Group art therapy: supporting social inclusion through an ancient practice?

an article by Sue Holttum (Canterbury Christ Church University, UK) published in Mental Health and Social Inclusion Volume 22 Issue 1 (2018)

Abstract

Purpose
Group art therapy involves art-making, which has been used throughout human history to symbolise struggle and transformation with group support. The purpose of this paper is to discuss two recent papers on how and why group art therapy may be helpful.

Design/methodology/approach
A search was carried out to find recent papers on group art therapy, with a focus on how and why it may be helpful.

Findings
One paper reported on 119 accounts of why group art therapy may be helpful. Five things seemed specific to group art therapy:

1. using artworks to express experiences symbolically,
2. connect with others,
3. place confusing feelings outside oneself,
4. being playful, and
5. following a set routine with others.

The other paper reported in detail on group art therapy sessions with people who had a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Group interaction became most supportive when the art therapist clearly focused on people’s thoughts and feelings about artworks made by group members.

Originality/value
It has been unclear how group art therapy may help people. Understanding this means researchers can do more rigorous research on it. The two papers discussed represent probably the largest synthesis of different sources on how group art therapy might work, and the most detailed observation of what happens in practice.
Both papers suggest group art therapy uses art to symbolise struggle and transformation with support from others, thus normalising this process and including those going through it rather than marginalising them.
Parallels can be drawn with older healing rituals, in which crisis and struggle were viewed as normal.

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The loneliness of personality disorder: a phenomenological study

an article by Olivia Sagan, (Queen Margaret University Edinburgh, UK) published in Mental Health and Social Inclusion Volume 21 Issue 4 (2017)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experience of loneliness amongst people who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

Design/methodology/approach
The research used a narrative phenomenological approach.

Findings
The study found that the loneliness experienced amongst this group of participants was perceived to have taken root in childhood and was not a transient state. Its endurance, however, had led participants to develop a number of strategies as means by which to manage what was felt to be a deep seated painful sense of emptiness; some of these strategies were, however, risky or harmful.

Research limitations/implications
Limitations of the study include the absence of longitudinal data which would have offered the opportunity for the close study of how people manage the experience over time.

Practical implications
The study has practical implications for mental health professionals wishing to better understand the difficulties faced by individuals with the characteristics described, but it also highlights the resilience of sufferers who, while living with acute loneliness continue to explore ways of managing it.

Social implications
The study brings to the attention that the connectivity and sociability required and expected in today’s society emphasise the lack of lonely individuals, further stigmatising loneliness as deficit and taboo.

Originality/value
The paper offers a welcome addition to loneliness studies in its adherence to the phenomenological experience and offers a small corrective to the bulk of existing loneliness studies which, while valuable have been more attentive to exploring the constituent elements of loneliness than the lived experience of it.

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