Month: May 2023

After the first intervention finished. I finally know what’s the next step of my project, which focuses on the Positive Effect of Art Therapy on People. I attended a health advice appointment in the High Holborn Office on 4th May. The expert told me about the CPT therapy for eating disorders.

Cognitive processing therapy (CPT) is a manualized therapy used by clinicians to help people recover from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related conditions. It includes elements of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) treatments, one of the most widely used evidence-based therapies. A typical 12-session run of CPT has proven effective in treating PTSD across a variety of populations, including combat veterans, sexual assault victims, and refugees. CPT can be provided in individual and group treatment formats and is considered one of the most effective treatments for PTSD.

The theory behind CPT conceptualizes PTSD as a disorder of non-recovery, in which a sufferer's beliefs about the causes and consequences of traumatic events produce strong negative emotions, which prevent accurate processing of the traumatic memory and the emotions resulting from the events. Because the emotions are often overwhelmingly negative and difficult to cope with, PTSD sufferers can block the natural recovery process by using avoidance of traumatic triggers as a strategy to function in day-to-day living. Unfortunately, this limits their opportunities to process the traumatic experience and gain a more adaptive understanding of it. CPT incorporates trauma-specific cognitive techniques to help individuals with PTSD more accurately appraise these "stuck points" and progress toward recovery.

CPT therapy encourages people to change the way they think about food from the depths of their consciousness, and this treatment is widely used in the UK. I have learned about this form of therapy from my previous experiences with interviewees treated in the UK.

In the last week before the presentation. I start to search for relevant references to art therapy, especially in the UK. We briefly discussed my self-art therapy experience when I had an eating disorder and my portrait workshop. She points out my project is for “recovering”. Her comment reminds me of my conceptual model of eating disorders that I made in “Box of Uncertainty.” The post link:

https://chaosspaceboxofuncertainty.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2023/01/30/2023-01-28-model-making/

So I want my workshop to be an “Incident” and a “bridge” for people surfing eating disorders. To be honest, I felt lost for a short time after the workshop finished. In that time, there have been two directions. One is art therapy for eating disorders, and the other is for mental health. Furtunly, my tutor David suggested I narrow the topic to eating disorders. But he asks me to look at the art therapy history in the UK. So I start to find relevant references and have academic support for my project.

Art therapy has a history in the UK dating back to the early twentieth century. During the First World War, many soldiers suffered physical and emotional trauma, many of whom could not be treated by traditional methods. At this time, doctors and nurses began to use art as a form of therapy to help soldiers relieve their pain and trauma.

By the mid-20th century, Art therapy began to gain more attention and popularity in the UK. in the 1940s, Art therapy was introduced into mental hospitals and used to treat patients suffering from mental illness. in 1964, the first dedicated Art therapy school in the UK - the Goldsmiths University offered Art therapy, one of the first universities in the world to offer a specialist course in Art therapy. Since then, Art therapy has gained increasing recognition and development in the UK.

In the 1980s, Art therapy was widely used in the UK in different areas of therapy, including mental health, medicine, social work and education. Art therapy is now a common form of therapy in the UK and is widely used to help people deal with and alleviate emotional and psychological problems, as well as to help support and guide them in their self-expression and creativity. 

I find the article “Art Therapy” done by David Edwards in the UAL liarbary.

David Edwards briefly mentions the history of art therapy in his article. He explains that art therapy had roots in the early 20th century when psychiatrists and psychoanalysts began to recognise the therapeutic potential of art-making for their patients. The first art therapy course was offered in the United States in the 1940s, and the first art therapy association, the American Art Therapy Association (AATA), was established in the 1960s.

Edwards also notes that art therapy has been influenced by various art movements, such as Surrealism and Expressionism, which emphasised the role of the unconscious mind and emotions in art-making. He also mentions the work of pioneers in the field, such as Margaret Naumburg and Edith Kramer, who developed early theories and techniques for art therapy.

Overall, while Edwards does not provide an in-depth history of art therapy in his article, he highlights some key moments and figures in its development.

In his article, Edwards provides an overview of art therapy as a form of psychotherapy that uses art-making to improve emotional, mental, and physical well-being. He explains how art therapy can be used to help people deal with various issues, such as trauma, addiction, depression, and anxiety.

Edwards also discusses the different approaches and techniques used in art therapy, such as person-centered art therapy, Gestalt art therapy, and mindfulness-based art therapy. He explains how each of these approaches can be tailored to meet the specific needs of individual clients.

Additionally, Edwards provides examples of how art therapy is used in different settings, including hospitals, schools, and prisons. He emphasizes the importance of a trained and licensed art therapist in conducting art therapy sessions, as well as the need for ethical and professional standards in the field.

Overall, Edwards’ article comprehensively introduces art therapy, its benefits, and its applications in various settings.

