Episode 14 Transcript: Crayons and Canvases: Why Your Therapist Might Hand You Art Supplies
There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere Podcast
Episode 14 Transcript
Guest: Susan Kappel, Licensed Creative Arts Therapist
There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere is a podcast hosted by Jamie Serino and Peter Carucci that features exceptional people that have compelling stories to tell. Whether it’s a unique perspective, an act of kindness, an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome, or bearing witness to a captivating event, these are stories that must be heard, and from which we can draw important lessons.
Crayons and Canvases: Why Your Therapist Might Hand You Art Supplies
It’s "therapy on steroids." Join us as we discuss the therapeutic power of art therapy and creativity with Susan Kappel, a licensed creative arts therapist with 30 years of experience. This captivating conversation explores how creative expression provides concrete form to our abstract emotions and can lead to mental health breakthroughs.
Susan takes us on a fascinating journey through the evolution of art therapy and shares powerful stories of healing from Alzheimer's patients to military veterans with PTSD. These examples illuminate how art therapy bypasses verbal barriers, allowing people to process emotions they might not yet have words to express.
Whether you're curious about alternative therapeutic approaches or simply looking to understand the healing potential of creativity, this episode offers valuable insights into how art can be wielded as a powerful tool for mental wellbeing. As Susan reminds us, "It's a choice to feel differently than you're feeling right now" – and creative expression might just be the key to making that choice possible.
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Transcript
Intro
00:02
Welcome to there's a Lesson in here Somewhere conversations with interesting people with fascinating stories to tell and from which we can draw important lessons. Here are your hosts, Jamie Serino and Peter Carucci.
Jamie Serino
00:17
Hello and welcome to. There's a Lesson in here Somewhere. I'm Jamie Serino and I'm Peter Carucci, and we're here today with Susan Kapel, a licensed, registered certified arts psychotherapist, a licensed creative arts therapist, a board certified group psychotherapist, a certified mental health nutrition clinical specialist, a certified clinical anxiety treatment professional and an overall wonderful person, and so we're so happy to have her here. She has knowledge across so many areas of mental health, including EMDR and DBT and CBT, and she works with a wide range of people and groups, and so we're happy to welcome Susan here today. Susan, welcome, and we're glad you're here.
Susan Kappel
01:07
Thank you so much for having me.
Jamie Serino
01:09
So, susan, why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?
Susan Kappel
01:13
Well, as you mentioned, I am an art therapist and I have a private practice on Long Island and throughout my 30 years of practice I've worked with a variety of populations and I have worked with hospitals and institutions. I am affiliated with universities and I work with students as a supervisor and I guess throughout all of my years populations have really spanned the gamut from eating disorder patients, medically ill children. I've done a tremendous amount of grief work. I've worked inpatient psychiatric, outpatient psychiatric, with drug addiction, you name it. I think I've probably I'm pretty I've gone through a lot of different populations.
Jamie Serino
02:14
Yeah, it's really impressive and whenever you know, we've been speaking with you, there's so much to dive into with all the different things you've experienced. But we kept coming back to art therapy and so we decided, well, let's dive into that. So you know, why don't you just start telling us a little bit about what interested you in art therapy to begin with?
Susan Kappel
02:38
Well, you know, there was one other thing. I think that throughout my entire career I've been thinking about other thing. I think that throughout my entire career I've been thinking about I always wanted to spread the power of how this really works. I dove into art therapy. I was a psychology major and I loved art and I took it as a minor and somebody mentioned this field to me. I was like my God, that's my thing. And so I found when I went to graduate school that I found my niche, I found my people and I also found this field that I had been sort of using my whole life, because I love to be creative and I always loved how it made me feel after I was creative, or if I could give a gift because I was creating something, or if I was sad, I might be creating something.
03:26
So, for me, I believe that I was also using art as my own therapy along the way, and once I realized that there was this field and how it worked, every time I was with somebody it really worked and I would gain insight and I would. I had this ability to help them, to help themselves, and it was so powerful that I truly felt like, hey, we've got to get everybody on board with this. And then I realized, hey, people don't know about creative arts therapies. We do talk therapy, right we? I mean maybe they do now, but 30 years ago they did it and it's been a slow journey to get to the point where people are understanding that there are all these different alternative therapies, that we can be mindful, that we can use our brains to really help us more than we ever imagined every time we talk to you, because we learn so much and this is called.
