An online art psychotherapy group using museum artefacts by Ali Coles
Ali Coles is an NHS Art Psychotherapist. She has run a series of group sessions using museum artefacts as inspiration. Ali is our guest blogger this week.
During March and April 2022, we ran an online art psychotherapy group for adults who were under the care of Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust mental health recovery teams. I am an Art Psychotherapist and I ran the group with Jessica Goodman, Mental Health Nurse.
The aims of the group were to help participants think about:
- Where they were in their recovery journey
- Their personal strengths and challenges
- Their values, aspirations and goals
- Their next steps
The activity was inspired by published evidence that museum objects and artworks can contribute to these aims and that online interventions reduce barriers that some mental health service users may face.
The group consisted of six sessions, once a week for 1 ¼ hours, and there were five people in the group. The group used photographs and videos of objects and artworks from the museums as inspiration. Following a warm up activity, a theme for each session was suggested which was linked to museum objects and artworks displayed on the screen as photographs or videos. This was followed by artmaking. Finally, participants were invited to show the group their artworks and to reflect on them.
For example, session 3 was about ‘Facing the challenges on our journey’. The theme of the session was presented after playing a short video of the Corinium Museum. Based on the pot and mosaic collections of this museum (and the pot collection in the Museum in the Park), facilitators used the metaphor of breaking, repairing and piecing together as we face challenges on our journey of recovery to inspire the artmaking.
Participant artwork: Mosaic representing past challenges faced during the journey of recovery (used with permission).
Group members’ sense of wellbeing after each session was high, and recovery scores improved after participating in the group. The participants feeling supported most of all, but wanted the group to have been longer. Half of them liked working online better than face-to-face, and all found the museum objects helpful and enjoyed the artmaking. All group members reported that the group helped them to understand their recovery journey and express their emotions better.
Facing the challenges on our journey
