Chair Aerobics and Birdhouses

Hello everyone! I hope you all started your weekends off well. I just returned home from Tucson after a long two days of art therapy with the Bridges patients. I have so many things I would like to share, so I'm going to describe the Friday events and then talk about Saturday in a later post. Enjoy!

I arrived at Bridges Friday morning to find that there were twelve patients on the unit. I recognized about five faces, but the rest were completely new. Despite the obvious variety of patients and differences in emotions that morning, I noticed that everyone (including me) was a bit tired and lethargic. Ms. Endreson had a perfect solution during our early group session. Five patients, Ms. Endreson, and I all gathered in the art room to get some exercise in...in the form of chair aerobics! 

This video is the exact one we watched to get our blood pumping. The patients seemed to really get into it! And I don't blame them...that Paul Eugene guy is quite encouraging! (that smile though) It may not have been art therapy, but it was a wonderful bonding experience. 

Anyway, all chair dancing aside, the art therapy activities of the day on Friday were Pill Drawings and Birdhouses. The Pill Drawings came first. After lunch, Ms. Endreson and I sat down with four patients and passed out worksheets to each one of them. In order to have the patients confront their feelings about medication and form ideas on paper we had them all illustrate comicstrip-like things. Here is an example done by one of the patients: 

"Draw a Person Taking a Pill"

Each patient started with a very literal drawing of a person with a cup of water in one hand and a pill in the other. However, in the other three boxes, when they were asked to represent what the pill does, how the person feels about taking the pill, and what the friends and family thought about the pill, their drawings began to differ. Some patients drew people who felt very happy when they took the pill, while others drew people who felt like they were being forced. One of the things I noticed was the detail of drawing not themselves, but just "a person." The patients weren't necessarily talking about themselves when they were filling in the boxes, but put their own feelings into it. They were disconnected just enough to be able to express their feelings in a safe way. Yes, some patients drew pictures that they labeled as themselves, but others kept it ambiguous.

After the Pill Drawings, patients seemed rather drained and tired. I've learned that it's very important to gauge how the patients are feeling when it comes to organizing the next activity. So, because the general atmosphere was sleepy and unmotivated, Ms. Endreson and I decided to provide the patients with a structured, easy project to end the day: birdhouses. The art therapist-to-patient relationship-- I've noticed--is greatly enhanced when the therapist is viewed as "a provider." This is especially true in a geropsych ward like Bridges, where the patients'  few possessions are locked away until they are discharged. So the $1 birdhouses we provided the patients with seemed to brighten their days quickly.   

I sat down with a few patients and painted along with them. One patient with severe dementia seemed to need a hand so I helped her pick out colors and showed her "up and down" brushstrokes. She was still quite disoriented and kept painting the table instead of her birdhouse, but kept a smile on her face. It seemed that the general environment of being at a table with other people was enough for her to feel happy. 

Here are some of our lovely masterpieces: 

The patient who created the red and black house described it as a "Jailbird's House" 

Many of the patients didn't want to leave behind their birdhouses to go get dinner as our session came to an end, so I'd say it was time well spent. In fact, the birdhouses were so popular that patients came back on Saturday eager to do more. But we had an even more exciting project up our sleeves. I'm excited to share that project and another description of the Value Game with you all in my next post :)

Until Then!

Tia