Peter Carucci
04:26
There's a lesson in here somewhere for that reason, um, and how does art therapy work? How, how does it work?
Susan Kappel
04:33
well, I kind of think about our therapy as therapy on steroids, because we really do also utilize the verbal therapy. You know, we, we, we talk, we um and creative arts. Therapists are not just using, they use art, they use music, they use drama, they use play. The license in New York State in particular encompasses other modalities, so we can use all these different pieces to help people. How does it work? Kind of like regular therapy, I mean, you can use it, art as therapy. And then there's art psychotherapy, where we're using it to clients to gain insight about themselves, and then the therapist can gain insight about that client and then we can help them, to help them on their journey, and then we can help them, to help them on their journey.
Peter Carucci
05:24
So how do you feel that art, therapy specifically, has gained momentum and is now more accepted and more used? How did that happen? From 30 years ago, it wasn't even like thought of, and now it's a proven therapy?
Susan Kappel
05:44
It's a great question and I really believe that in our society, society has changed a little bit. So if we look at how people judge therapy in general and being more accepting of taking care of ourselves, that self-care is not selfish. You know that we have to spend time and, and especially even after the pandemic, I do think that it gained more. Everything gained more and more steam about our own mental health because people were really experiencing mass trauma on on. Everybody was going through it. So how do you navigate that? How do you take you know, how do you take care of yourself, and people were searching for pieces of that. But I mean, if we look at over the 30 years, it also became evidence-based, where therapists were doing research and proving how we were utilizing the therapeutic tools, and it even started on Mr Rogers' Neighborhood.
06:41
Judy Rubin was on Mr Rogers' Neighborhood, know, in the 70s. That was the beginning. Those were the that was getting it out to the public and it just took off momentum from there. Yeah, judy Rubin is like one of these mothers of art therapy and there are many of them. I just happen to know her personally as well and I just feel that you know she was on Mr Rogers neighborhood, which is a pretty big deal.
Jamie Serino
07:07
Yeah. So when do you feel like you would say, all right, art therapy is the right thing to use here and I do, like what you said earlier, that you're still doing talk therapy, you know, and you're kind of just now incorporating another kind of element but in terms of like saying, all right, this person needs talk therapy, needs CBT, right, or some form of therapy, you know talk therapy when would you say you know what? I think art therapy is what this person really needs.
Susan Kappel
07:40
It's a great question. Again, I feel that art therapy can fit into anybody's life that you know is interested in finding it, and maybe not. Maybe you don't even know that you want to use a creative outlet. Maybe journaling can be looked at. You know, maybe, whatever it is and it could be art journaling, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be using words in that journal, mean that you're going to be using words in that journal. So, and art therapy can be used when people are stuck. It's really whenever you need therapy. There is no definition of it.
08:14
I also believe that there is a stigma to you know, it's not that we're going to. You're going to walk in a room and I'm going to hand you a crayon, although, how does? When was the last time you did have a crayon? What type of feeling might that evoke? When I was in kindergarten? And we can then work with maybe a feeling that came up from you what was your kindergarten experience like?
08:38
So not only the materials can be impactful with how it affects the therapeutic relationship and what we're doing. There's just so many different angles that you can use the art. You can use it as a soothing tool, maybe even the repetitiveness of something that can be a tool to help calm you Doodling we have mindfulness doodling. All of those pieces can be utilized, and when you're in therapy with an art therapist, not only will she be loading or he may any therapist might be loading you up. When you work with a therapist, you are gaining coping skills. You are, you know, working towards your goals so you would have all the same goals but you also might be filling a tool belt with creative outlets or things that work for you.
Jamie Serino
09:28
Yeah.
Susan Kappel
09:30
I mean, you know, art therapy is used. Let's say, if think about it, it's used with veterans. Now a veteran, a man you know, or a woman who is out there in the field, they are, they are. They come back. Sometimes they have a lot of trauma that they've had to experience and we work with veterans and we might do mask making and once they start using the materials and experiencing what it is that's happening and how they can use the therapy to help them get through their own trauma, that's the tool own trauma.
