Here’s a summary of some of the ways I use creativity in counseling:
Writing Techniques
Memoirs of Addiction and Recovery (working with addicts, writing, and the Hero’s Journey)
I often find that addicts are creative and sensitive people who grew up in the wrong place. Addiction is often a way of coping for them, one that leads, generally, to further trauma. Art, had they grown up in a different environment, might have been a way they had instead chosen to deal with their more sensitive take on the world.
I can help bring them back to the art and the energy that has been sidetracked into addiction: to redirect this energy into something that feeds rather than depletes them, heals rather than retraumatizes. A future they might not have had opens up because they learn to re-channel this energy. I see them as people who were, or could have been, on a creative or spiritual path who got diverted because of trauma, and I see addiction as the “spell” that held them there. I help them get back on their main path through letting them experience highs from being creative instead of from addictive, self-destructive behaviors.
One way I combine creativity and addiction is in writing groups I call “Memoirs of Addiction and Recovery.” I create a temporary writing community that helps addicts feel accompanied on their recovery and broadens their ability to overcome discouragement and shame and to recover their true selves. I also sometimes work with clients individually, using writing in a similar way. The framework I often use is Joseph Campbell’s monomyth of the Hero’s Journey, which not only rescues from shame the dark period of the clients’ lives, but gives them a path to go forward on where they will eventually obtain a true boon to themselves, others, or both.
Wounded Child/Inner Healer two-hands writing technique
Imagine yourself walking in a familiar place. In the distance you see someone walking toward you. When the person gets closer, you see it’s a child. When still closer, you see that it is your younger self. Imagine that this child is feeling a confusing or disturbing feeling that you, yourself, are feeling. Notice how old the child is, how the child looks and acts. Imagine, as well, that you are feeling at your most compassionate and empathic. With your dominant hand, write what you would say to this child. With your non-dominant hand, imagining yourself to be this child, feeling what is bothering him or her, respond. Continue to go back and forth between dominant and non-dominant hands until you come to some resolution.
Visualization techniques
Breaking the Trauma Re-enactment Triangle
Imagine three parts of yourself: the injured child (victim of abuse), the abuser, and a non-protecting bystander. Re-enact the trauma re-enactment triangle of abuser, victim, non-protecting bystander. Now, imagine a true protector who intervenes on your behalf, defending you against the internalized abuser. Work through this re-enactment, calling on whatever forces are needed to render the abuser harmless and the injured child self safe.
Psychodrama techniques
Sometimes I work with client to develop a “character” that is able to do or be or feel something that the client, in his or her everyday life, cannot. I work with the client to create the background, the voice, the mannerisms, the style of dress. We may even do a therapy session or part of a session with the client acting as that character. The goal is for the client to be that character in his or her life, allowing the client to do what, inside, he or she actually wants to do.
Splitting Ambivalence (a variation of Gestalt)
With a client ambivalent about something, I will often effectively divide the client into two parts (or more) and have the client move around the room, from chair to chair, speaking as first one part then the other. We treat this as a debate and it continues until all sides have fully had their say. Then, we imagine another part of has been watching this debate. That part reflects on the points each side has made, then sees if it can help the “others” come to a resolution that satisfies all sides.
Splitting Ambivalence (a variation of Focusing)
Here, the client divides into two parts, each of which has two halves — one half that wants something for the client, the other half that doesn’t want the client to have to experience something. We use Focusing to work each half of each part, until they come to a potential resolution.