O’Hanlon and Weiner-Davis (1989) believe a therapist using a solution-focused ap-proach is trying to achieve three things: “1) change the ‘doing’ of the situation that is perceived as problematic; 2) change the ‘viewing’ of the situation that is perceived as problematic; and 3) evoke resources, solutions, and strengths to bring to the situa-tion that is problematic” (pp. 126–127).
For example, a harassed single mother who works day and night to keep her family together can be validated through a simple clarification of the burdens she bears daily by creating an art piece, with the children’s help, of all the duties she attempts to do every day. The parent often is surprised to see the number of tasks and the children can come to a new appreciation of the energy it takes to provide their home life. In this situation, the therapist offers encouragement to the client by ob-serving times she has done something extra. The therapist might ask, “How did you ever find time to do that?”
In single-parent families, communication often turns into shouting when the par-ent is pushed over the edge. To change the “viewing” of the situation, the therapist can identify exceptions and focus on a time (no matter how brief) when messages
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were sent without negativity. For example, the therapist might ask the mother to il-lustrate “how you mustered the inner strength that stopped you from screaming at Johnny.” “Can you illustrate how Johnny acted differently, even for a short time, af-ter you explained the reason you were upset?” “Johnny, make a picture for Mom that shows her how you will help each other not to yell.” A solution-focused thera-pist joins with the client to solve the immediate stressor and to change both “doing”
and “viewing” of a problem situation.
Problems are exacerbated by repetitive failed attempts to problem solve; this is the time when identification of resources and strengths becomes important for change. Clients often experience guilt because they are ashamed of their lack of suc-cess, but they are relieved when they can let go of the guilt that accompanies failure by joining the therapist in creating alternate approaches to problem solving. A task that leads to discussion of success and failure follows: The family makes an image of the “problem” in the center of the paper in the form of an “insurmountable” moun-tain. They are challenged to find a way to “move the mounmoun-tain.” This is a common metaphor which most adults can relate to easily and calls on them to use their re-sources to change the picture. Mountains may be blown up, tunneled through, gone around, scaled, and cut out (Figure 7.2). It is immaterial how the mountain was top-Solution-Focused and Narrative Approaches 87
FIGURE 7.2. Author’s example of a “moving the mountain,” an example of helping clients to envision getting around a problem.
pled, but it is important how the family used their resources to make a change. The problem can be destroyed in one way or many ways and can become the family metaphor for solving the problem in a new manner.
At some point, the therapist can reinforce change by using additional solution-focused strategies. For example, it may be helpful to ask the client to illustrate any of the following: “How often do you plan to repeat this positive action this coming week?” “Which part of these exceptions (pointing to the images) do you think will happen first?” “Would you like to take that piece of the artwork home and check the frequency that this transformed behavior is recognized?” “How will I know when you have satisfactorily reached the goal you desired? Illustrate those circumstances.”
NARRATIVE THERAPY
Narrative therapy (White & Epston, 1990) is considered a relatively new direction in family therapy and is similar to solution-focused approaches to treatment. The term
“narrative” has been used to refer to the telling or retelling of stories as part of ther-apy. While narrative therapy involves a highly focused set of intervention techniques, its basic principles complement those of art therapy, and for this reason, it is a useful approach in work with children, adults, and families.
The primary goal of narrative therapy is to help people externalize their lems (White 1989; White & Epston, 1990) to separate the individual from the prob-lem. In fact, the maxim of narrative therapy is “the problem is the problem, the per-son is not the problem.” When a perper-son believes the problem is part of his or her character, it is difficult to make changes and to call on inner resources to make those changes. Separating the problem from the person relieves the pressure of blame and responsibility and frees the therapist and client to focus on how to solve the problem.
Narrative therapy uses primarily verbal means—storytelling and therapeutic let-ters—to help people externalize their problems. In taking a narrative approach to art therapy, the art expression also becomes a form of externalization with added bene-fits to the therapeutic process. For example, a drawing, painting, or collage of the presenting problem is a natural way of separating the person from the problem be-cause through art, the problem becomes visible. It allows the person to literally see the problem and think about it as something outside him- or herself. Visual modes of externalization are particularly helpful with children who do not have the verbal capacity to communicate details. It also is a viable therapeutic option when solution-focused strategies are not helping to alter responses or beliefs. Creative expression in the form of art is especially helpful if an adult or family is wedded to a label, habit, behavior, or lifestyle that is difficult to successfully externalize through words alone.
