The Power of Ownership

Hello all! I apologize sincerely about posting so late. I turned around and headed back to Tucson right away last week on Tuesday. When I got back home, I had some training to do for a track meet on Saturday. And before I knew it, the week was over!

Anyway, I'm here again to tell you about some of the wonderful art and creativity I observed at Bridges. To start off, I'd like to tell you about this book I am reading as a supplement to my observation at Bridges. It's called Art as Therapy and is written by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong.

In addition to it's beautiful aesthetically pleasing blue/green cover, it is also filled with captivating images of masterpieces, from artists like Jean-Baptiste Regnault and David Hockney. 

I've noticed that it's definitely focused more on viewing artwork than making artwork, but a lot of the points it makes are just as applicable to the creative process. The "thesis"--if you will-- of the book is that "art (a category that includes works of design architecture and craft) is a therapeutic medium that can help guide, exhort and console its viewers, enabling them to become better versions of themselves."

De Botton and Armstrong propose that art is a "tool" that helps us, as humans, overcome seven psychological frailties (things we cannot do on our own): Remembering, Hope, Sorrow, Rebalancing, Self-Understanding, Growth, and Appreciation.  If you have some spare time, I would definitely recommend giving it a quick read! It might save you from ever leaving an art museum confused or dissatisfied ever again.

But back to Bridges. On Tuesday, I arrived at the ward and took a little time to improve the value game by adding a few more images and values. Our group session that day was focused on a different kind of art form: poetry! We spent the beginning of the group (as we almost always do) going through introductions. One of the patients was being discharged very soon, so the introductions included a bit of a send-off for this patient. I could really feel the wonderful sense of community that develops among the patients even only after a few days together.

The poetry activity developed even more of a sense of community because it was a group poem! Each of the five patients in the room received a card with a half a sentence on it. They each then completed their sentence and added it to the poem. We then asked the patients to create personal poems by drawing inspiration from the group poem (which, I admit, was a bit incoherent). Most patients lost motivation at this point, but everyone seemed to enjoy a nice group activity, to say the least.

Tuesday and Wednesday art therapy was open studio. Many of the patients wanted to continue on pieces they had already started, including their adorable birdhouses. I've noticed the popularity of the birdhouses is rather significant. I would imagine it's because they are these special objects that the patients can take ownership of. And they make lovely gifts. One patient is adamant about her plan to give her birdhouse to her granddaughter. The fact that she had the ability in the Bridges ward to create something if substance to give to someone she loves certainly improves her mood. This aspect of art therapy really hits home for me, because my grandmother did something very similar when she was very sick in the hospital. She created this lovely frame as a gift:

That picture of me and my brother was added much later. 

No, it doesn't contain any deep symbolism or metaphor. No, it's not a groundbreaking work of art that exposed any sort of hidden talent. But it is her creation, and I've noticed that (with any piece of art) having ownership of something is simply enough for patients.

Anyway, I digress. On Wednesday at Bridges, Ms. Endreson and I gave the Value Game a few more tests. They were certainly more casual than the previous sessions. We approached two patients with the images and got very different responses. The first patient--we can call her R--has severe dementia. This was the first time we tried the game on a patient who wasn't higher functioning. As expected, R could not follow the directions we gave her to pick out her favorites, but she did spend quite a while staring at all the images and picking out a few here and there that she found interesting. At the very least, the images sparked some memories for her and started conversation.

The second patient we worked with, patient J, had just been admitted and was very disgruntled. She expressed a lot of dissatisfaction with a few of the images; she didn't like the way people looked in certain pictures or couldn't understand "what was going on." Just like with R, J did not follow the "rules," but she started conversation and showed a bit of interests.

Hopefully I will be able to give the value game a few more tests when I head back to Tucson....tomorrow actually! I have three more weeks left and I'll be in Tucson each week on Thursday and Friday. I'm sure I'll meet some new patients tomorrow! And I promise to be more diligent with my blog posts this week. Expect to see more tomorrow :)

Until then!
Tia