Turning Point 6.0

I woke up this morning with these lyrics in my head:

I can see clearly now the rain is gone. / I can see all the obstacles in my way. / Gone are the clouds that  had me blind. / It's gonna be a bright (bright)/ bright (bright) sunshiny day. Jimmy Cliff

For someone who, as my husband says, never seemed to pay much attention to rock lyrics, they have an uncanny way of popping up at telling times. I'm a day short of retirement from my long time job as art therapist at UC Davis Children's Hospital.

It's a graduation, a transition I'm making as I round the corner of my 60th year, while year 5776 of the Jewish calendar approaches and school all around the country begins again.

That's how I see it. As I end this chapter of living as art therapist/artist, I'm beginning again. I'm shifting the balance over to artist/art therapist. My collage box is full, my materials are all ready to go and I've got shows lined up through May. Hooray!

But I can't imagine not practicing art therapy; intending to use my skills to help others heal themselves. I'll continue working with people, older ones this time and not primarily children.

I'm thinking about palliative care. I'm considering hospice and thinking about people who are struggling with or have survived cancer. I can't imagine not witnessing the profound delight in someone's eyes or hearing the enthusiasm in their voice as they discover they have the power to convey something powerful; a profound emotion with their own hands...which brings me to the lyrics of Ben Harper's gorgeous song: With My Own Two Hands. Have a listen and let me know what you think. Music starts at 1:26

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmE72KEzPPk&w=560&h=315]

Positive Art Therapy Interview

Janet Macleod from Positive Art Therapy recently interviewed me, asking about my role as an art therapist. I enjoyed thinking about her questions and taking the time to answer them. After 14 years of practice, they gave me pause. I'm including the interview here as a record of my thoughts at this point in my career. Q: What motivated you to become an arts therapist?

I knew that I wanted to use art as a form of healing when I graduated from college but I didn’t become aware of art therapy as a field of study until my forties.  By then, I was a professional artist and a mother. I’d had occasions to use art as a healing tool with my own children and in the studio art classes I taught. I was interested not so much in the technical aspect of art but rather what made someone draw and what those drawings might mean. I wanted to help people solve life problems with art and I needed formal training to do this. In a moment of serendipity, a lime green flyer arrived in the mail, advertising the Post Master’s  Art Therapy Certificate program at UC Berkeley. Kismet!

Q: Where did you train? What is your most memorial experience while training – good or bad?

I have an MFA in sculpture and textiles from California Collage of the Arts, so the UC Berkeley postmaster’s certificate program was a great fit. During my internship, one of my most memorable events occurred while I was facilitating a children’s bereavement art group. I was fortunate enough to be hired as a student—and that meant I was learning on the job. I had heard my art therapy teachers’ horror stories about paint and clay splashed rooms, but I did not know much about containment, timing or allowing clients to maintain their defenses.  One evening, I asked a group of teens to write a letter to their deceased. That evening was the first of a ten session group and after the exercise, one of the group members left the room and punched a hole through the wall! It was a powerful way of learning containment, timing and allowing clients to maintain their defenses.

Q: Who has most inspired you or influenced your work as an arts therapist?

When I began my internship (here at UC Davis Children’s Hospital), my supervisor, Johanna Russell was a great source of information and inspiration. I was full of art therapy theories but Johanna had been practicing for 10 years and knew the lay of the land. She also understood my perceived need for control in an uncontrollable environment. Over and over, she reminded me to “go with the flow,” words which have helped me to understand that even if I am organized, my materials at hand, ready to do an intervention, the patient might be anywhere other than where I expect them to be; at a procedure, playing foosball or heading to the cafeteria for a bite to eat. And that has to be ok.

Q:   Are you employed as an arts therapist?

I work as a pediatric art therapist for UC Davis Children’s Hospital in Sacramento, CA.

Q:      What populations do you predominantly work with?

Our Children’s Hospital contains the neonatal intensive care unit, the pediatrics unit and the pediatric intensive care unit. I work with children and their parents on all of those floors, but primarily on pediatrics. I also facilitate an art therapy bereavement group at UC Davis Hospice; designed by myself and Don Lewis, LCSW of UC Davis Hospice. The group is collaboration between the UC Davis Children’s Hospital and UC Davis Hospice.

Q:  Where or who you really like to work with?

Hands down, our daily Art Therapy Group on the pediatric floor. I’ve been doing it for close to 14 years now and I love coming up with new ideas, new projects, new ways to interest children and families in art making. Kids come pulling IV poles, in wheelchairs or even carried by a parent. The group is huge source for normalization and socialization. Most people are surprised and delighted to find art in the midst of the hospital setting. Facilitating the Young Adult Bereavement Art Group is a close second. These young adults come from every imaginable background with every possible kind of loss. The ability to hold the group and see the changes in group members over the 8 week span is heartbreaking, heartwarming and inspiring.

Q:       Do you practice your own art? If so what and who has influenced you?

