Why use creative techniques in counselling?

Play and creativity feature heavily when counselling children and young people

When I tell people I use creative techniques in counselling I often get ‘marmite’ reactions; they either love it or hate it. And that’s okay; its not mandatory- I leave it up to the client to decide if they want to use them. However I thought I’ve explain a little about why I use them in my work (but also why I never insist on them either).

My interest in using creative approaches started with my work with children and young people. When I started working in a therapeutic team in 2010 I found it difficult to get young people to open up. Through study and research I realised this was due to being too directive in my approach. At the heart of counselling is the relationship. It is important to start building this before anything else. I found that playing games alongside chatting was really helpful in building the relationship as it was a natural thing for kids to do.

As time went on I noticed that games, art and free play also offered something else. A chance for children to process their emotions and feelings without having to directly express things.

Sometimes as adults we forget that children do not have the same vocabulary and emotional literacy as us. Describing how you feel about something is very complex. Feelings are physical before they become intangible words.

“…feelings are what arise as the brain interprets emotions, which are themselves purely physical signals of the body reacting to external stimuli.” (Damasio 2005).

Infants have the same emotions as adults but they do not have the skills or language to explain these using language. As a baby grows and acquires language they slowly learn to do this “i’m sad” etc. However, as adults we know that a situation can often involve multiple and contrasting thoughts and feelings. For a child this can begin to be near impossible to express.

When children learn they do so through repeating an action many times. Think of when your child (if you have one) started to learn how to make a specific sound, or how to open a box. They did it over, and over, and over again. Each time they did it they processed a little bit more about what happens when they do the action or sound. Sometimes children need multiple chances to process the body-emotions through play or other creative means. Sometimes it might be they need support in order to articulate their feelings.

Often an adult with process their thoughts and feelings about something through talking. Children learn and process more through play, story-telling and other indirect means. As a child gets older that might talk more but need a different thing to focus on. For some adults creative techniques are also really useful. Sometimes we might not have the words to fully articulate what we feel or mean, but using things such as shells or clay can help us find a new way to express things.

Artists have been doing this for a while- expressing themselves through creativity. But, thankfully, we don’t have to be great at art to be able to express ourselves. Brene Brown (a shame researcher) writes in her book Daring Greatly about creativity scars.

“85 percent of the men and women we interviewed for the shame research could recall a school incident from their childhood that was so shaming that it changed how they thought of themselves as learners. What makes this even more haunting is that approximately half of those recollections were what I refer to as creativity scars. The research participants could point to a specific incident where they were told or shown that they weren’t good writers, artists, musicians, dancers, or something creative. This helps explain why the gremlins are so powerful when it comes to creativity and innovation.”

Unfortunately this means that adults often don’t feel confident to be creative due to their feelings of shame they may have experienced for being ‘bad’ at something creative. Considering how useful creativity can be in helping us explore our emotions this is very sad indeed. Sometimes people might constantly be rehashing the same thing over and over again; this can be a sign that simply talking about it isn’t enough to help them process it. It can be that there is unprocessed material from long ago that is cropping up in their life over and over again. Sometimes we just need a different way to see or explore things. Creative approaches can offer that.

Of course some people simply do not want to use creative approaches and that is also completely fine. I tailor my approach to the individual and would never insist on anyone using creative approaches if it makes them feel uncomfortable. People often have a picture of this approach meaning they’ll be painting in all their sessions, or asked to draw something to do with what they’re talking about. For adults especially, I work more using discussion and using objects like shells to help offer another way of seeing what they’re talking about. Of course if an adult wants to use art materials or games that’s completely fine too!

As I said at the beginning, the most important thing about therapy is the relationship. It is not about the ‘tools’ used that determines how successful counselling is. Creative techniques can help with processing emotions and events. It can help people see things in a way they may have never considered before, and put things ‘to rest’ that may have been taking up space in their mind. But to be able to do this the relationship between client and therapist needs to be right first, and will be the main factor that determines the success of counselling. That is why I place more emphasis on the relationship rather than using creative approaches.