Jamie Serino
10:10
That's the tool. Yeah, I mean, I like also biologically, it's bringing in another part of your brain and it's taking information and passing it through, and that's what a lot of people say about journaling. You're taking your thoughts and you're sort of forcing them now into being put into written form, and so that's supposed to help, you know, bounce information back and forth throughout your brain, and I think art therapy is doing that a little bit. And so when you're talking about working through a trauma especially, maybe you might have trouble finding the words for it, right, but you can work through it using art therapy. Can you talk a little bit about that, like working with people that have trauma and using art therapy, can you talk a?
Susan Kappel
10:47
little bit about that, like working with people that have trauma and using art therapy for that. Absolutely Well, I found that when you're dealing with trauma, it is such a powerful tool, the art We've created. I collaborated with an organization to create a journal called Hope, love and Courage that actually provides therapy, or is a workbook that utilizes the creative directives to help children, families, caregivers, frontline workers anybody who's going through trauma. So we use some of the tools and you can use some of the activities in that book to help you navigate trauma, also finding grounding. So, for example, if I am working with somebody who has experienced trauma, maybe one of the first things that I might do is have them envision what a safe space might look like and I might have them think about what that.
11:54
If we do, maybe we'll do an art piece about it. Maybe they'll just be thinking about it while they're creating that safe space. Maybe they're creating an image of that safe space and as they do that, maybe we could work on trauma about something else later on. But I always have that safe space that they've now created. I have a picture of it and we can go back and we can create this base and help people to navigate when they're going through trauma. So now I have this visual aid to help me with all the other verbal therapies that we're going to talk therapy and all the other things that we're going to do in therapy.
Peter Carucci
12:36
I'm loving this because, like even what Jamie was asking before about, essentially it's a concrete physical example of what's going on in here, and now there's a work of art or tactile thing they did that. Now, as a therapist, you can bring it back and you can say, hey, well, like a year later you can say, remember when you did this, that safe space, I love that. I mean, that alone signals to me that there's such a power in concretizing kind of thought in that way through art. I think that's great. I'm wondering and you don't have to, because I know some of this might be intense or depending on the level but are there a couple examples of that and how you've met out some some great success using that kind of thing? Sure, well, I, um oh absolutely.
Susan Kappel
13:32
I think that it's actually a great question because I want to share some of those things that I've done. Worked with clients. Uh, the one of the last things I recently did with um some trauma victims um, oh, you know what I'm going to actually skip. Let me tell you about the Alzheimer's patients. First, I run a group for Alzheimer's patients and their caregivers, and one of the last groups that I did with them, I played music from the Wizard of Oz and we created a yellow brick road. Each person had their own brick and they created a brick with their caregiver by using music. That's old.
14:18
It kind of sparked memories from whatever we could pull from as well as we created this incredible yellow brick road and talked about the meaning of being on a path, and the metaphors that stayed within that session were so powerful.
14:34
Plus, they have this gold brick to take home you know, this brick that we created to take home with them, and so the family or the caregiver can go back to their where, their home, and we can use that to help build on their memory, to help build on an experience, to try to draw in from those memories just so many different aspects of how that could work that's just with Alzheimer's patients, grief work. I also work with a group of families who have lost a child and, honestly, the child could have been lost even adult children and so when I do that work, a lot of times we might make a memorial towards the person who is passed, and so we can use the art to create so many different things, whether it's a collage with their image or if it's just represented by some type of something, and that was like the last thing that I did with grief work.
Jamie Serino
15:35
Yeah, that's really powerful. Do you ever work with people and they're like kind of resistant to it a little bit and you have to just kind of like try to encourage them and try to get them into it? And how do you do that?
Susan Kappel
15:50
100% resistance is is key. I mean, even if you're working with a teen and I, you know I could be sitting in a room, let's just say I walk into a room with a bunch of five teens or six teens and you know they don't want to be there. Their mother made them go, cause we, we, you know, we have a therapy group that we have to go to. Or even if let's say that I don't know if that's always the case, but dealing with the resistance is, I have this extra tool because art can be enticing, music it can we. Maybe I'll put music on, we'll put them in the right mood and also giving them control about picking the things that we need. So if I'm dealing with, let's say, resistance with kids, I might really use the art to help entice and gain that trust so that we can create a space and that we can communicate. If I'm doing a group, if I'm, you know, other, I think you find resistant and honestly, I never, ever somebody doesn't want to be creative. That's fine.
