Palm Painting and Another Value Game

Hello all! So yesterday was Palm Sunday. On Saturday, at Bridges, Ms. Endreson and I started off the day with Palm Sunday in mind. Art therapy was scheduled to start right away that morning so my job was to quickly clean off some palm branches. What better way to get the patients excited about art than to introduce them to some new and interesting materials?

The art group started with a few comments from patients like "what is this stuff?" to "oh it's so beautiful. I never would have thought!" when they saw an array of palm branches sitting on the art activity table. So as the patients made up their minds about how they felt about the little pieces of nature in the room, Ms. Endreson and I began handing out palettes of acrylic paint. Here are some of the amazing pieces we ended up with after an hour or so:

This is my personal favorite. Just look at those eyes and teeth! 

Here's an example of a "Before" and "After" (in case you were confused about  what kind of palm branches I was talking about) 

This patient was very meticulous about the way he wanted me to glue things together. I appreciated his attention to detail. 

This flowery piece was a collaboration between me and a lovely patient who was rather disoriented herself but could give me very direct instructions about color and composition. I was happy to comply and do the dirty work for her. 

This patient was incredibly focused while she worked. She sat and worked for a longer time than both Ms. Endreson and I expected!

I mentioned the image of an elephant when we first started the project and was so happy to see a patient take that as a challenge and create his own! 

I was the glue gun master of the group and many patients got creative and had me help them stick pieces together to create new and exciting shapes. I noticed a lot of patients built off of each other's ideas. If one patient saw another glue an extra piece to their project, they would begin to think about adding a new dimension to their own. Even color choice was something that the patients shared and inspired each other with. When Ms. Endreson asked how the patients felt about the project, they all agreed that it was a "great distraction" from the discomforts of the day. Usually, in the morning, patients groan and moan about soreness and tiredness, but we heard none of that during the project. One patient (the one who created the crazy bunny thing) even spoke up and said: "My bad dislocated shoulder had to rest on the side of a chair while I was painting, but it didn't bother me."

After the Palm Painting exercise, we took a long break. Ms. Endreson decided to have a quick group session later in the afternoon. The focus of the group was "Boundaries." We handed out a worksheet with the following little graphic on it:

I personally really liked the little illustration

The patients listened intently for about 30 minutes but grew restless after a while (they knew the UofA basketball game was going to start very soon).

While most of the patients glued their eyes to the TV in the ward to watch basketball, Ms. Endreson and I noticed that another patient--we will call her Y for confidentiality--was not as invested in the game. So we took the opportunity to have her do the Value Game! 

Y was much more talkative than P, but followed along with the game quite well. She was admitted only that morning to Bridges. Due to an unfortunate event in her family, Y had had her sister check her in for her own good. The past few weeks for her were stressful and led to depression. She did not have severe dementia, which made her a better candidate for the game. Here were Y's final 8 visual choices: 

From the top left, moving right and then down: "Self-Knowledge," "Popularity," "Monogamy," "Caring," "Fun," "Excitement," "Family," and "Contribution"

Like P, Y spent a much longer time categorizing the word cards. She even explained during the activity that: "With the pictures, I can visualize what they mean to me. But the words are different." She explained her choices as she went along through the game and I noticed that she made more general comments when she came across the words. When she saw images, she refereed to specific people in her life and family: her parents, children, and grandchildren. Her final word choices were: family, loving, self-knowledge, independence, solitude, god's will, and dependability. 

If you noticed, she made two of the original matches: family and self-knowledge! Whether that shows more that I did a good job with making the original matches in the first place or not, it was interesting to note how important those two values were to her.  

In the end, Y wrote her word choices in a journal that she decided to keep while in recovery. She even acknowledged that, in her image choices, she only picked one (the yoga image) that focused on herself. Obviously, family and relationships meant a lot to her. Y didn't make a comment, like P did, that told us that the game was especially helpful to her, but she was able to let a lot out during the hour-long session. The images all triggered stories that she eagerly shared with us. 

So Saturday was an incredibly eventful day and I enjoyed every minute of it! I'm going back to Tucson tomorrow and look forward to some more fun projects and value games. 

Talk to you soon!

Tia