broad idea of just creating a random doodle. Teaching this technique of a single line doodle can give some structure for clients who need it, but still leaving room for interpretation. A single line drawing is simply creating an image using only one line and not picking up the writing utensil.
I usually let clients know that they can change the shape and size of their paper so that they don’t feel like they have to fill the whole page if they do not want to
I find that suggesting either single line doodle patterns or very simple objects can work best so that a client is not focusing too much on the end result but rather are experiencing the process
In the process video above, I start by making a single line doodle pattern. I share with clients that this means they can simply just create lines and shapes on the page, just without lifting up their writing utensil
Another suggestion could be for a client to look around their space and try to represent an object with a single line doodle. I usually recommend for them to have fun with it, keep it messy, and to not focus on creating an exact representation of the object
Flowers make for great single line doodles and can be a helpful idea or suggestion to give to clients
The last example I show is a face single line doodle. I would only share this with clients who could have fun with it and focus on the process and not the final end product. I always say for client to have fun and be silly when doing faces, and to have fun with the overlapping lines that being forced to use one line creates
Once they are all done, I like to talk about how it felt using a single line to doodle and if they enjoyed the process. This can be a quick and easy go to coping skills to teach to clients for when they need some movement or something to do with their hands to help them regulate.
If you are doing this intervention digitally:
To do this digitally, you can use the draw function in Canva or even just an MS Paint browser. You could also easily just ask a client to grab a scrap piece of paper and a writing utensil if you were on a telehealth session if they wanted to do it while they were meeting with you as well!
