"The creative process involved in the making of art is healing and life enhancing"

ART THERAPY ACTIVITY "Drawing" Out Your Emotions

Art therapy activity

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"The creative process involved in the making of art is healing and life enhancing".

- American Art Therapy Association Mission Statement

Art therapy activity...

This page will help you get started with your art therapy projects. We provide a supplies shopping list, make suggestions for creating a peaceful "healing place", and describe several projects to get you started. We suggest that you begin with an Art Journal or sketchbook as explained below.

As you begin to express your emotions through images, you will discover your inner voice-- the voice of your heart. Using art to express this voice will enable you to connect, maybe for the first time, with your deepest feelings and emotions. Expressing them through color, form, shape and texture releases their hold on you, clearing the way for healing to begin.

Another value of art as therapy: it gives you an enjoyable respite from your griefwork. And let go your critical inside voice that says things to you like: "Don't waste paint", or "You should be doing something else". Art making is a valuable and life enhancing activity. Allow yourself the freedom to explore and experiment and use as much material and time as you want. You may even be surprised at the results!

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WHAT DO I NEED TO GET STARTED?

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Art therapy activity...

Where to get this stuff? Most of it can be found in the office supply section of WalMart or the Dollar Store. Some of the more specialized (and fun) tools must be bought at a craft place like Michael's, or an art supply store. Look for "art supplies" in the yellow pages.

Art therapy activity

Here's what you'll need to get started:

• All purpose sketch pad (11x14 or 14x17 to start with)
• Oil Pastels (Cray-Pas); Box of at least 12 colors
• Set of colored pencils
• Set of thin-line felt-tipped markers in several colors
• Artist' drawing pencils, soft lead like 2B or 4B, and sharpener
• Gum eraser and white eraser
• Crow Quill pen and bottle of black India ink
  (tip: you must burn the tip of a new crow quill pen with a match or candle before the first use)

Now, where to set up a healing space where you can do your artwork? Try to find a quiet, private spot where you can work undisturbed or with few distractions. Make this place pleasant and restful. Light some candles or even incense. Bring in some of your favorite comfort items, photos, memorabilia, some cut flowers.

Look at your artwork sessions as classes or "lessons" where you are working to connect with your soul. Commit to one or two sessions per week, or even daily if you find you really enjoy and "get into" it.

Pop in a CD of some soothing music, soft instrumental, easy classical or "new age" would be best. Nature tapes are also nice; readily available at bookstores or even WalMart. No harsh, jarring music or songs with lyrics, as the words invade the creative "imagery" left-side areas of your brain.

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OKAY, NOW WHAT?

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Art therapy activity...

There you are, all your shiny new art pencils sharpened and sketch pad open. How do you get started? There's two ways you can go with this:

1. Unstructured, spontaneous creation. Just pick up a pencil, crow quill or pastels and start making a picture, or
   
2. Start with a question or intention in your mind. Try this technique:

Art therapy activity

As you start each exercise, take a few moments for some "guided imagery". Get comfortable, put on some soft music, close your eyes and focus on what you are attempting to accomplish with this session. For example, if you are going to visualize "anger", attempt to see the colors and shape of that emotion in your mind's eye first.

Then open your eyes, choose the best medium, and get started. The images will come. You want to draw or paint an image of what your emotion looks like. And there is no right or wrong way to visualize it. Just work at it and trust your own way of coming to an image. It'll happen!

When you are done, take a good long look at your new creation. Do not analyze or criticize it, but do ponder it. What does it tell you? On the backside of the page, put the date and give your picture a title. Then write a few sentences from your heart about it.

Help Your Child Cope With Divorce Online Game

Therapy Computer Game for Children of Divorce

Help your child cope with the challenges of divorce through a fun and interactive video game, designed specifically for children of divorce and legal separation.

Earthquake in Zipland takes your child on an exciting adventure that will enable you to sensitively deal with the psychological effects of divorce on children.

