Introduction to Art Therapy

Over the summer I took a class called "Introduction to Art Therapy", it was one of the classes I took while at Lesley and it was definitely my favorite class.

We talked a lot about the practice of art therapy and how people today don't really see it as a big thing, partially because it is a really small field. There are only about two thousand (probably more now) registered art therapists in the United States, the majority of which actually being in Massachusetts.

Many art therapists don't have that title, we had people come in and talk to our class and one woman's job title is a "life enhancement coordinator".

Anyway, we had eight classes, and each week we made something new. Sometimes it would just be a poster, but each thing we did was a reflection on ourselves. The class itself was almost like a group art therapy session in itself. 

One week we made origami boxes and put our innermost thoughts on the inside and how people see us on the outside, it was pretty cliche, the whole "identity box" idea, but I went HAM with this one. I put all my insecurities on the inside and I put my case of "chronic bitch face" on the outside. When my teacher asked for feedback, nobody really liked the activity but I did, I told her I loved the freedom of it and the fact that nobody would read it or judge me on it made me so much more comfortable.

The piece I'm going to show you are my matryoshkas (pronounced mah-tree-osh-ka) or also known as Russian nesting dolls. (I bet you still have NO idea what I'm talking about.) Well here's what they look like:

Clearly these aren't the ones I made, I found this on google images. (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41nJ1z-WI6L.jpg) 

Our teacher bought us blank wooden ones from Amazon or Ebay or a similar website, and had us portray ourselves onto them. 

The biggest one would be the way others see us, our outermost layer, I guess is what you could call it. The next sizes would be us, how less and less people see us and eventually how only you see yourself. 

These are the ones I made, the biggest one is my outermost image. I have bright and happy colors surrounding me with a derpy smile plastered on my face, I figured that's how most people see me, as a happy derp. 
The next one is me with my family and friends. I picked purple because it is a happy color, but I made all the stick figures black because they all know there is some darkness where there should be light.
The next one is of my cats. I picked orange for them because it's a warm color, and they're always warm and snuggly. It's the best thing for when I'm upset. They seem to know and they'll come and be cuddly.
I picked blue for the next one because it's my favorite color. It's a very calm and serene color. I put books and little squiggly lines (they were supposed to be worms) because very little people actually know that I am a book worm. 
My last one, my favorite one, is how I truly feel inside. I made this one black because that's what I think my soul is. It's been a rough year and I feel that it has made me a cold person, so I put a face on it like ._. almost like a deadpan. I feel like I deadpan a lot. I put music notes on the little guy too (you can't see it but that's what the purple is). Music is my solace, it keeps me calm and less miserable.
I really liked this activity, it was really interesting to see how others saw themselves versus how I saw them, and I'm kind of intrigued to see how my readers see me now, rather than how I see myself..