Contemporary Art Therapy with Adolescents. Shirley Riley

Solution Focused, Art Therapy Treatment

       APPENDIX: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM: THE NARRATIVE APPROACH AND CLINICAL ART THERAPY

       REFERENCES

       FURTHER READING

       SUBJECT INDEX

       AUTHOR INDEX

      Acknowledgements

      There are many people and influences that have had impact on this journey of discussing adolescent treatment, but one person took the entire trip with me and held my hand all the way: my husband. He taught me computereez, proofread every chapter, praised my books, and lived with me through my ‘crises’. I needed all his help many times and I am enormously grateful.

      My second powerful influence is my friend and admired colleague, Cathy Malchiodi. She originally pushed me to publish my work, has continued to be a constant inspiration, and helped me laugh at human foibles, all through this latest adventure.

      I most gratefully thank Gerry Oster for his illuminating foreword. I leaned on his expertise through reading his books, long before I started my own. Jessica Kingsley has been wonderfully supportive and reassuring in every aspect of the publication and she calmed my inner adolescent when I regressed into self-doubt.

      Jean Noble read and edited, Aimee Loth and Roberta Lengua contributed their valuable experiences, Robert Saldana worked many hours on the photographs of the client’s artwork, and Rita Coufal listened to me when I needed an ear, to each of them I give my appreciation.

      Lastly I thank my sons for being fine men and choosing wonderful wives. Together they have produced such excellent children that my faith in the next generation gave me balance when the youths I encountered daily seemed in such a hopeless state. Without all of you this book would not have come into existence.

      Foreword

      Gerald D. Oster

      Adolescence is a very confusing time, even for the most well-adjusted teenagers. It is a time for excitement and adventure, yet is fraught with countless pitfalls. These short, but ever so critical, years produce conflicting demands from peers, school, parents and society. There are also rapid internal changes occurring as the developing teenage body emerges into adulthood. Add to the mix the potential of family conflict, variable moods and longer periods of depression, and possible learning problems, and you have a volatile concoction that is bound to give rise to at least minor explosions. One day up, the next day down may be the norm. For the adolescent who is struggling and for those caregivers and caretakers attempting to provide nurturance, this instability may be just too much and professional intervention may be required.

      Through my own clinical work with adolescents, I have had the opportunity to interact with a diversity of problems and populations. I have been confronted with sad and sullen teens, as well as highly defiant ones. I have sat with teenagers from all walks of life – youths from the inner city, children in government officials, and adolescents witnessing their families perish in wars. With each of these teens, I have admired their resilience and their ability to express their pain and their anger, both in verbal and non-verbal ways.

      Through drawings and other media, teenagers have the opportunity to use a different, yet natural vehicle of communication that can become a catalyst for change. Artwork becomes a format that can increase discussion and enhance the possibilities for insight. It helps break the ice when faced with teenagers who are anticipating yet another adult attempting to interrogate their private lives. By using alternative, non-verbal techniques, clinicians can assist traumatized youngsters reveal inner thoughts or secrets that they would otherwise have difficulty revealing. Drawings and other artwork can become personal and unique statements that words alone cannot otherwise identify. These graphic images also create permanent records that do indeed speak ‘thousands’ of words. And these creative expressions become a bridge from within to help close the gap between themselves and the clinicians who are trying to find a way to enter and understand their world.

      Mental health professionals from all disciplines naturally want to enhance their understanding of adolescent behavior. Drawings and other related artwork allow for interpretations at a deeper level through visual and graphic representation. Offering teenagers the opportunity to communicate through non-verbal means is a strategy that should be part of every clinician’s repertoire because of its versatility and impact on the therapeutic process. Directing teenagers in artwork provides a modality through which both the client and therapist witness emotions, events, and ideas not easily or accurately expressed through words alone. By understanding the process and the product more clearly, clinicians can help their teens clients to quickly communicate relevant issues and problems, thus expediting assessment and treatment.

      Therapists face many difficult situations, especially with troubled teenagers, or families in crises. Enhancing self-expression through artwork has the potential to convey in very dramatic ways the complexities of these painful emotions and unspoken problems. In order to effectively use artwork in teenagers in different settings, therapists must gain the skills necessary to help them understand their clients’ expressions, implore assessment strategies that can enlighten them toward a workable diagnosis, and add creative procedures that make sense to them and to their clients in order to help overcome therapeutic resistance and emotional hurdles.

      In this book, Shirley Riley draws upon her many productive clinical experiences and teachings to share creative approaches that work to engage troubled adolescents. In understandable prose, she is able to integrate theory with practical suggestions, to explain how she connects with teenagers who may be resistant or provocative. She is able to offer many possibilities that can work in various settings and she provides many case illustrations that show how the process unfolds. With clarity and conviction, she presents why artwork can be so valuable in determining diagnoses and treatment direction.

      This book will greatly enhance your understanding of the teenage years and how therapists using creative media can intervene efficiently and effectively in this process. It will provide the reader with added skills, insights, and directions that can assist both the beginner and more experienced clinician amplify their work. A comprehensive range of timely issues are discussed that only a caring and sensitive therapist such as Shirley Riley can provide. This book will undoubtedly become a valued resource that many clinicians will have on their bookshelves in order to access its stimulating and creative ideas.

      Gerald D. Oster, Ph.D.

       Clinical Associate Professor

       University of Maryland Medical School

      Foreword

      Cathy A. Malchiodi

      When I first read this book, I was immediately reminded of my first work as a therapist with adolescents almost twenty years ago when I was still somewhat of an adolescent myself. I vividly remembered all my struggles, and as Riley describes in this book, my entanglements. Luckily, most of the adolescents I encountered had support from parents or extended family. Art expression served as a potent way for them to communicate conflicting emotions and confusing questions of identity, to tap their natural creative potentials to problem solve, to restore and repair the self, and to forge a meaningful therapeutic connection with me through their images.

      Most therapists working with adolescents are not quite as fortunate as I was to work with young people who had relatively supportive parents and families; they generally may see adolescents who come from impoverished families, crime-ridden environments, or violent neighborhoods. Recently, I have returned to working with adolescents and am confronted with a caseload of teens troubled by broken homes, family violence, and the impact of gangs, crime, and drugs in their neighborhoods.