Back in March, many of you probably recall that I went to New York City to do an art therapy group for a peer support group for young diabetic women. I was super excited to share it with you, but when I sat down to do that, I wasn’t sure quite how to do it. While all of the women gave me signed consents to use the images, and some even gave me the artwork to keep, I’ve been unsure of what to say about the artwork here. Normally, when I write about patient/client artwork, it’s for health records, which are obviously confidential with a different purpose and a different audience. Writing about artwork to post on the internet is new terrain for me. I take my role as an art therapist and the ethical obligations which accompany it very seriously. In art therapy, the artwork is a tangible reflection of people’s personal business, their feelings and internal experience, and I have to be responsible about how I use it, so I’m erring on the conservative side for now in posting about it. What follows is a general account of the group with pictures of the artwork.

I started the group by telling them a little about me, explaining how my personal journey with diabetes eventually led me to my current career aspirations of using art therapy with diabetics, and more generally, advocating for the mental health needs of diabetics. Then we moved on to art-making. I had packed a suitcase with art materials – fat and skinny markers, chalk pastels, oil pastels, colored pencils, crayons, patterned paper, diabetes magazines, scissors, gluesticks, and sheets of 9×12 paper – which I had arranged on the table when I first arrived. I call the art therapy task I asked them to do, The Inside/Outside (or Internal/External) Experience of Diabetes. I asked them to fold their paper in half like a book. On the outside, I asked them to represent their experience of how others perceive their diabetes. On the inside, I asked them to represent their internal experience of it – the thoughts and feelings.

Once everyone understood the task, they got started. It was a really remarkable experience for me that I can’t even quite explain. There was just a sense that THIS is what I’m supposed to be doing. There are lots of ways that people benefit from art therapy, some obvious and some less obvious. One of the benefits of group art therapy is that people tend to talk more freely with each other while they work. The combined shared experience of the conversation and the art activity reinforces one of the primary purposes of the group, feeling connected to people with whom you have something in common – even if they’re essentially strangers to you. In that moment, seeing them talking and laughing with ease as they worked, knowing that the art-making process facilitated that, was very gratifying. Art therapy is something that I think sounds intriguing to some people, but its power can’t be understood until you’ve actually done it. Based on some of the feedback I got from the group, it was definitely my sense that doing art therapy surpassed at least some of the women’s expectations.

Once everyone was done, we had a brief discussion, going around so everyone had an opportunity to share their piece, explaining what the images meant to them, what the experience of creating it was like, and offering feedback to each other. We didn’t have quite as much time as we needed for a proper discussion, partly because we were asked to vacate the room a little sooner than expected, and partly because I didn’t manage the time as well as I should have, so that was a little disappointing. As a therapist, it’s disorienting to come into an unfamiliar space to lead a group you’ve never met. However, Katie and I talked about the possibility of me returning to do another group, so next time, I’ll have a better sense of what to expect, and can structure the group and manage the time better to ensure the discussion time isn’t rushed.

So here are some of the results. I formatted it so both the outside and inside images are combined. The outside image is towards the left, and inside image towards the right. Click on each set to get a bigger, clearer image. Also, for the sake of confidentiality, I Photoshopped names and personal info that were visible, but didn’t change the inherent nature of the content by doing so.

Hopefully, I’ll have more opportunities to share the artwork of diabetics with whom I work in the future – and in the process, find the appropriate “voice” to write about it. If you have any questions regarding anything about the artwork, this group I facilitated, or art therapy in general, feel free to ask.