Person-centred Art Therapy Skills
Bringing the Person-centred counselling approach to the therapeutic use of art

The Road to P.C.A.T.

The originator of Person-centred Art Therapy is Liesl Silverstone, (BAC Fellow, Dip Counselling, Dip Art Therapy). She writes:

Several years ago I went to Czechoslovakia, the country of my birth, with my son.

In Prague, we visited the jewish museum. There, in the section about Terezin, the concentration camp where all my family were sent before being deported elsewhere, I saw a collection of children's art: with the most meagre material available, children had expressed, in images, how they felt to be in Terezin.

The seeds of my work with art therapy were sown during that visit.

I was trained as a social worker; to solve the client's problem, to know best. I was well accustomed to that model since childhood, someone telling me what to do, what not to do. Now, as an adult, it was very easy to perpetuate the model. I knew of no other.

Then, as a student on a counselling course , I came across the approach of Carl Rogers; the person-centred approach based on the belief that the person knows best, and can reach his/her own potential in a climate of acceptance, congruence and empathy. Emotionally I discovered the benefit for myself, from the client's chair: to be heard empathically, to be deeply understood; that kind of listening felt like a precious gift where, in turn, I could trust listening to myself. To be accepted unconditionally, without judgment, enabled me to look at the unacceptable aspects of myself, to work through and go beyond them. To experience the counsellor as real, genuine, congruent, encouraged me to trust her and, in return, let myself be real.

Intellectually I embraced this approach at once and with enthusiasm. It made abundant sense on many levels - personal, social, political, international. Yet it took me a very long time to integrate, to operate. The old authoritarian model had to be uprooted first.

Slowly I began to see the benefits in my work as a school counsellor, extending the person-centred approach to young people, watching their self-esteem grow. And yet, and yet- I began to note the limitations of mere words, began to search for some other mode of knowing.

Images. Art therapy, I discovered first (inevitably) for myself the power, the potential, the truth contained in images made visible. I trained as an art therapist. I learned that images, like dreams, tap into the world of spontaneous knowing, nothing to do with thoughts. When dialoguing with a picture I'd have those moments of 'aha!' when the image gave up- or rather, I recognised - a message to me. Through art therapy an integration between the thinking and the knowing mode, between conscious and unconscious material, could take place. I brought the person-centred mode of facilitating to the world of art therapy- allowing the client to know what the picture meant. No interpretations. No guess work. No me knowing best. The evidence was astonishing, encouraging.

I offer courses, based on experiential self-discovered learning in person-centred art therapy skills, training people working with people. As counsellor, I introduce art therapy whenever appropriate.

The seeds sown in the museum of Terezin are bearing fruit, transforming tragedy from the past to a health-enhancing resource for the here and now.

So much for my stepping stones.