Sculpture in art therapy

In the range of tools that make up art therapy, we find sculpture therapy. Sculpture is a complete artistic discipline that involves our entire body. The material worked such as wood, clay, stone and other mediums is of great importance depending on the therapy sought. Art therapy sculpture is therefore an additional tool available to caregivers.

In the arts, sculpture has always had a special place since antiquity. Associated with architecture, its impact on the people made it an ally of men of power. The practice of art therapy sculpture is also a form of expression used in psychotherapy during training workshops targeted towards a therapeutic project. An art therapy sculpture session is generally led by an artist who has undergone specific training to become a therapist. This discipline has become a valuable aid in improving the health of a person with mental difficulties. It is also very useful as a family treatment.

Sculpture therapy uses the sense of touch and vision

It gives patients the possibility of a new language. Modeling, pottery, stone or wood sculpture are techniques that can help the therapist provoke the emergence of emotions.

Sculpture can help combat illness because it offers the patient a powerful three-dimensional expression.

Dementia, cancer, mental illness or life crisis. This form of therapy can help both the sick and anyone who has just a few disorders in their life. This is what Rüdinger Mövens, head of the art therapy program in Copenhagen and at the Vitsø Art School, tells us.

For everyone, art offers a great opportunity to create change

And, this is particularly true for those experiencing psychological difficulties. In sculpture therapy, the patient is actively involved in the healing process.

It is a process where it is you who provide your therapy and not the medicine.

It is first necessary for the therapist to build a space of trust, to better make a diagnosis.

For the patient, it is more about being in a creative process, to release what cannot be said with words. He must have great freedom if the method is to be profitable.

However, this does not mean that the therapist should leave the patient alone when creating a work. It must be caring and not very directive support. The goal to achieve is not the material result of a sculpted piece, but the process of liberating the spirit.

A work can be a clay sculpture or a wire montage, whatever the appearance. However, on closer inspection, we can see that the medium is important. The material acts on us, independently of the way we work with it.

It is therefore a set of factors that act and that the therapist must consider to treat his patient.

The therapeutic interest of sculpture in art therapy is often in the details.

The person, in a session in a workshop, can sometimes concentrate on completing a small detail. It sometimes becomes obsessive. It is important to understand the why, because it can be meaningful. And it is also through this path that the patient can actively fight against his illness, through a certain understanding of his artistic choices.

Group therapy

Even in group therapy, each work is individual. The group can nevertheless strengthen each person's experience. Confrontation and sharing promote self-knowledge.

Patients feel that they are becoming richer inside. They enter a new world. And, instead of being trapped in their own inner world, they step out of their comfort zone and discover sensations that open up new perspectives.

Working with clay, modeling

The medium used in sculpture is important. He intercedes between an interior reality and an exterior reality. The earth is a malleable substance through which we physically feel its creative action. Once in the oven, the work refers to what has often been lacking in life. A concrete, tangible and unalterable reality.

Stone work

The stone symbolizes eternity and the mineral world. It is a resistant material which requires a certain technical skill to work with it. It is necessary to acquire skills during training workshops. It is a medium that is not suitable for everyone. It can also be dangerous to carve. But, if the therapist and the artist manage to make the sessions safe, this technique will produce excellent results.

Note that the rock has energizing powers. Its mastery causes a powerful psychic lever. The results are generally excellent.

Woodworking

What is true for stone is also true for wood, with notable differences. Wood is a living material. In addition, it must sculpt itself according to its own characteristics. The most used type of wood is poplar, for its malleability qualities. Having few threads, poplar is safer and easier to work with than oak, for example.

His work requires solid training. The use of cutting tools is very dangerous. It takes quite a long apprenticeship just to work with wood safely.

Sculpture in healthcare establishments.

Sculpture therapy releases blocked emotions, through the creation in three dimensions of shapes from deep within oneself. The therapist must of course be sensitive to this form of art, but he is not necessarily an artist. The desired result is not necessarily aesthetics. The important thing is the path that leads to a form of liberation.

The presence of artistic creation in a hospital environment does not always prove directly linked to therapy. Artists also help to beautify places of care and hospitals.

There is a Culture & Health quality label in Île-de-France. It is an initiative that rewards health establishments invested in the presence of art in their walls. The Coubert Medico-social platform [77], like the Saint-Maurice hospital [94] or the Diaconess Croix-Simon hospital group, are part of these places of care sensitive to art. Without being labeled, there are numerous initiatives between doctors, health professionals and artists.

Art is a part of our humanity. Art therapy has great virtues. For some it is with colors and shapes, for others with movements or words. Art therapy through sculpture offers us a wide choice of techniques.

Creation is a lever to create an inner life and initiatives, which we potentially develop in and around us.

Art therapy addresses the human need for treatment. More particularly, sculpture therapy is a major way to empower the patient.

It is a support for well-being.

Related topics:

Painting therapy
Sophrology
Art and medicine
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