Art therapy professor to work with tsunami survivors

Emporia State University – News and Events Archive

Art therapy professor to work with tsunami survivors

Dr. Gaelynn Wolf Bordonaro is traveling with a team of American professionals to the east coast of India to work with tsunami survivors. Dr. Bordonaro, a second year art therapy professor at Emporia State University, has worked abroad in several countries including: Thailand, Australia, and Jamaica. She plans to work in Berlin in September.

Dr. Bordonaro is looking forward to “the interaction with another culture and country as well as getting to know the team and contributing to their efforts and to the people.”

In India the American team will work on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for two weeks. Professionals include pediatricians, physicians, occupational therapists, a clinical psychologist, a hearing aid specialist and an art therapist.

These remote islands were left with most of their services gone after the tsunami in December, 2004. Sangha an organization founded by Hina Sharma hopes to bring these services back to the islands. The team of professionals will spend their morning’s training and working with the people on the islands getting them back onto their feet. In the afternoons the team will spend time working with the community members and children.

“

To get this phone call to do what I like to do is tremendously rewarding,” said Dr. Bordonaro.

Dr. Bordonaro is the only art therapist on the team and hopes to use the art to assess the drama associated with the tsunami in children. She says that art is a normal activity for a child which makes it easier for them to express their emotions.

For more information on Sangha please visit www.sanghaworld.org

Source: http://www.emporia.edu/news/archives/2006/July2006/arttherapyprofessor.htm

Art therapy helps child abuse victims

Moneycontrol India > News > Art therapy helps child abuse victims > >

Art therapy helps child abuse victims

2006-07-06 16:15

New Delhi:

Child abuse victims often find it hard to express their feelings. But something as simple as drawing a picture can be healing now. Researchers in Hong Kong have taken Art Therapy a step further by combining it with Virtual Reality.

An eleven-year-old boy was a victim of alleged physical and emotional abuse by relatives. He had become so aggressive that it became too much for his parents to handle him.

They ultimately turned to Art Therapist Julia Byrne for help. “He was very closed. Closed up both in body and emotion,” Byrne says.

Instead of traditional therapy, she’s treating him in the Virtual World. This form of therapy is called Smart Ambience Therapy, which is a high-tech program that blends Art Therapy and technology. “We have two cameras, one at the top and one at the side by. With these two cameras, we are able to calculate the three dimensional position of the human; his speed and his acceleration and his gesture,” Professor, City University of Hong Kong, Horace Ip says.

In this kind of
treatment a child is brought into an interactive, 3D environment, where
movements are transformed into colours on the screen

The activity may feel like a video game to
the child, but it’s a really safe place to express emotions. The
program is still in an experimental stage at City University of Hong
Kong but social workers say that it is promising.

“Through the play they can express
themselves. So this is really a good way to help them relax and engage,
and then start working on the problem,” HK Family Welfare Society,
social worker, Shirlay Tang says.

Experts also believe that this high tech approach to Art Therapy could also be used to treat trauma and phobias.

Amrita Tripathi

Source:  http://news.moneycontrol.com/india/newsarticle/stocksnews.php?autono=225472

Primary school art teacher promotes art therapy techniques to diagnose stress

Channelnewsasia.com

Primary school art teacher promotes art therapy techniques to diagnose stress
video By Joanne Leow,
Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE:  Many feel that art is good for the soul -  but what about for stress?

One primary school teacher feels, there could be more structured ways
in the school system here to tap into art therapy techniques to help
stressed out students.

“Through the art making process, the children actually reveal their
problems or emotional conflicts through art unconsciously, that is why
I think this is ideal. We want to know what is actually inside them,
the inner child inside them, unconsciously, rather than we actually
confront them directly,” said Teffany Chia, a teacher at Yio Chu Kang
Primary School.

Teffany says it would take a trained practitioner to diagnose their mental state from their art.

What she hopes to see is trained counsellors pairing up with art teachers to practise drawing techniques with the children.

Another technique called “blind contour drawing” where the kids
trace the outline of an object without looking at the paper could also
be used to aid students.

“The pupil has to focus on the line while they are tracing out the
subject, while they are doing that, it’s a conscious effort to train
them to forget all other distractions. This is quite good for them to
go through it and search for themselves, what is happening in the world
inside them, just to create awareness,” said Teffany.

Teffany recently received a post graduate degree in Arts Education and learnt about these techniques in the UK.

Teffany says she hopes to see a move beyond just art production in
primary schools to an approach that includes a therapeutic aspect.

But until then – it looks like these kids are just having fun making art. –
Source: CNA /dt

Girls record their lives through visual imagery

Cayman Net News:
Girls record their lives through visual imagery

Girls record their lives through visual imagery

Monday, June 5, 2006

From the Visual Diary of Melissa Dilbert,
Caledonian’s
National Gallery Art Outreach Programme, Frances
Bodden Girls Home

Students at the Frances Bodden Girls Home have been working on Visual Diaries for the past three weeks. The initiative is part of the Caledonian Art Outreach programme which is run at the home by the National Gallery under the instruction of Kushana Gentles, Education and Outreach Officer from the Gallery.

“This exercise is a great way to express oneself without words,” Ms. Gentles explained.

“The girls were a bit reluctant at first with many saying ‘I am not sure what to draw’ but soon got into the exercise and were able to come up with some interesting images.”

A journal without words, the images depict things from the past, like the death of a loved one, or the way that they felt at a particular moment, and upcoming events in their lives like graduation, and future hopes and fears.

David Walker, Managing Director of Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited which sponsors the programme said the bank was pleased to be involved.

‘Caledonian is delighted to sponsor the arts in the Cayman Islands and is especially pleased to continue to support the National Gallery’s outreach initiative which tackles pressing social issues through art therapy.

Art Outreach Frances Bodden takes place at the home each Tuesday evening, throughout the school year.

Source: http://www.caymannetnews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000025/002540.htm