Play therapy video games rebuild communication between a child and his/her divorced parents. Parenting after divorce begins with helping a child open up and adjust to the new reality. As such, Earthquake in Zipland is also a complementary tool for professional child therapy, bibliotherapy and the like… Learn more…

Mourning Mommy - Children's Lives After a Homicide

The topic of children forced to continue with a "normal" productive life after living with years of abuse, resulting in murder, is not a subject covered by the media. We often forget about the kids left behind.

On June 10, 2009 at 3:00PM Central time, on The Susan Murphy Milano show, Pam Munson and I will discuss the topic of children whose fathers have killed their mothers.

It is an important subject: as the lives of the children witnessing violence and terror in their homes, if they survive, live the remainder of their days on earth often in darkness and without hope.

Read more about Pam Munson,and Murdered Mommys at Women and Crime Ink.

Have You Stopped Killing Your Spouse?

Have You Stopped Killing Your Spouse?

April 24, 2009
Posted by Jay Livingston

Something I read in another blog sent me digging into the statistics on homicide between husbands and wives or other “intimates.” I remembered from my days in the crim biz that the US was unique in that wives here killed their husbands almost as frequently as husbands killed wives. This statistic, the “spousal rate of killing” (SROK), was introduced in a now-classic1992 article by Margo Wilson and Martin Daly. In most countries, that rate is 25-30%. In the US, Wilson and Daly pointed out, it was about 75%.

But something has happened, over the last thirty years or so (data here). And as far as I can tell from a quick search on the Internet, nobody seems to have noticed.

(Click on the graph for a larger view.)

Between 1976 and 2005, the number of women killed by their male partners decreased by about 25%, less than the decrease in all homicides nationwide. But the number of men killed by women dropped dramatically, from 1300 to 330, a 75% decrease (since the population increased in those three decades, the change in rates is probably even greater. The SROK fell from 82% to 28%.

My Internet search for explanations was cursory at best, but it turned up nothing. I have only two ideas:

1. Men Behaving Better. Men have stopped doing those things that made women want to kill them.

I offered this explanation to two women in the Justice Studies department here. They rejected it out of hand and without comment. (Maybe they didn’t like the blaming-the-victim assumption: if women kill men, it’s because of what men do. Or maybe they were using a convenience sample of anecdotal data on men’s behavior.) One of these women, Lisa Anne Zilney, offered a counter-explanation . . .

2. Women Having Options. Women’s shelters and other facilities have given women an alternative. Without these, the only way to escape an intolerable situation at home was to get rid of the cause. Providing abused and desperate women a safe place to go saves lives – and apparently not just the lives of women.

I’m not wild about either of these explanations for the steep decline in the SROK (and as I recall, Wilson and Daly weren’t wild about any of their explanations of why it was so high).

Any ideas?

Posted by Jay Livingston at 10:26 AM

The Deaf Screams of Domestic Violence

Today I stumbled upon the most beautiful soul enriching lives through this most beautifully inspiring blog...entry from below...

Jump...The Open Letter

Open Letters are written for the sole purpose of purging whatever you’ve held inside, out to the recipient of the letter. This is my second…the first was written to my daughter. The subject matter might be considered ‘raw’ for some of my readers.

Deaf was always a form of death to me, living with silence is not much different than dying is it, not alike being buried alive? - Indigo Ravenwood in answer to her therapist on the reason for wanting to end her life…

Dear Me,

It’s been four years. I still don’t understand the reasoning I survived and came to be here. I’ve often wondered if you knew what I know now, would it have changed events. Honestly, I don’t think it would have made a difference; you were so angry with the world at large. You didn’t know how to live in a world of sane normals – how were you suppose to live with the silence? Tired, defeated when it came to trying to fit in and belong; lacking the ability to know how to live without a fist crashing into you - wasn’t any different than being a prisoner to addiction. No one could understand growing up abused physically/mentally it was normal to expect that from someone who claimed to love you, maybe even on some level to want it. Insane was breaking the cycle, feeling like a child learning to walk all over again.

