Art Therapy Case Study

Introduction Working in a preventative services center with low-income families in a large northeast city is a constant challenge when it comes to providing the best art therapy for the clients. This clinical setting is primarily focused on affording free access to social services for families in need, and thus the funding for art therapy is minimal. This obstacle forces art therapists to be more creative and to think originally when it comes to appropriate therapeutic interventions for the population. The families working with the Center are either referred by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) because of domestic violence and abuse, or because they have chosen to seek out services for many types problems including …show more content…
As it turned out, the felt was much harder to work with than a thinner and more pliable fabric, so I altered the way I was made the dolls. Instead of being able to manipulate the fabric with the thread alone, I had to cut small triangles out of the felt to define the arms as well as a slit to define two legs. Though this was somewhat disruptive to the process of wrapping the thread around the fabric seamlessly, it was the only way to use the available fabric and thread that worked to make the wrap dolls. Once I figured this out, the actual wrapping of the felt in the thread was relatively easy, though the thread did not as easily cover the felt as it would have if I had used yarn. This meant that the ‘underneath’ of the doll would show more readily – noticing this I hoped that I would be able to transform this concrete reality into a metaphor about one’s emotions showing through, and that being okay. After completing the wrapping aspect of the doll making in around thirty minutes, I concluded that this directive would be appropriate for one of Maria’s sessions, given her age and skill level (which is developmentally on-target according to Lowenfeld, …show more content…
She seems to have become fond of the process and express her desire to continue working on her doll as well as her brother’s doll. Maria was able to self-sooth during the first session making the dolls, and then contain her emotions in second session with the dolls. The next step in this process will be to incorporate some of Winnicot’s (2005) play and creativity theory into Maria’s therapy because of it’s ability to help formulate the sense of self within the client through the area of transitional phenomena. According to Vollman (1997), to be able to act out feelings and relational dynamics through the dolls fosters a tangible effort within the client to organize the self in relation to the world. It can also be a useful tool in integrating Maria’s emotional thoughts to her physical reactions to trauma, thereby further building her ego strength and identity (Vollman, 1997). It may also be useful to build a containing structure for her dolls, to help incorporate the concept of safety and containment in a play aspect, in order to address the insecurity she experiences at