Supervision Directive: Animal Metaphor

This week during our Art Therapy supervision group, I asked the Art Therapists to think of one of their patients and draw him as an animal. (If this patient was an animal, what kind of animal would he be?) This was a fun directive and it provided the opportunity to work within a metaphor. Since we work with sex offenders, some of the animal images were monster-like. Others included a ferret for a patient who was particularly sneaky and tried to take art supplies from the Art Center. Another was a fish in a bowl because he had difficulty expressing his needs, though needed the occasional acknowledgement. For one patient, represented as a fly buzzing around, there was a suggestion of the need for sticky fly paper for him. This could be translated into some activity that would keep him occupied for a period of time. Using this directive and working in the metaphor can help the therapist look at the situation differently, and possibly come up with interventions not thought of before.

Supervision: Positive Experience

During a recent Art Therapy supervision group, I gave the directive to create an image about a positive experience that each therapist had in one of their groups or with a patient. Often, we focus on all the problems we have with the patients since sex offenders are a hard population to work with. I think we forget to discuss what goes well and some of the positive results that we see. This can help us feel more rewarded and fulfilled in our work, and it can help our peers to share what has worked for us, helpful approaches and techniques. Talking about challenges and difficulties can drag us down at times, so sharing positive experiences can be morale boosting and more uplifting for a change.

Book Review: Without a Conscience

When I started working with sex offenders, I learned that quite a few are psychopaths. I was referred to the book, "Without a Conscience" by Robert Hare, who created a psychopathy checklist. The book was an easy read and gave me a better understanding of working with psychopaths. He shared examples of real life psychopaths such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, as well as fictional psychopaths such as Hannibal. Hare elaborated on the symptoms of psychopathy such as being superficial, lacking remorse, being manipulative, being impulsive, etc. He discussed treatment of psychopaths which is difficult and entails self protection and damage control. Since 20% of inmates are psychopaths, this is a book worth reading if you work with the offender population.

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.

What prevents empathy?

This week, the sex offenders in my Empathy group talked about what factors have prevented them from feeling empathy for someone. A lot of things interfered with them having empathy, including feeling anger toward that person, feeling entitled, not taking responsibility for their actions, justifying their behavior to themselves, numbing their feelings, and being selfish. The art work ranged from depicting the situation to symbolically representing the feelings involved. This Art Therapy directive helped the patients be more aware of what can prevent them from feeling empathy, so they can more consciously work toward not letting that happen.

Termination in Supervision

One of my supervisees decided to move on, so during her last supervision with the group, I asked everyone to create an image that we could incorporate into one big "quilt" that we could hang on the wall. I expressed that I hoped the departing therapist would take what she learned from us with her in her future experiences, and that the image "quilt" that we made would symbolize that a part of her would always be with us at the hospital. This afforded the Art Therapists the opportunity to say good-bye and share memories and thank each other. Termination is an important process for the therapist to prepare her patients for her departure, and it is also important to engage in that process with colleagues.