All those years of biting your tongue, hiding bruises and broken bones, holding the screams deep in the belly of your psyche…Did you really think they would stay buried forever? That no-one would ever discover the truth? You couldn’t drown yourself fast enough, drink enough, and stay angry enough to hold that beast at bay. Eventually the truth will out itself, one way or another…Despite all that, you were learning however slowly. Then came the endless silence - trapped within your own mind with those screams, those memories that wouldn’t stop haunting you. I always wondered why nothing else brought you to that edge; your deafness did. I get it now…the fear of being buried with those screams, believing no one would ever hear you ever again was enough to push you over that edge...you jumped. Living was more frightening than dying.

Four years later finding yourself on the other side of the fear, was it worth failing to take your own life? If you ever have doubts get on your knees, eye to eye with that pup that looks at you as if your the reason the sun rises and sets. In four years you’ve become an advocate against Domestic Violence and made sure despite what you originally thought – you HAD a voice. By now you have lost count on how many animals you have rescued, the pup who is your working dog for the deaf is one of them. These days you’ve taken that rebellious nature and made it work for you, detailing your life of silence for the world at large. More people are aware of the inside of a deaf person’s perspective than ever before – because deaf was never meant to be silent.

You are worthy of life my dear sweet friend (tears falling). There are still days of rage and fear for the hand you have been dealt, but you have to believe on some level it was/is all worth it in the end. The screams are not so quiet these days, everyone can hear them and you’re not alone. Never alone…Life may never totally have its sane normals – how could it, you’re still deaf. Just remember the silence quieted the noise so you could hear the drum beat of your spirit, let your soul take flight and hear with your eyes. You can do this, one step at a time on the other side of the fear…

*This was written to remind me not so long ago I did something above and beyond stupid. I jumped off the edge of reasoning, thankfully I didn’t succeed (I’m still leery having bottles of medication around). In any event it made me realize how fallible we are when fear takes control of our lives. I fought an entire lifetime hoping for some miracle to keep me from going deaf, add in delayed PTSD trauma and it was almost the final nail in my coffin. I don’t often talk about suicide…on some level it’s a bit of embarrassment, not exactly one of my prouder moments. Today that changed because at the end of the day we are all vulnerable and human. This is one more story of survival. I survived to witness the defeat of such a choice; to realize and remind others you can’t possibly know how life will turn out – if you don’t attempt to live it on the other side of whatever you fear. I hope in some way I’m living proof – for someone who believes/believed they were worthless in the end proved to be worth…more than they ever knew.

Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)



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Susan Murphy Milano's Journal: "Mourning Mommy"

Susan Murphy Milano's Journal: "Mourning Mommy"

This is a topic untouched. Fathers murdering women and leaving their children behind with unanswered questions.

On June 10, 2009 at 3:00PM Central time, on The Susan Murphy Milano show, we will discuss the topic of children whose fathers have killed their mothers.

It is an important subject. As the lives of the children who witness violence and terror in their homes if they survive, live the remainder of their days on earth often in darkness and without hope.

To listen to Susan's TalkRadioShow, please go here: www.blogtalkradio.com/susanmurphymilano

Are you looking for a domestic violence support group? Consider joining at the link HERE.

To find out more about Susan, purchase her books and/or book her for an appearance, please visit her website at www.SusanMurphyMilano.com or contact Sara Huizenga Lubbers or Peggy Jones at imaginepublicity@gmail.com

Rockford, Hudsonville, Grand Rapids, West Michigan, Please Support Justice for Renee Pagel!

Susan Murphy Milano's Journal: Who Killed Renee Pagel?

The question is not that Renee Pagel was found stabbed to death in the former marital residence while recovering after donating a kidney to one of her students parents.

The question is why haven't police arrested the person responsible for Renee's murder?!

Everyone, please leave a TON of comments over at Susan Murphy-Milano's post about Renee Pagel! This is a direct line communication resource to many major media outlets that regularly read her blog!

http://murphymilanojournal.blogspot.com/2009/05/who-killed-renee-pagel.html

Susan, thank you for making me aware of this case and being such a strong voice for Renee!

Justice for Renee facebook group, please join and spread the word to others, thanks! http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=616827848&share_id=103726935928&ref=nf#/group.php?gid=89794772423&ref=share

Thanks!



Please join us at Peace4 the Missing
Missing Persons Awareness and Support Network
http://peace4missing.ning.com