16:49
I find that the creativity is creative. That's fine. I find that the creativity is I, we use it when I'm stuck in sessions. Uh, you know, gee, maybe we should, or maybe something to do in between sessions. Then we bring it. What is it? Because the art really many times means. What does it mean to them?
17:04
not about that. That red heart might mean one thing to to you and it might mean anger and something else to somebody else, and we've got to figure out how to decipher what that means to that person and how you can look at that aspect of the therapy session, cause it's not, it's never about the therapist, it's always about what's happening for the client.
Peter Carucci
17:25
Yeah.
Jamie Serino
17:26
Wow. So, um, going back to the hope, Love, courage workbook, because I had the opportunity to see that and I don't know if you developed it for other organizations, but it was developed for World Care Center. It uses it and one of the ways in which it uses it is with Ukrainian refugees, and that's how I saw it used and it was really powerful and I think it was really well done, because you draw on a few different modalities, right. You have them drawing pictures, you have them writing and you have them talking dive a little deep, but it stays, I think, surface enough to not people are in this group to not, you know, re-traumatize anybody, but I think by the end of it, then at the end, there's a group art activity, right. So I just think it was wonderful. Can you talk a little bit more about that and about maybe some of the sessions that you've run using the workbook, maybe some of the sessions?
Susan Kappel
18:30
that you've run using the workbook. The workbook is really a wonderful tool that we can use to share to help anybody going through trauma. I believe the so I, while I work, did the workbook so that for the for the war in Ukraine, and now we're actually going to transition it to for firefighters families they have to leave and be deployed and people are, you know, their, their families are really separated and it's a, it's a real sacrifice to have people you know separated throughout their, you know, separated. We're going to use it for that as well, and I also, lisa, had originally started it for 9-11. And for me, to be honest with you, my trauma work also started at 9-11 and understanding how to collaborate with other therapists and really I started counseling crisis counseling centers across New York and really got involved in being in the trauma work. And the trauma work is so powerful and the Hope, love, courage book was designed for to help children, help families affected by disasters and trauma and help them to emotionally express themselves. We wanted them to gain coping skills, we wanted to build their resilience and I truly believe that building resilience and giving people this extra tool belt before we go in and we have the trauma in our world because we know it's going to be there.
20:14
And for me, I continued that work when I was even hit with the gun violence, mass gun violence that has come across the country. So then I for that I did an art exchange with. Then I for that I did an art exchange with. So you know, if we can exchange art with other, have the high schools exchange art and share, send a message of hope and a resiliency. So that was one of those initiatives that you just you have to jump in every week. We can all do something. I think when mass trauma happens, we all feel like our hands are tied, but it's not. You can jump in and trust me, I got connected through, connected through connected it's. I don't know how I ended up there, but if we open up our eyes to collaborate and share you know, share this extra tool, this powerful art therapy thing, and we share all of these pieces, we just become more resilient as a, as a community as a whole, and then we can help each other, because we all know we're going to be touched with some other trauma at some point soon enough, and it's not going to. We have to build our resiliency. Yeah, the other part of it.
21:33
Just to go back to the Hope, love, courage journal, it's really teaching everybody to ask those open-ended questions so that you can find out who needs help. How much help do you need? Do you need to go and get extra help? So all of those pieces are so important. If we have these little tools, hey, maybe I'll try that journal. We just had this bad thing happen.
21:52
You know, when you look at one of those directives and you can use it, it will help you express yourself. It will help with self-reflection, it'll help you maybe become more aware of your own triggers. Whatever it is, you could create that safe space and then work from there. I don't know what you'll need. You know what everybody needs, but we certainly all could use a little bit of any of that. Or learning how to breathe, because you don't know about the whatever numbers. So I uh in that.
22:23
I also teach, love to teach, give people. Well for me and my own private practice, uh, the with the clients that I work with, I have like five. I have five things that you're supposed to walk around with on your tool belt at all times and you get to pick whatever they are, whether it's breathing or maybe focusing on an object, getting a new mantra. Just dealing with your, I have like these. You know, want everybody to kind of not have to go out there dealing with their anxiety. If they have it, that they have this extra tool belt and then they can pick from it. And if those don't work, then we go back and we pick some other things to try from.
