REFERRAL FOR ART THERAPY

You or your referrer can contact us at:

Nottinghamshire Eating Disorder Service (NEDS) Dukeries Business Centre, 31-33 Retford Road,

WORKSOP, Nottinghamshire, S80 2PU

Tel: 01909 712 250 (Mon-Fri 9 - 5) Fax: 01909 712 400

State Registered Art Psychotherapist & Specialist Mental Health Practitioner EMMA ALLEN

“Art Therapists provide a psychotherapeutic interven-tion which enables clients to effect change and growth by the use of art materials to gain insight and promote the resolution of difficulties” From ‘Meeting the Challenge: A Strategy for the Allied Health Professionals’, NHS Executive document, Nov 2000.

If you are interested in attending Art Therapy and are accessing the Not-tinghamshire Eating Disorder Ser-vice you can ask your care co-ordinator, psychiatrist or other mental health professional or thera-pist to refer you. When a suitable referral has been made, you will be invited to attend an assessment session with an art therapist in order to find out whether we both feel that this form of therapy could be helpful for you. AFTER-CARE - Once you have completed Art Therapy, you may wish to pursue engagement with visual arts in a non-clinical setting. If so, the Art Therapist may refer you to other existing art groups, organi-sations or services.

You can find out more about Art Therapy on the BAAT (British Associa-tion of Art Therapists) website: www.baat.org

ART THERAPY Information about our service

Nottinghamshire Eating Disorder Service

(NEDS)

about psychological therapies

WHAT IS ART THERAPY? HOW CAN IT HELP? Art Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses visual images, and allows for both verbal and non-verbal means of exploration. It can effect change in many kinds of mental health difficulties - including eating disorders where the use of art materials encourages self-expression and reflection - helping you to gain in-creased insight into your personal difficulties, thoughts and feelings. Art Therapy can provide an alternative, safer means of acting out, involving the physical process of wielding the paintbrush, moulding the clay, scraping, tearing, folding and so on, while also enabling symbol formation. Art Therapy allows you to express inner conflicts and to explore how you deal with issues such as territory, control and boundaries, and through this process, may help you to understand something about your relationship with your body and food, and with other people. Art materials and art processes are an essential part of the therapy, where not only the finished art object but everything that has gone into the making of it is important. It must be emphasised that an Art Therapy session is not an art class. The therapist's focus is not on artistic ability but upon your involve-ment in making your work, your perception of it and the ways in which you share this experience. Visual images can provide a means of expression and communication (with oneself or others) when words are difficult or impossible; they can also become a focus for discussion, analysis and self-evaluation. Art Therapy can sometimes be a challenging or upsetting experience, where images made can sometimes evoke powerful feelings and thoughts. It is through the presence of a trained Art Therapist, who will be present at all times, that discussion and exploration of the image will be encouraged in order to assist with finding a way to express and deal with these feelings and helping to bring about change. Art Therapy can also be a positive experience. Through the pro-duction and completion of images, for example, one can start to feel more con-fident and gain a sense of personal value and worth, and through discussion of images, one may be able to become more self-aware and have an increased in-sight into personal difficulties, thoughts and feelings. We aim to provide an environment in which powerful and troubling thoughts and feelings may be safely expressed. The therapist is present to give you his or her considered attention throughout each session, and any visual images made are stored in a secure place between sessions. Sessions take several forms, and you will be offered one that is locally available and is assessed to suit your needs. The Art Therapist will take into account your physical and transporta-tion needs and locations may vary within the locality of Nottinghamshire.

WHAT’S A TYPICAL ART THERAPY SESSION LIKE? Art Therapy may be offered in-dividually or as a group. An indi-vidual Art Therapy session usu-ally lasts up to one hour, once a week, however, this will be re-viewed on a regular basis and alternative arrangements can be made as necessary. Group ses-sions may last up to two hours. An Art Therapy session is not an art class and you do not have to be an experienced artist to take part, just willing to give it a try.

The session will take place in a room either dedicated to Art Therapy or adapted for the session. In this room, there will be a variety of art materials available, space to make your visual image, somewhere comfortable to talk to the art therapist and ample storage for anything you make during the session. You will be invited to use the available art materials to make 2D or 3D images. The choice of materials is your own, as is whatever you decide to make with them. Sometimes the therapist may suggest a theme which you will interpret in your own way (this is more likely to happen at your first session where your needs are assessed). There is no censorship of images; anything is acceptable as long as it doesn't pose a health and safety risk to you or to others present in the room. Your artwork may become a visual diary of what has taken place in therapy; the artwork an object to remind us of the process. All material pro-duced in the Art Therapy sessions, both verbal and visual, is confidential. Art Therapists see people for a number of sessions over a long period of time. This is to give a person time to develop his or her own way of using art materi-als and making images and is also needed to build up a therapeutic relationship between yourself and the therapist. The long-term nature of therapy may help, along the way, to break down some of the barriers a person may be facing in his or her life. Please ask for our ‘Art Therapy Groups’ leaflet if you are interested in attend-ing a group.