Absolutely. I spend as much time as I can in my studio. I’m influenced by so many artists, but my current favorites are Giorgio Morandi, Pierre Bonnard, Milton Avery, and many Northern California artists. I’m also in love with the 18th century French still life painter, Jean-Siméon Chardin.

Q:       What other interests do you enjoy when you are not working?

I’m passionate about art making, I love to practice yoga and I enjoy getting out and walking—whether it’s in our town or out on a trail. One of my favorite soothing activities is diving into a good book.

Q:     What has been your biggest challenge while training or working as an arts therapist?

UC Davis Medical Center is a university hospital committed to learning as part of the healing process. Residents, interns and student nurses come to the hospital to learn. As an art therapist, learning as much as one can about the different diagnoses is of immense benefit to working with patients. I think of each illness or trauma as a kind of narrative, a story. The more I know about any particular narrative, the better I can assess each child’s circumstances. Considering the personality of the child, the family system and the illness becomes a puzzle to solve. When I can put my fingers on just the right art intervention, the results are worth the challenge of learning all of the medical terminology.

Q:      What keeps you motivated?

There are many moments of joy and wonder. The presence of art in our setting is like magic. Children lying prone sit up and begin painting. A teen that has hidden under the blanket pokes her head out and starts to paint a watercolor. The knowledge that I’ve been created a pocket of goodness and delight during a time of illness or injury makes me very happy. I also draw tremendous strength from making art and from my family and friends.

Q:    What is on your “wish list” either for yourself as an arts therapist or for the profession?

I have been active in the area of grief and loss since I began practicing art therapy, both in the hospital and in hospice. My biggest wish is that our Pediatric Palliative Care program will be able to grow by helping people to understand what palliative care really is. It is not a death sentence, but a way of caring for children with a chronic illness. Palliative care begins with the diagnosis, and addresses  the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual effects of the disease on the child. A pediatric palliative care program provides that child and their family with the resources they need not only to cope, but to live a rich and fulfilling life whether that life is foreshortened or, they are able to live out a full lifespan.

Q:       What strength do you have that has been most valuable to you as an arts therapist?

I’m able to act quickly on a referral, drawing on my intuition and improvisational skills to come up with a directive that targets the specific needs of the child.

unexpected moments, small miracles

During the winter holidays, our pediatric unit is festooned to the nines in greenery, glittering balls and ornaments. Stately trees decked with stuffed animals and toys grace each alcove on the floor. In my early days here at the hospital, there was always some acknowledgement of Hanukkah too; a garland of dreidels or decorations made of cobalt blue and white. This week marks the beginning of Hanukkah, the 8 day Jewish festival of lights and it's been a long time since I've seen any blue, white and gold decorations on our floor. By the first day of Hanukkah, I was growing weary of Santa visits and a pervasive sense of Christmas as the ruling paradigm. I didn't think I could do anything about it;  I just observed my irritation.

But later that day, one of the nurses came up to me saying: "A surgeon just called me and asked me if the Art Lady could come up with some kind of Hanukkah decorations. The surgeon is Jewish, it's her birthday and every time she comes on our unit and sees only Christmas decorations, she's sad."

Was the doctor reading my mind? I decided to make some decorations STAT in Art Group, although I was a mite concerned about parents becoming upset when their little girl or boy set to cutting out Stars of David or dreidels.

And that's when the tiny miracle happened. That afternoon, most of the children were confined to their rooms on isolation, but one family staying close to the playroom rolled in. I explained that we were making a paper chain with stars for Hanukkah. They became very excited, sat down at the table and the dad asked me "Do you know why they use that dark blue for one of the Hanukkah colors?"

He explained that the cobalt blue was inspired by a kind of dye that was used in ancient Israel. I was impressed, especially when he told me that scientists were still trying to figure out the origins of that dye.

A wonderful hour of linking one paper ring to another followed, with stories and memories exchanged. More people came in and they too, got excited. When we finished, we had a 30 foot-long chain dripping with brilliant yellow stars and blue rings.

I gathered the collection of stars and rings in my arms and carefully placed them in the nurse manager's office. When I arrived the next morning, I wondered whether they would still be sitting there or hanging in the entry way. I entered, turned around and saw them, signaling in their unique way, the miracle of the season.

The world has, for far too long, traded upon exclusivity instead of inclusion and it seems to me, that at this time of year, is there any better time to honor our traditions? Everyone's traditions.

When Is a Dog Just a Dog?

Recently, I had the pleasure of hosting a South Korean Art Therapy professor, Sunghee An, at our hospital. Part of the Art Therapy Department at Hanyang Cyber University, Sunghee was curious to see our art therapy program at UC Davis Children's Hospital in action.

I was delighted when, on the morning of our meeting, I walked into the pavilion and found her waiting; collected and ready to get down to details over tea.

What I realized right away, is that when someone visits our hospital, I'm representing not only what I do--but what everyone else does as well--and how I've created my art therapy practice within that institution. When you have been in a position for a number of years, as I have, you set rules for yourself and abide by them. Sometimes, you forget why you do what you do.

