Art Therapy Interventions for Anxiety, Chronic Pain and Addictions

CPD

Handouts

Speaker

Pamela G. Hayes Malkoff, MFT, ATR-BC Related seminars and products

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Pamela Hayes Malkoff, LPC, MFT, LMHC, ATR-BC, is a clinician, artist, educator, and author of The Creative Cognitive Therapy Method: Combining Traditional CBT with Art Therapy for Real Change. Her specialties include alcohol and drug addictions, relationships, families and parenting, depression and anxiety, grief, LGBTQ, gender identity and sexuality. She is also a court-certified sexual abuse evaluator and trained in Hypnotherapy, Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

Over the course of her 30+ career, she has worked in schools, hospitals, prison, foster and residential care, and private practice. She is a noted speaker and educator, lecturing throughout the United States. She has taught art therapy courses at Phillips Graduate University, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and Chicago School for Professional Psychology. She stars in the video podcast, 3 Minute Art Therapy, and was recently featured on The Science of Happiness/Soul Pancake as the expert art therapist.

Ms. Malkoff lives in Atlanta, Georgia where she has a private practice and provides art therapy groups to multiple agencies. She has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Parsons School of Design and a Graduate Degree in marriage and family therapy and art therapy from The Notre Dame de Namur University.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Pamela Hayes Malkoff maintains a private practice. She receives royalties as a published author. Pamela Malkoff Hayes receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Pamela Hayes Malkoff is a member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and the American Art Therapy Association.

Objectives

1. Execute skills and understanding of how to effectively combine art and traditional talk therapy in both group and individual counselling sessions.
2. Demonstrate how the art techniques can help our clients learn to tolerate frustration, sit with uncomfortable feelings, and stop those catastrophizing thoughts.
3. Practice, first hand, how art can provide a sense of calm, mindfulness, and gratitude for life.
4. Build new skills through the art process to combat negative self-talk to push through fears and anxiety, instead of turning to other self-destructive behaviour (IE: drugs, food, sex or isolation).
5. Integrate art interventions with classic CBT skills and change the thought process to transform the lives of our clients.
6. Determine the science behind the changes that occur in our brains when engaged in creative activities.

Outline

ART THERAPY – WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT ISN’T

• History of Art Therapy and the Multiple Ways it is Applied
• Engaging in art changes our emotional response to memories of trauma
• Case studies including: Female understands herself and her relationship more clearly after completing and talking about a drawing
• Art participation: bypass fears of perfectionism and the “I can’t draw” voice

ART THERAPY FOR ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

Create new neural pathways for trauma related anxiety, PTSD and/or depression

• CBT, Positive Psychology Separating physiological sensations from fears that cause panic attacks
• Externalize and contain fears
• Stopping the automatic negative thoughts (ANTs)
• Art techniques to practice mindfulness and focus
• Challenge and change catastrophizing thoughts
• Case studies including: College student struggling with generalized anxiety
• Art Participation: Technique to express, face and destroy fears

ART THERAPY FOR CHRONIC PAIN

Create a sense of mindfulness, distraction and integration for physical and emotional pain

• Address chronic pain with understanding and provide hope
• Listening to the pain without it defining you
• Case studies including: An adult male with severe back pain
• Art experiential: Opportunity to express and release pain, and build something new out of it

ART THERAPY WITH ADDICTIONS

Techniques to tolerate frustration and uncomfortable feelings

• Examples of self-destructive behaviours in addictions
• Dangers of automatic negative thought processing Interrupt and discourage avoidance and escape
• Case studies including: Groups in drug treatment centre
• Art participation: Address fear of making mistakes and allow for trying new things - encourages individual creativity within a safe structure

CHANGE PERSPECTIVES AND MOVE TOWARD OVERALL MENTAL WELLNESS

• Rebuild a new belief system combining CBT, Positive Psychology, Narrative Therapy, Mindfulness, Meditation and Art Therapy
• Recognize holding onto past hurt and anger and learning to let go
• Examples of living a life of gratitude
• Case studies including: Clients learning to release and transform fears into hope
• Art Participation: create a gratitude tree
• Practice mindfulness, acceptance, and letting go of unrealistic expectations
• Art Therapy techniques to help set aside ego fueled thoughts and behaviours and increase a connection to others
• Current research and limitations reviewed

Target Audience

• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Art Therapists
• Psychologists
• Psychiatrists
• Pastoral Counselors
• Psychiatric Nurses
• Substance Abuse Counselors
• Guidance Counselors
• Pediatricians
• Physicians
• Educators
• Occupational and Recreational Therapists
• Speech-Language Pathologists