In my group counseling and psychotherapy class this past fall, our final project involved making a piece of art that was reflective of our experience in our pseudo-groups. Personally, I spent the semester carefully scrutinizing all of the actions of my classmates and self. Were we really going to Yalom’s defined stages? What was storming really like? And how real are you supposed to get in this mock setting?
My goodness I had a million thoughts going through my head when in “session.”
So.. I decided to make a book as a sort of chronicle of the experience. Gestalt in the therapeutic setting involves staying in the here and now and understanding current behaviors and situations so you can apply them outside of the group. Gestalt in the fine arts world describes a way that images do not have to be complete for you to understand and can still formulate what is being presented. I spent a few afternoons cutting, gluing, and piecing each page together. Even this process reflected my experience as a group member; I was trying to make things fit, changing things, rearranging, and making attempts to see the whole picture. A reoccurring symbol for our group was a tree and felt appropriate to include in the description of my journey (another image was scary looking birds, but that’s seems a bit less romantic.. don’t ya think?). So here’s my handmade book (the text is even handwritten), enjoy!
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