Jamie Serino
22:57
Yeah, something you said in there, too, was really powerful. Like when these sort of especially mass traumas happen, we feel like our hands are tied and you know, I think there's a little bit of this like lack of control, like this thing happened and it's awful, and there was no way I could have controlled it. I can't control it, and there is that element there of feeling like your hands are tied, there's nothing I can do, there's nothing no way I can help that person, right? So could you expand on that a little bit?
Susan Kappel
23:50
Well, I guess, sure, I mean my take on it is well, I have no connection with them, I've never met them, I'm never going to meet them, but because I feel that I have this, it's like us helping the world. I guess we should all give a little bit. So what can you do Whenever something happens? I guess I don't want to feel like my hands are tied so I reach out to my community and I see how I can help. Can I run a arts festival? Can I whatever it is that will bring people together, build their resiliency? I think getting the word out and knowing that you can change and you can change how you feel by also the power of your choice, your choice, you can do something. It's a choice to feel differently than you're feeling right now. If you don't feel good, you have a choice. How are you going to do that? If you need help, find a mentor, collaborate, whatever it is that you need. But you can do, anybody can do anything. You just have to take the steps right, yeah.
Peter Carucci
25:01
It's very inspiring for me. I want to now start painting. Just hearing all that makes me realize it's okay to let it out, it's okay to express myself, to let it out, it's okay to like express myself. I'm strangely like really drawn to what you're saying, like, wow, I can, I can let my, my inner processes express themselves through art, like I'm. I really literally want to start drawing again. This is great.
Susan Kappel
25:29
Listen. The other part of it is if you feel like that, why don't you just take your pen out right now, if you're listening to the podcast and doodle, do you want to do a line that's fast? You want to do a line that's slow? How are you feeling? And, and you know, I think part of it is you know, I, I hear musicians and they're saying well, I don't, you know, you're going to be judged if you put the music out there. It's the same way. People are worried about putting it on the paper. It's in my head so nobody sees it, but whatever it is, so you know, people are feeling judged. So if you do it just for yourself, to get out, whatever it is could show up on the paper, whether it's a color or a shape or a mood or a feeling, get it out, see what comes onto the paper, see where you know see where it leads you and it's's almost like it.
Peter Carucci
26:17
I I'm fixated and I'm almost obsessed with the idea that now there's a concrete physical product of that process. And you know, I was an educator for many years and I had a colleague uh, math teacher, let's just say who was very anti any kind of product. This gentleman was more like what's four plus four? And calling a kid hey good. And I tried so hard to help this guy understand, like, maybe there's a product they can come up with. So this man became one of the best teachers, like probably in the united states, in a matter of a couple of years, because he embraced the fact that you have, in this case, high school students, come together to create a product, whether it's a work of art or even writing about how I came up with that. Like, for example, if I said to you, solve two plus two, you just write four and move on. But he learned very simply, asking them to write how do you solve this equation, two plus two? Now the entire process of your brain is involved and there's an output piece which is, in this case, just writing about the process. An output piece which is, in this case, just writing about the process, but the creative side of it like became, I think, something he was also very obsessed with and you know he had them come up with these different projects with like a bird flying and drawing it out, and the kids and their creativity started to flourish, just for like a triangle and the hypotenuse and things like that.
27:53
I mean, I can see this working so well for so many populations. And I want to go back to something Jamie asked you, because it's interesting, because what I love is you're giving them agency and choice, like it's one of the things in your tool belt. You know, maybe someone has trauma with a capital T or lowercase T and they're not willing to talk about it, not even willing to write about it, but you get them to paint something. Whatever the idea of resistance. Is there a time where you've tried everything in your toolkit and honestly, I'm like I'm dying to know if there's an instance where nothing worked and then, all of a sudden, art therapy worked. Does that ever happen?
Susan Kappel
28:39
All the time, all the time, all the time. I mean, look, I don't want to define what worked, what didn't work. Did the person change? Did they get out of their, you know, with the space that they were in? Did they do something that they, you know, feel successful with? I do find that, you know, clients seem really genuinely like they're, you know, gaining speed in their lives and really fulfilling and feeling differently and changing how they feel.
