I’ve spent the last several years specialising in adoption work and providing art therapy intervention to children age 5 to 15 years.
I feel extremely honoured to have worked with the children and young people that I have met. Each child I have worked with stays with me, their stories, their losses and the future dreams.
Much of this work has centred around their losses. I have worked with children at different stages; mainly with children who have been adopted who are displaying emotional and behavioural difficulties around coming to terms with their losses, of siblings and of birth parents who some may idealise and some who are unable to verbalise their emotions around these relationships at all.
Art therapy can be a powerful nonverbal therapy that can tap into the trauma that is stored in the non verbal area of the brain. Many of these children verbalise having two brains, Two sides of themselves that are not integrated, that don’t seem to be able to communicate with each other. Like two rooms that have a locked door between them. They feel they have two sides to their character, lives, emotions and behaviour. Much of the work I do is around opening the door and witnessing what happens when these two sides meet, communicate and finally accept each other.
A lot of the early work is around the theme of mess; messy play, messy paint, scribble work, creating smelly potions, boxes of rubbish. All these items have been left with me to take care of, to hold and witness.
To externalise these traumatic feelings and emotions is an early process that most of the children have to work through.
Fear of being rejected is often re-enacted, pushing me away, confusion as to why they are in therapy. The sense of unfairness is tangible. Witnessing this can be the beginning of the healing journey.
Having a contained space to witness feelings of loss is of paramount importance the therapeutic relationship we establish. Allowing loss to emerge, to reflect on it via art making and to share with adoptive parents is sensitive but essential work.
Some children and young people I have worked with do not fully understand their adoption or seen pictures from pre-adoption. This can be done via their life story book which is created via social services and gives a narrative to their journey from birth up to their adoptive families. This can be for many reasons, one common reason is the children are adopted quite young and the content of these books is so sensitive it’s a hard decision to know when and how to share this with them. Everyone agrees it is a vital for a child to know their full background to establish a whole self, an identity but the reality of doing this can be difficult and support from Adoption Services is required.
Sometimes the child may not know how to ask and inquire about their birth parents, or the adoptive parents may feel anxious about what to share.
I have supported parents alongside adoption social workers in supporting when to share their life story books with their children and the positive impact this can have alongside the therapeutic work.
Some children have brought their books into therapy to share and the sense of identity, of ownership of their own ‘story’ is present. Witnessing the loss and the healing journey as we look through the book is a powerful process that I have found can help the child to move on with their lives and integrating their ‘two’ brains into one.
Towards the end of therapy another common theme that emerges, is home and safety. Many children recreate a ‘home’ perhaps a paper house, a clay house, a cardboard box, or a cave. There is a need to feel contained to ‘home’ themselves, their animals or their toys. Most of the children request to bring these items home. Nonverbally they sense the need to take care of their creations, as they in turn have been cared for by their adoptive families.
It is a joy to meet these children and their adoptive parents and be able to support them on their journey and help them verbalise their feelings of loss, confusion and finally towards acceptance.
This work can take on average 2 years and it can be a slow process to build a trusting relationship with a child and families in order for them to share their losses, their insecurities and wounds, which often can be hidden but its vital work which I hope I can continue to do in supporting them on their healing journey.
artspuk@protonmail.com
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