Art Therapy Workshop by Melba Thorn

Today (16th, July), East West Center for Counselling and Training in Chennai started a two day introductory course on Art Therapy. The trainer  Melba Thorn has been using Art Therapy for several years in Los Angeles.

Melba Thorne making her Presentation

Art Therapy uses art to improve the emotional health of a person. You can draw, paint, dance, and sing to practice Art Therapy. Today's session focused on painting, sketching, and drawing using crayons, oil pastels,  magazine photos, glitter glue, stickers, color paper, charts, clay, and color threads. Software Apps like MS-Paint, Polyvore,  and 'Flying Colors' by Magic Mouse can also be used.

First, the participants created a Mandala as a warm up for the sessions to follow.

Warm Up Mandalas

Next, Melba asked the participants to create a Magazine Photo Collage(MPC) with images.

 Magazine Photo Collage of a Learner

Next, Melba asked the participants to make a Mask. The mask will have an Outer side and Inner side.

The Outer Side of a Participant's Mask

The day ended with Melba asking the participants to maintain an Art Journal. An Art Journal is a notebook where you will paint/create a picture at the end of every day.

East West Centre Director Magdalene Jeyarathnam Miller making her Art Journal

In the video below, Melba Thorn talks about collages. The other art work done by participants are included.



All participants signed a confidentiality agreement.

The second day of the Art Therapy workshop started with a recap and Magdalene told some real life experiences of Art Therapy with her clients. The first exercise the learners did was establishing boundaries without talking.

Two Samples of Maintaining Boundaries as well as doing Team Work!

The next exercise was 'The Sunny Side Up' - bringing humour to any life crisis.

Melba Showing her Sunny Side

The next exercise was Clay Modelling - for stress relief and moulding your thoughts.

Clay Models

The next exercise was 'Coat of Arms' - all your defense mechanisms laid out on the shape of a shield.

Coat of Arms

All participants did the Art Journal at the end of the training session. Lot of learning and lot of fun! Don't miss this Art Therapy workshop :)