Back to my project, the final approach still follows the NLP logic. Neuro-Linguistic-Programming.

Meanwhile, my colleague Arielle interview me for her project. It also makes me think more about my project.

Q: Can you first share about the time when you drew the two series of illustrations – “Shanghai Lockdown – Window” and “Flowers in Quarantine – Windowstill”?

A: "Flowers in Quarantine - Windows till" was created by me in March 2020 during the global Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, I was a third-year architecture student at the University of Sheffield. Unfortunately, a staff member at the School of Architecture had contracted Covid, resulting in the entire campus being locked down. At the same time, shops in Sheffield were gradually closing, and the UK government encouraged us to "stay at home". Due to flight tickets back to China were becoming increasingly expensive, and I needed to prepare for my final project, Thus I decided to stay in the UK until my graduation in July. So I started my first-ever quarantine life alone in a student apartment and drew the plants I used in my final project every day, pretending that the plants were my friends.
"Shanghai Lockdown - Window" was completed in March-April 2022, when the epidemic in Shanghai was severe, and the entire city was locked down, marking the second large-scale lockdown I have experienced. At the time, I had just quit my job as an architect and rented an apartment in an old residentional building in Shanghai with my friend, who was also my architecture classmate at the University of Sheffield. I had nothing to do in the room and didn't know what to do in the future, which was bewildering. Fortunately, I had my friends and kind neighbours to accompany me, so I started to use drawing to record my community life during the quarantine.

Q: As both series centred around the pandemic, how did the views from and from the windows inspire you? What were the feelings/thoughts you had in the process of creating those illustrations?

A: I think my mentality gradually changed during the "Flowers in Quarantine - Windows till" phase. I focused on self-care and mainly depicted my isolated life alone in the room. I rarely spoke except for buying groceries and attending online classes, and communication with friends was only through text messages. Although we sometimes watched movies together online, but most of the time, I was very lonely. Because I feared Covid, I rarely went out during this period and did not pay much attention to the world outside the window, only focusing on myself.
During the "Shanghai Lockdown - Window" period, everyone was very enthusiastic because I had friends and neighbours. My friend took me out for a walk and chatted with neighbours. We also organised a community music festival, and my friend and I listened to music and danced on the balcony. At the same time, I was no longer afraid of Covid, so my mentality was relatively relaxed during this period, and the elements in my drawings became richer. I began to look for my drawing style.

Q:I noticed that in “Flowers in Quarantine – Windowstill”, your window view was from inside, yet in “Shanghai Lockdown – Window”, the illustrations were a mix of being on the inside being on the outside of a window. Were there any differences in your observations and emotions in different positions?

A: I think I partially answered this question in the second one. During the quarantine in 2020, drawing was just a tiny part of my day because I was under a lot of pressure to complete my final project, so my drawings were rough and were just my records. In 2022, after two years of working in architecture, I became bored with my job. I realised I enjoyed drawing, so I spent more time thinking about colours and composition to make my drawings more interesting. At the same time, I also shared my artwork on social media accounts, hoping to help people who have had similar experiences as me. Overall, my drawings became more diverse because I interacted with more people.

To sum up, I have accomplished my whole process for “What-Why-How-What If” ( I think ). But, it is worth continuing after the project. My audiences enjoy the workshop and want to bring their friends to join it again. Meanwhile, I want to create more interactive games, some like “Oblique Strategies”, etc. I will join a qualified art therapy workshop on 19th May to experience how it works professionally.

Furthermore, I will set up a questionnaire to understand the public perception of art therapy.

I list potential essential factors that I will include in my program.

1. A certain space
2. A guidebook
3. A game
4. An activity
5. An exhibition
6. …

Proposed Reading List

Useful Link of Eating Disorders

1. Beat: https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/get-information-and-support/
2. Costin, C. (2000) The eating disorder sourcebook: A comprehensive guide to the treatments & prevention of eating disorders. Los Angeles, CA: Lowell House.
3. Newman, E.L. (no date) Female body image in contemporary art: Dieting, eating disorders, self-harm, and fatness. Routledge.
4. https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_18074198

Useful Link of Art Therapy in the UK

1. British Association of Art Therapists: https://baat.org/ :
2. London Art Therapy Centre: https://arttherapycentre.com/
3. Adamson Collection: http://www.adamsoncollectiontrust.org/
4. Backing Better Mental Health: https://maudsleycharity.org/case-studies/adamson-collection-offers-art-as-therapy/
5. Art as Healing: Edward Adamson: http://www.adamsoncollectiontrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2-2011.-DOF-Raw-Vision-for-EAF.pdf
6. Edwards, D 2014, Art Therapy, SAGE Publications, Limited, London. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/reader.action?docID=4714171

TO BE CONTINUED…