29:14
You know what's the goal. You just want to feel the way, you want to feel. Right, we want to be able to do the things we want to do. It's small little goals. You don't have to make this mountain to get there. I mean, resistance is resistance, so it's going to be in any it does come, but it's what somebody wants to do, right, if they want to get better, they have to do the. You have to do a little bit of the work which, you know, you try to make it enticing, like if you could just see that on the other side of this mountain it is so good over here. And whatever your why is, you know, I'm just a firm believer of finding, finding the motive. You know, helping someone, find the motivation to help them to help them to help themselves.
Peter Carucci
30:02
I said earlier I forgot the case where and then, forgive me, I'm thinking about a friend of mine who kept saying he wanted to help himself but he was going to therapy and he refused entirely to do anything, anything at all, what the therapist was trying to guide him through. I mean, have you ever had a roadblock in your career that profound, where you're like this guy's not willing to change at all, or this girl's not willing to change at all, or this girl's not willing to change at all? I mean, and has art therapy been the solution to that, or has it been? I mean, has there been a case where nothing worked and all of a sudden art therapy comes in? I'm sure there has.
Susan Kappel
30:49
I'm sure there has. I'm sure I've had clients where, you know, I do have clients who you know, really swear by the process that we've gone through, that it worked for them. But I'm sure that it's going to work, for something else is going to work. Eventually something works or eventually it doesn't. And you know, I mean I've worked inpatient with the sickest of the sick and I can't say that art therapy is going to work for you know, it also depends on the person. It really depends on what they're, what they're going to do.
31:18
So is it a super magical power? No, it's, it's therapy and it's helping people, help, help and to feel differently. But you know, all of the pieces have to come into play. Again, it's a choice. It's some of these, some of these feelings and emotions that you have to. If you want something, it's a choice. It's some of these, some of these feelings and emotions that you have to. If you want something. It's a choice, you choose. There's always two sides to something and you can choose to. You know, let them and you go this way and you know not, it's not. It it can be about control.
Jamie Serino
31:50
You said something before about control well, I I can jump in with a Neil Peart quote from Rush If you choose not to decide, you still made a choice, yeah, so one thing that comes to mind, as you all were talking about product and even Susan, when you were mentioning doodling, is that as we move into more of a digital world right, what I love about art therapy is this non-digital experience, right, and so I'm wondering what your thoughts are there and they could be thoughts around this in general, about where our society is moving, or it could be related to art therapy but I doodle less because I find myself in meetings typing my notes instead of writing them down, so I actually doodle less and I hadn't thought about that until this conversation.
32:47
I'm like what's the impact of less doodling on my life? And so, in general, I'm more digital today than I was five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And then I think about my kids and the time they spend in the digital world and how we try to pull them out of that and moving into a less physical world, less product creation world, and then impact on art therapy. Just kind of a vague-ish, kind of broad question there for you.
Susan Kappel
33:26
That's a great question and it's been brought up, I think, to say that we're not going to be digital. That's not possible either, because that is where the world is going. So there are all types of digital tools that art therapists are using across the board, from whiteboards that you share and you can create together to virtual therapy sessions, which we all do and is you know. So we are still in the digital world, the idea of being able to create, so it really can just be like I'm creating by myself in my studio and nobody needs to see it, so you can really let yourself experience the art. But I don't know how much that's changed. I know when I'm taking notes in a meeting, I'm making art, because my notes are all doodles with my information in it. So I want to be creative all the time. So my notes are pretty, you know, if I'm not, if I'm, even if I'm on the computer, sometimes I might print them out and color around them. Um, I forgot what the question was.
Jamie Serino
34:34
Well, just this idea that we're, you know, in a more digital world, the less physical world, and the physical creation of art, physical creation of things, you know, things that were thoughts that then become like you both were using the word sort of like a product. You know just what any impact there is and then what maybe you do in art therapy to try to bring them into a physical world. But you brought up an interesting thing that you could be doing digital art therapy as well. So that was kind of interesting to hear. So that was just, you know, really this sort of broad kind of question there.
