Patterning Halloweenies

Hola.
Halloween is approaching.

Typically this holiday holds minimal importance for me.
However, this year... it seems like I see it everywhere.
Like people are going out of their way to make this holiday a very involved and eventful one.

And to that I say... yea, okay.

Although, in the last few years I've noticed a trend.
Since I began a visual journal I have used halloween stickers to represent clients.
Ghosts, zombies, vampires, werewolves... they're all quite appropriate for their behaviors (which I definitely find humorous!).

So the following are the images from my journals from around this time over the past three years.
And I'll briefly add my own version of their meaning and analysis.
(I can hear the cheers already, "Goody Goody Gumdrops!!")

Year 1: Totally overwhelmed. It was at this point the clients I was working with began causing riots in the houses. It was my first contact with a highly non-functional group dynamic with highly aggressive and hostile teens.
I didn't know how to respond. I felt beaten and traumatized myself.
Hence all of the sad/shocked expressions changed on the stickers and the masses of stickers piled on one another in the second image.

Looking back on it now, this was a very challenging time. One of the only ways I dealt with it was expressing myself through art and acknowledging how helpless I felt in response to them. But it didn't last forever.
As evident in the following years' images.


Year 2: Containment and learning to nurture.
The circle is a symbol of nurturing and the "whole." During this year I was more confident in my approaches with the clients. I felt as though I was beginning to understand their needs and how to help them.
A lot of eyes in the first image suggests feeling watched. Food in the hands of each character in the second represents being fed physically, while the moon represents emotional nurturing.

This was also around the time when I had more support from the staff where I work and there were more Creative Arts Therapists coming on board. The program was expanding at this point.

Year 3: While I've only just created this one I feel like it represents an even more relaxation into my role as an art therapist and my approach to how I help the clients. I will sometimes refer to what I do as "magic" with the kids when they asked me how I knew something. Many of my clients are as wary as they have been in the past, only now I respond with humor and confidence in my experience.
A lot of clients are also very much emotionally younger than their ages and respond more to a playful approach versus systematic and analytic tasks.

Sometimes this playful approach can have negative consequences. I.e. some new clients not taking it as seriously as they should. But I just reinforce behavior standards and be more clear where I need to be.


And... that's it.
As one of my co-workers once said in regards to behaviors... "One time is fine. Two times is notable. And three times is a pattern."

So that's the pattern thus far.
Taking glances back to the beginnings of my journey as an art therapist helps to reinforce the things I've learned.
Which is why a visual journal is important, at least right now.

And for some reason I really enjoy the image of being a scary skeleton with a bottle of "magic potion" telling scared halloweenies "I've been waiting for you!"