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.