It also can evoke a physical sense of how the problem feels and provides the opportunity to make meaning and rework images into new stories.
Freeman, Epston, and Lobovits (1997) see expressive activities as an integral part of the narrative therapy approach, particularly with children and their families.
They note that “an externalizing conversation is easily enhanced with other forms of expression favored by children, such as play and expressive arts therapy” (p. 11).
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Children and their families can more effectively participate in the narrative process using drawing, painting, cartoons, sculpture, dramatic play with puppets, dress-ups, and mask making. Child clients are already “experts” at art and naturally enjoy us-ing expressive modalities to create stories and retell them to others.
Riley (1997) observes that a narrative approach to art therapy allows for multi-ple perspectives to emerge, particularly in work with families. In most families, a myth persists that everyone is in agreement about “how they understand the prob-lem” and, moreover, what to do about it. However, it is not likely for the family to have an agreement or a consensus concerning problem solving. Art expression can address multiple perspectives, helping the family to see how each other defines the problem and its solution. For example, the members of a family can be asked to indi-vidually depict the dominant “problem” that concerns them (Figure 7.3). Multiple images of the same problem can be expressed and all can be witnessed by the family and therapist.
Riley and Malchiodi (1994) also note that “When the family begins telling their stories, imaging a new ending, finding new truths, they are becoming creative. Being aware of these variants should improve the chances for a good outcome to therapy.
The block to success is that of language. It takes many years for newlyweds, for ex-ample, to understand what their spouse really means. How can therapists, newly wed to the client family, learn a foreign language and exotic legends of their clients rap-idly enough to be effective?” (p. 21). This observation underscores the possibilities Solution-Focused and Narrative Approaches 89
FIGURE 7.3.Author’s example of a depiction of the family’s problem.
for art expression to assist both therapist and client in understanding the client’s nar-rative and using images to supplement communication and problem resolution.
NARRATIVE STRATEGIES AND ART THERAPY
Much of narrative therapy is predicated on how the therapist uses questions to help people understand and separate from the “problem-saturated story” about them-selves. In a narrative approach to art therapy, these questions might include the following:
• How long has the problem (attitude, behavior, emotional difficulty, habit, ill-ness) been pushing you around? What does it make you do that you don’t want to do? Can you show me through a drawing what it looks like when it is pushing you around?
• Are there times when you didn’t allow the problem to get you into trouble?
Can you draw or imagine a time lately when the problem was present but you didn’t allow it to get the better of you?
• Are there times when you feel you can push the problem around? Can you show me through a drawing what it looks like when you are pushing the prob-lem around?
The following brief case example illustrates how a therapist using a narrative ap-proach employs art expression to help an individual separate from the problem. A young woman came to therapy to explore her struggles with her family’s expecta-tions for her after her graduation from college. She was the first person in her family to obtain a college degree and the first young woman to move out of the family home before marriage. Her parents had immigrated and had lived in the United States since their early 20s; the woman’s mother had not mastered English and was still very much involved in the customs and belief systems of her country. In her parent’s cul-ture a woman had a lesser stacul-ture than a man and was expected to behave according to old world rules of feminine behavior. The young woman wanted to choose her male relationships independently, but her family’s influence created deeply ambivalent feelings in her.
The therapist asked her to create a collage image of the demands of her culture to externalize the “problem-saturated story” and ascribe to this image all the positive and negative demands that had taken control of her life. The therapist then asked her to cut out from the image those traits that she wanted to keep and those she wished to discard. With the preferred traits, the woman made a collage that illustrated both her attachment to her family’s culture and the freedom to decide how she wanted to live. By visually separating the problem from her family and herself she was able to create an alternate definition of her life choices.
By helping this young woman express in tangible form a “unique outcome”
(Epston, White, & Murray, 1993)—exceptional events, actions, or thoughts that contradict the problem-saturated story where the problem did not win out—it
be-90 CLINICAL APPROACHES TO ART THERAPY
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