The Image in Art Therapy
by Michelle Booth (Art Therapy)
An art therapist reflects on the importance of the image and what it brings to multidisciplinary, intersection spaces
I am the mystery and the message
Full of meaning
Waiting to be unfolded, unpacked
Remembered
Understood
I am you made visible
In form and materials
Sometimes hidden in riddle and metaphor
So that others may see you
I am made by you
But am also a mirror to you
Through making me
You come to see and know yourself
I communicate
When you can’t
I give voice
To what is hidden, repressed, shamed
I reveal
What is unbearable
What must be seen
What must be faced
Sometimes I give you a place to start
When words have failed you
When things feel too much
When hope is smothered by the weight of despair
I am a reference and a record
Something to be looked back on
To be reminded of the journey
And also to be seen with fresh eyes
I hold what is sacred, what is true
Both the soul’s knowing
And the mysterious depths
Of the unknown and the unknowable
I carry the light of revelation
And the invitation to descend
I do not fix
But am a path of integration
I offer a way back
To finding what has been lost
To recovering what has been taken
To reclaiming “your place in the family of things”
I am the path forward
Towards regulation and containment
Towards agency and creativity
Towards hope
Towards the possibility of Joy
I am proof
That art is a language
That art is human expression
That art transcends rigidity
That art changes perception
That art gives perspective
That art creates possibilities
That art has a place in healing,
In hospitals and clinics,
Prisons and shelters,
In places where people find themselves broken and bereft
Seeking solace and support
Bring me out of the shadows
So that my value may be known.
Invite to the table those who are skilled guides
The ones that facilitate my making and my meaning.
Bring me out of the shadows
So my place at the intersection may be valued, elevated and celebrated.
MICHELLE BOOTH
Michelle is an art therapist who trained in Edinburgh, Scotland with a Masters in Art Therapy. She also has a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art where she specialised in Photography. Michelle currently lives and works in Knysna where she sees private clients and does leadership development work for a local NGO called KILT. She is an experienced group facilitator and loves to share the insight and knowledge that comes from working with art. Writing poetry is her current favourite form of self-expression, along with dancing.