Although I am a narrative approach user for working with couples, I think, making use of expressive arts therapy techniques as an additive contributes a lot to the work of providing couple with help.

 

The base of narrative approach is taking the story of couple. In general these stories are loaded with problems and they do not consist all of the experience of couple but only the parts of which couple choose and give meaning. Through taking the story of couple, the problems are being  concreted and externalized.

 

By externalizing the problems, the couple is freed of unhelpful quarrels of determining the “guilty”.

 

By seeing the effects on their lives, they get motivated on collabrating for getting rid of problems. They get the opportunity of resolving the conflicts caused by different points of views and different meanings. Besides they take responsibility concerning the problem more easily.

 

Expressive Arts Therapy Tecniques provide important contributions on externalizing the problem. Using different media with couples, like story and metaphor, body and movement, collage, painting and clay, mask and toys and some natural material serves in some important ways. These are identifying the problem in a concrete way thus externalizing and having an objective point of view on the problem, having various awarenesses and insight about the problem and also becoming more skilled on coping with through having an aestethic distance with the problem.  

 

Besides, it helps to break the resistances which are caused by emotions like anger, rage, anxiety or fear which effects the sessions in a negative way. For example when a couple who is offended by each other with no energy, without hope and feeling trapped is invited to “play” they can easily convert into two cheerful playful children. With the help of play, having fun, joy and even humour arise and help them laugh together and talk about their problems.

 

As the therapist, I contribute another technique to the work. After asking couple to work together with material in a given time, I become a silent observer and record their communication with their own words. After their work and sha ring part is finished I read their sentences back without any comment.

 

Thus, reflecting their mere communication back also helps to break the resistance and them gain awareness and insight.

 

To make it clearer; when couple is asked to paint together , the therapist gets the opportunity to observe the couple on how they choose material, how they make a decision, how they communicate, how they respect each others boundries-if they do. For me watching a couple work or play together is not different than watching them shop or cook together or even have sex in bed, in terms of giving information about their patterns.

 

In this workshop, I will present some information about the techniques and later one or two demo will be presented.