Sunghee's questions allowed me to develop a narrative, which as I told the story of our program and explained why I was the only art therapist, I rediscovered many of the reasons why I set up my practice the way I did. I was happy to find that I still approve of my past decisions and that they continue to make sense, some twelve years later.

I took Sunghee on a floor by floor tour of the Children's Hospital: the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and its very tiny inhabitants, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, where we discovered a lively paper doll painting sibling session and, back to our regular pediatrics floor, where we stopped in at a toddler's room to spend some time painting.

Over lunch, we discussed the psychoanalytic approach versus a more resilience oriented one.

While many of our patients have experienced trauma as a result of an accident or disease, we allow patients to guide their choices about art and music. This doesn't always foster in-depth conversations about their feelings. In fact quite the opposite. Because of the double rooms and porousness of the playroom, children often choose to engage in art activities as a means of "just being normal" or "having fun."

What happens while they are doing it, contained within the bounds of a session or an art group, is where change happens.

During Art Group that day, the children created collages of animals, primarily dogs and horses (we'd just had a fantastic donation of dog and horse images). One of the children, about 8 years old, glued several images of dogs onto her mat board and began to paint around it with black.

The color black can sometimes raise concern about a school age child and the two of us wondered privately if something deeper might be going on. I casually asked if this young person had any pets. The answer was "five, but three ran away."

"Who are these dogs?" I asked. "Rex and Toto," he answered and I began to fill in the blanks. The child also covered the back of the card with an image of a schnauzer. When asked about this animal, it turned out to be one of the runaways, who had given birth to a litter prior to running away. One of the pups had died.

In a child who otherwise was hospitalized for a minor condition, I decided to believe that in this case, the dog was just a dog. And yet it wasn't.

The confluence of events that led me to provide images of a variety of dogs and the child appearing on this day, when presented with these images, allowed him to grieve the loss of some beloved friends. Without intense introspection, amongst crawling toddlers,  babies drooling and iv poles beeping, this young guy was able to express the deep currents of his heart.

Finding Renewal, or, "Self Care 101"

Self-care. The word sounds a bit stiff, as if someone who liked the meaning of the two words separately, put them together and ended up with less than when they began.

Many times, this essential, bottom line topic is trivialized and minimized so that we keep it at a distance. Frequently, at a healthcare conference, it is the last topic of the day. You are filled to the brim with useful information and ideas, you’re ready to call it a day, and with a scant half hour to go, the moderator gets up to speak on self-care.

The advice is boiled down, then offered up like overcooked vegetables: Remember to breathe. Eat well. Sleep. Rest-- and of course, exercise. All good advice, but how many of us are listening?

We need to be more resourceful in how we look at self-care. It is, in fact, a form of treatment. Vital word: as in therapy, remedy, cure, to care for. Rather than leaving it to chance and the final scraps of the day, I propose that we look at caring for ourselves as if we were a patient or client under our own care. We need to assess ourselves as carefully as we would that patient.

I like to remember quotations I learned in college. One that stands out is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “This above all… To thine own self be true.”

I understand Shakespeare's words to mean, in this context, that each of us finds unique ways of getting whatever we need to redeem ourselves. Those ways are going to be different for each person, just as the course of treatment for the same disease can be different for each patient enduring it.

As I thought about it, I realized there were at least two levels of need for self-care—immediate response to a potentially overwhelming crisis and those activities that we can pursue in abundance, say when on vacation.

One of my tried and true "emergency" treatments is to resuscitate myself with a cup of tea. Taking those few minutes allows my thoughts to settle and often, I regain the clarity and energy I need to meet the next wave of challenges.

If each person reading this blog wrote down all the things they do to care for themselves when they do have time, the list might be very long: making art, running, yoga, getting together with friends, reading, rock climbing, going to a movie, listening to music, swimming, dancing, hiking, hitting the beach, etc.

There may also be an intermediate level of self-care. We want to create ways to sustain ourselves while at, or after work, --an ongoing renewal-- when we don’t have the opportunity to travel to our favorite get away or sanctuary for a few days.

Recently, I presented a workshop on self-care to our Child Life Specialists Network of Sacramento, in which I shared many of these ideas with them.

Afterwards, I introduced and led them through a SoulCollage® workshop; a wonderful and pretty quick route to renewal. We looked right into the heart of the matter: “What sustains me? What nourishes me?”

The results were astonishing. Many participant's artwork revealed aspects of themselves not readily seen. Many uncovered feelings that may have lain hidden, unexplored or simply forgotten.

One of the most surprising results was my own collage. Initially I thought it must have come from my silly side, the side that remembers the theme music from Captain Kangaroo, or spontaneously makes up nonsensical songs. What I realized the next day though, was that in fact, the dancers in their rabbit costumes extolled the power of partnership as a means to self-care. For those introverts among us, we sometimes forget that a powerful form of renewal is to share the company of others.