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From darkness to light
Connie McCool painted this Van Gogh look alike highlighting the names of famous artists who have suffered from mental illnesses.
Kim Nguyen knows firsthand about the long-term effects of trauma. When she was a mere 13 years old, her family piled into a tiny fishing boat on an ill-fated attempt to flee Communist Vietnam. After three days of weathering storms in the vast South China Sea, the vessel's engine, designed for small-scale excursions, failed and Nguyen's father fashioned a sail to keep the boat moving. But in the middle of the night on Dec. 21, 1975, the sail broke under the strong winds and Nguyen's father fell overboard trying to repair it in rough conditions.
“The waves were like mountains,” Nguyen recalls. “I saw his head for a few minutes. We were crying and praying. We were helpless.”
At the mercy of the current, Nguyen and the others arrived on the shores of Malaysia on Christmas Day as fatherless and husbandless refugees. The holiday became a day of sorrow for the family.
Several years later she found herself pursuing a fine arts degree at Louisiana State University and, inadvertently, pursuing healing. “Everything I painted was very dark,” Nguyen said. “I was doing self-art therapy. Looking back, I was depressed and suicidal. The art got me through.”
Since then, Nguyen has dedicated her life to helping others heal with art. She leads the Art Therapy Program at Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group's ACCESS Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The program sees an average of 100 clients a month.
Art has been used as a diagnostic tool in the professional field of psychology for more than a century, but art as therapy did not emerge until the 1960s. Since then, research is showing art has healing power and is particularly effective in addressing trauma.1
Drawing, painting and sculpting help many people to reconcile inner conflicts, release deeply repressed emotions, and foster self-awareness and personal growth, Nguyen says. Some mental health providers use art therapy as both a diagnostic tool and as a way to treat disorders such as depression, abuse-related trauma and schizophrenia.
The Faceless Prince
For some of the art therapy students at ACCESS, the healing begins on canvas, but transformation takes place when the clients then also market their artwork, learn framing skills and help organize art shows.
Two years ago, 50-year-old Connie McCool couldn't get around without a wheelchair. She slept most of her days away. Plagued by chronic pain from arthritis and major depression, she tried to take her own life.
Tisha Gutierrez paints while Art Therapist Kim Nguyen demonstrates Watercolor techniques. Nguyen likes to teach watercolor because it helps clients let go of control.
Today, the single mother of three grown children runs an arts and craft group at the ACCESS Center and has completed more than three dozen works of art. She's an artist, a mentor, a friend and a natural leader.
“I feel so good about myself when I am doing my artwork,” McCool said. “It's given me a sense of purpose.”
Tisha Gutierrez and Connie McCool paint during a recent art therapy class.
Guided by Nguyen, McCool found empowerment and healing in her paint brush. Through the canvas, McCool unlocked trauma from the past and found a filter for her emotional and physical pain. “Sometimes people associate mental illness with crazy ideas; treat it as a negative,” Nguyen said. “But (the clients) are full of creativity and an abundance of beauty. With the right direction, they can flourish.”
One of McCool's pieces illustrates this point: painted in the backdrop are the names of famous artists and authors who suffered from mental illness (see page 26). Another McCool original currently on display at the center has been 30 years in the making. The painting is based on a Heart song called “These Dreams,” which speaks of a faceless prince in the woods. McCool said she always wanted a prince to come and save her.
“I've lived so much of my life in a fantasy world,” McCool said. “I've discovered the prince isn't coming. I'm the only one that can come to the rescue and take me away.”
Beyond therapy
It's loud, often deafening, and, at times, painful for Russell F. to keep pace with the speed of his thoughts.
Russell is one of the nearly 2.4 million adults who suffer from schizophrenia. The World Health Organization classifies schizophrenia as one of the top ten most debilitating diseases affecting humans. With a combination of therapy, medication, and art, Russell has emerged from a life of drug addiction into one of self-sufficiency.
Nguyen said art has given Russell a sense of purpose. He now paints at home daily and sells his art on his own.
One of his paintings, along with 11 others, will be featured in a 2010 Calendar. Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group also uses the art on promotional materials and holiday cards, further developing clients' self-confidence. There also is talk of expanding the ACCESS Center and opening a storefront gallery in Colorado Springs to display and sell its artwork.
Tisha Gutierrez is like a factory of artwork. Her photographs and paintings adorn the walls of several Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group locations. While much of her work was completed in the last two months, her journey toward recovery began more than 10 years ago, when she started experiencing anxiety and paranoia associated with early schizophrenia.
This painting depicts the anguish Connie McCool has endured from chronic pain related to arthritis. Painting helps her deal with the pain.
“I was scared of everything and everyone,” Gutierrez said. For several years she battled the stigma and denied herself treatment out of fear of retribution and losing her four children. After a nervous breakdown in 2004, Gutierrez started treatment at a Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group satellite office in Pueblo, Colorado. She has since moved to Colorado Springs and continues treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia.
One of her most effective treatments: paint and canvas. “Once I get it out on the canvas, it's not trapped,” she said. “It's put on the wall and not stored away in my mind.”
Art and Trauma: Weathering the Storm
Clinical art therapy serves as a catalyst for self-discovery and can provide more insight into the self through a calm, safe artistic process, Nguyen said. Art therapy redirects the client's focus to the art process, which interrupts their negative thoughts and behaviors and guides them to positive, healthier behaviors.
Through research and studies from the American Art Therapy Association, the seven recommended primary therapeutic mechanisms are: reconsolidation of memories, externalization, progressive exposure, reduction of arousal, reactivation of positive emotions, enhancement of emotional self-efficacy, and improved self-esteem. All of these have proven to help reduce positive symptoms of PTSD, such as intrusive thoughts and hyper-arousal, as well as less obvious negative symptoms such as avoidance and emotional numbing.
Art therapists have been deployed to help combat veterans with PTSD. They have also been used in healing trauma victims of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.
During a recent Art Therapy Class at the ACCESS center, Carolyn Mencini painted her own storm and wrote a poem about her tumultuous journey toward healing. Nguyen recalled the storm 35 years ago that forever changed her life: “For years, I lived in the shadow of his death…now I live in the light.”
Adrienne Anderson is a writer-editor with the Pikes Peak Behavioral Health Group. For further information, e-mail adrienne.anderson@ppbhg.org or visit https://www.ppbhg.orgReference
- Francie Lyshak-Stelzer, ATR-BC, LCAT, Creative Arts Supervisor at Bronx Children's Psychiatric Center, NY, and colleagues report the results of a study to determine if trauma-focused art therapy reduced symptoms of PTSD. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association (V.24, #4)
Sidebar
More online: To see more works by these artists visit https://www.behavioral.net/arttherapy
Behavioral Healthcare 2009 October;29(9):26-28