Peter Carucci
35:12
You know, and it's interesting, I've noticed I do the less as well. I never thought about that. Yeah, even how I write song, I'm a songwriter. And even how I write them. I used to always use a pencil on a notebook and I would draw, and you know, it would be very creative. Just the good creation of my song would be very creative. Now I find myself I'm all'm typing it all and I've, you know, I have like a line where my word salads come in and brainstorming area is, and then I finalize it digitally and I realized just in this conversation, I'm going to, I'm going to write my next song on paper or marker, or maybe I'll take a crayon out Seriously, I don't know and allow that kind of expression to come out again. So I never thought of that.
Susan Kappel
36:04
Seriously, that's great. I mean, you do forget what it feels like to take, you know, to pull the materials out. It really can be very fun, but you don't even you know some people use found objects or collage, or you could just take a magazine and rip it up and and create something. It doesn't you know, even though I know you're saying I want my pencil and I'm going to start creating. So, again, this is what it did. It motivated somebody to be creative. Then we met our goal today too, you know, like I just think, using your creativity, finding a space for it, is so powerful, and whether you use a therapist to help an art therapist to help you navigate it, or use your creativity, but it's just all.
Peter Carucci
36:48
It really can be helpful and a powerful tool for people not to be yeah, you know, jamie and I have probably talked about this for decades powerful tool to for people not to be.
37:01
Yeah, you know, jamie, and I have probably talked about this for decades. Jamie has a couple of paintings, series of paintings, about a boy drawing and you see the expression from emanating from his brain, kind of thing, and and it becomes part of the painting and I can't explain it other than the fact that just this painting helps me think wow, the act of creating, someone creating in a painting, and you know it's multilevel. At that point we always talk about kind of like the mindset of what's coming up, what's up here now coming out physically and um, I think you mentioned it, like there's art therapies, music, there's all these different kind of modalities you use. I know we're highlighting today art therapy and I think we've honed in on maybe some of the benefits you know, like helping someone process and put out what, what, what might be some of the challenges right now, like why is there resistance to it? Is it because it's time consuming or is it because less people are trained in it?
Susan Kappel
38:05
Maybe people definitely you need to be able to find the time to, to help you, you know find the benefits of any therapy, and we are we're we're in a society that's running and going and not stopping. I mean maybe someone's going to be listening to this podcast on their way someplace else, I don't, but you know, I mean, I think finding time to take care of ourselves is the biggest struggle most people have. You have to find time to work out. You know I say you have to have the three. Three. You know you have to take care of your mind, you have to take care of your body and you have to take care of your finances and you take care of all three of those and you should be in somewhat of a, you know, just work towards them, be mindful of them.
38:45
You know, I don't, I think everybody could find time. It's just you have to create it and you know it's the biggest gift we have and it's the thing that we can't get back and it's the time is is the most important cherished part of it all. Right, I just think that you know, if someone's resistant to art therapy, then do another kind of therapy. I don't really care if you do. I just think that we should all work on our mental health so that we can live together and navigate problems together, because I think that we're always there's just seems to be a lot of community issues, more so than ever than in, you know and we also are connected to our community so much more. We're connected globally so much more.
39:32
So we need to kind of work harder at it, I think, just finding whatever works for you, whether you're feeling not good and you know that music's going to pick you up, if you need to find a music therapist and teach you about drumming and how it. Just saying each one of the modalities might have whatever it is that you need for yourself, and I think that each one of those modalities can also teach you a tremendous amount about yourself and what you do with that information. It's your choice. Do you put it on your tool belt, do you throw it out the window Cause you find it annoying, or do you, you know, focus on find a new mantra, or focus on something that you need to focus on when you're having an anxiety attack and get you through the rest of your day because you've got a new tool?
Jamie Serino
40:24
Do you ever get into like breaking down, like symbolism in someone's heart, like in terms of like help and using that to help them, like I remember, like the house tree person test, you know, and Absolutely we have projective assessments that we utilize all the time.
Susan Kappel
40:41
We are constantly, you know, working within the I'm constantly working within a metaphor of what is happening. And also, arthur, you know, we're creating new neural pathways for the work that we're doing, so that you know if someone has a problem. I have a lot of little metaphor stories that I use where we, you know, try to undo or find a new path, find a new journey, and we're constantly trying to create that within or and providing support. There's all these different pieces that art therapy does for people, but I think just using art can be so powerful. But whatever you use, it works. It really works. It's like crazy, but it really works. If you go to an art therapist, you're going to be surprised. It really works.
