Art Therapy

Art therapy with children is a technique about creating pictures that allows children to express what is uppermost in their minds more genuinely and spontaneously than they do in a discussion with the therapist. Thus, pictures help the therapist understand the children’s perceptions and feelings about what is happening to them and explore possible alternatives to solving problems. Accordingly, in one of my psychology courses, I was required to do an art therapy with a child to know more a bout her or even to confirm what is already known. So, some facts, child’s drawings and interpretations about those drawings will be discussed in this paper.

I did an art therapy with my friend’s daughter ‘Sadeel’ who is a girl about six years old. I chose ‘Sadeel’ because I have a good background about her family which would probably help me more on building better understanding and giving better interpretations about her illustrations. In the first session, Sadeel was really focused and exited when I ask her to draw me two pictures. First, about something she likes, she drew me a boat sealing in a sea with lots of colorful fish and a sun shine sky. She said that she likes being in such a boat, looking at colorful fish and enjoying a nice weather. Second, when asking her about drawing her family, she drew her mom, dad, herself and only her step sister holding each others hands. So I asked her ‘are these the

only members in your family?’ She paused for a second and replied, ‘no there are more’ and took another paper and drew the same figures again with the same sequence but adding her step brother. Surprisingly, I asked her about her little sisters at home, and then she said ‘yes I will draw them’ and she did. Sadeel drew all females in her family with wings saying that all girls are like butterflies. Moreover, it was unexpected to me that she included her step siblings who are far, in her drawing and not to include those who live with her in the same house. My own interpretation is that she loves and views her step sister and brother as models in her life due to the good influence they have on her more than her sisters at home who are younger.

I would say that art therapy is such an effective and interesting method for both the child and the therapist. It releases the child’s emotions smoothly and gives us as beginners the feeling of being able to interpret may be some facts about a certain child through his/her drawings. Of course, we can not assume from the child’s drawings that this must mean that, but rather we could know something that we would never know unless the technique of art therapy is used. According to Sadeel, neither I nor her mother knows about the much of attachment she feels towards her step sister which was obvious in her both drawings of her family.