The beauty of art therapy is that the mundane becomes profound. My graduate program at Lesley University, supposedly teaching me complex techniques of art therapy, today presented me with the concept of a woven paper placemat.
You might be asking, "Wait, isn't that the project I did when I was in first grade where you rip up two sheets of paper into strips and put them together into a woven assamblage resembling a placemat?" and sadly, I'd have to agree.
However, in art therapy one must never take anything for granted! Now I will reveal the secrets that will allow you, too, to apply the tools of art therapy to benefit your daily life!
The secret to an art therapy placemat is that it does not have simple directions like the one you made in first grade. There is no teacher telling you how to rip your paper or how to put it together. You can make it ANY way you want! It doesn't even need to be symmetric (sorry Laurie). Not to worry though, if you are an indecisive or insecure person, a friendly art therapist may be able to give you some helpful suggestions on ways in which to assemble your paper strips, although you will not escape the act of making a decision. The key to art therapy is that the client must always show himself/herself "freely" through the artwork, allowing his/her unconscious to emerge in the artwork.
The simple placemat is not so simple anymore! Where once you had red and green checkers now you have a client fixated on his/her need for a familial support network, perhaps a Christmas tree kleptomaniac or a psychotic client who truly believes he/she IS Santa Clause. Crazier things have happened!
However, the biggest problem is that even if most, if not all of this is true, an art therapist cannot assume anything. The client's own interpretation of his/her art is the bases of the therapy session.
So, to wrap this all up, basically, I am paying Lesley University to teach me how to make first-grader placemats so that I can charge an arm and a leg to have a client of mine interpret to me their first-grader placemat and solve their own problems. . isn't life great?
Just somethin to think about the next time you see a little first-grader with a hand woven paper placemat!
-L