Jamie Serino
41:29
Did you ever have like an example where you felt like you were seeing something in someone's art? Like an example where you felt like you were seeing something in someone's art and then you were realizing, oh, this, this thing happened to them and they weren't able to express it. Or I think there might be a relationship problem, like with someone in their life because of what they're drawing or anything like that, a hundred percent.
Susan Kappel
41:53
And and I, you know I get calls all the time you know, oh, we've got this artwork from this, from you know, we, we think that there's a situation, I know a situation. Certainly, our artwork can be very telling and we have symbolism that we believe, using our projective assessments and the evidence-based work, where we think you know if something's on a certain side of the page it might mean the past or the future or the present, and we do, we have a whole tools to assess those situations and I do think sometimes we can use what we know for what I know as a clinician, to help me, to help that client. For example, I was working with a teenager who was going in. She was in the hospital with me and she was going in for surgery and it was her about eight surgery. It was for a very serious surgery. She didn't want to go.
42:53
She was brave all the other times I was with her the other times. This time she kept saying help me to tell my mom this is the time. And so she created this balloon on the images of a sky and the balloon going off into the future, and she used the metaphor of this balloon to kind of say goodbye to her family. And we brought the family in and we talked about it and she said her goodbye. She said I'm going to be on this balloon and I'm going to a great place. So she wanted to make her mom feel that she was going to be okay. And we did it in a story and we did it with the artwork and it was so powerful and so much easier for her to have that conversation.
Jamie Serino
43:42
That's yeah, that's really powerful. Are there any sort of like telltale, like symbolic? You know like I remember reading that you know Vincent Van Gogh used yellow because he was suicidal or because he was manic. But then other people say, well, yellow is happiness, so you get these sometimes. Are there any sort of tried and true symbolic kind of meanings to colors or objects or, like you said, placement on a page? Is there anything that automatically tells you something like you said placement on a page.
Susan Kappel
44:17
Is there anything that automatically tells you something? I think there is. I think you can tell a lot, but I also, no matter what I wouldn't say anything definitively Could possibly indicate, might you know? I would never say that this is what this means for that person, because I don't know, unless I'm working with them and then I have all that insight. But I would. Anything's possible, and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I mean, we know that, right, we're going back. We use theories, we use theories, make sure we, we follow you know all, it's not just a. You know, hey, let's pick a, you know something out of a hat, but you know it just depends on really what that means for that person. But you know, it just depends on really what that means for that person.
Jamie Serino
45:02
Part of it is, so that's where we are with it. Yeah, well, I was going to wrap us up here. Alyssa, peter, if you have another question, or Susan, you have something that you want to make sure our listeners and viewers know, anything?
Susan Kappel
45:17
I mean I'm like so honored that you asked me to be here. Our listeners and viewers know anything. I mean I'm like so honored that you asked me to be here. I'm floored and I really just hope that spreading the awareness and the benefits of seeking out art therapy is just it could be so powerful and it's a wonderful tool and I hope that we just keep telling people there are all these different things that you can do a wonderful tool, and I hope that we just keep telling people there are all these different things that you can do to help yourself. So I hope that they.
Peter Carucci
45:40
Susan, I'm going to tell you right now, this has been inspiring, even just for us.
Jamie Serino
45:44
Yeah.
Peter Carucci
45:46
And you know, jamie really started this podcast with a focus on like help, looking at mental health and social justice and helping spread awareness about things, and I think hopefully we've done that. You've done that today spreading the benefits of art therapy as a modality and any kind of therapy, and be just in terms of everyone having a healthier mindset in, in being able to express themselves, maybe through art, maybe it's even just doodling or drawing stick figures. You know, this is very, very, very great stuff.
Jamie Serino
46:24
Thank you, yeah, and yeah, the privilege was ours, susan. There was a thousand things we could have talked to you about. You're involved in so many things. It's really impressive. All right, well, susan, thank you very much, and everybody, thanks for listening and watching and we will see you next time.