Exercises

“DRAWINGS OF EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS”

Working with watercolor on crumpled, damp paper has a deep psychological meaning and a noticeable therapeutic effect, since it allows you to achieve greater expressiveness and at the same time emotional release.

Purpose and priority goals:

• identification of the emotional background, actualized emotions, feelings, experiences;
in a situation of acute stress – prompt assistance, emotional release;
• “working through” emotions and feelings, including
the number of the suppressed;
• harmonization of the emotional state
as a potential for overcoming destructive personality changes and personal growth;
• development of creativity.

Materials: sheets of white paper of different sizes, simple pencils, brushes, watercolor, bowls of water.

Setting stage:
Participants are asked to write down on a sheet
paper the name of emotions, feelings, experiences, states that we managed to remember. Further, from this list, it is proposed to choose the most powerful feeling, experience that causes an emotional response at the moment.
When offering instructions, it is important to list a variety of terms that are used to describe a wide range of emotional manifestations so that participants do not
experienced intellectual difficulties in distinguishing between concepts.

Stage of individual work:

• With a simple pencil on a piece of paper
A3 or A4 format make a contour
drawing selected for “development”
emotions (feelings, experiences, states).

• Make the following manipulations with the paper (paying attention to the thoughts and feelings that arise in the process of work): crumple a sheet of paper with the contours of the drawing, then dip it for a while in water, straighten it, lay it out on the table, and only then color drawn with a simple pencil.
• Come up with a title and a story for your “picture”. Try to build dialogues between the depicted objects or parts of the picture.

Stage of discussion and reflective analysis:

Participants place their works in the office space, sit in a circle for discussion, verbalization of emotions and feelings that they experienced in the process of artistic creation. Everyone, at will, shows his drawing, tells its name, tells a story.

Often, participants change the original name, because in the process of work the image being created is transformed, and consequently, the idea changes, there is an awareness of hidden meanings.
The art therapy session ends with making changes to the created art product in accordance with the wishes of the author.