Someone felt uncomfortable directive

This week in my Empathy group, the Art Therapy directive was to create an image about a time you noticed that someone else felt uncomfortable. This exercise was done to help the sex offenders identify signs of another's discomfort. Most were able to do this, though not all did something to make the other person more comfortable in the example he provided. One patient thought it was right to try to ask his victim how he was making her uncomfortable, instead of just walking away. However, some were able to describe what they did to make the person less uncomfortable, so that was positively reinforced. It was a good discussion about recognizing someone else's discomfort and then doing the right thing.

Supervision: Drawing to Patient

This week in supervision, we all drew a picture to a challenging patient (not actually to be given to the patient) to express how they made us feel. Previously, we had written letters to a difficult patient which was helpful to the supervision group. Since we are Art Therapists, I thought drawing would be a good way to express ourselves as well. The therapists discussed how the patients made them feel overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, annoyed, and drained, which is common with the sex offender population. They were able to discuss ways to deal with these issues and could just vent. It helped them to be more aware of their countertransference towards this difficult population. They reported that this exercise as well as the letter writing exercise were both helpful. One therapist said she preferred the letter writing because she could write down exactly what she was thinking and feeling in a precise way.