There are many valuable ways to explore holding. We could have created a questionnaire and given it to a large random selection of mothers across Australia asking them about what holding was like for them. We could have observed mothers holding their children. We could have asked women to keep a journal and write about their holding experiences and after say, three months, we could analyse those journals. Instead, we chose to explore holding through an arts-based approach.
My first contact with this approach to developing understanding was as part of a mother’s group for women with post-natal depression and anxiety. With our babies present, we would use different arts materials to respond to a question offered by the art therapist and then we’d share and ask questions of each other. Importantly, I don’t think any one of us would have considered ourselves artists!
That’s the really important thing with arts-based research and art therapy – it’s about expression and representation. You might draw or paint, you might sculpt with playdough, you might gather images from the internet or magazines and make a collage, you might close your eyes and move or hold a pose as a way of showing what it feels like to hold your child. There is no right or wrong, there is no interpretation based on what the therapist thinks of your representation. You might have coloured in an entire paper with yellow and shapes that look like a traditional image of the Sun. But what yellow means for you, in response to whatever question you’ve posed; what those sun-like shapes are for you, any significance behind where they’re placed on the page; all of that cannot be interpreted by another because the qualities of the representation do not mean for them what they mean for you. You are the interpreter of your own expression.
What a researcher or therapist will do with you is support you in developing your own understanding of the representation and the possible answer it poses to your question or concern. They’ll ask you to look at your image ‘as if for the first time’, to try and put away what you think you already know to see if there’s something more there. They might ask you to walk around your representation looking at it from different points of view, they might invite you to speak with a part of your representation and see if that part has something to say, they might ask if there’s anything you would change or wish to explore in more depth by making another representation (in any form that works for you). They’ll be with you, in curiosity and care, as together you explore your representation.
But what’s all this exploration about? Why make something ‘creative’ and expect it to help you with your current concern? How can making shapes or colours on a page have anything to do with holding my child?
Have you ever looked at an image, a dance, a view through a window, a meme, or had an encounter with someone and as it occurs been surprised by a feeling, a sensation, a new thought? That’s the experience of coming to know about something in a different way. Our everyday experience of understanding or knowledge is through words – thinking, reading, talking, conceptualising what we think we know. Dig a little deeper and there’s also knowing through direct experience – holding my child after they’ve fallen over, rocking my baby to sleep, putting your hand on your child's as you drive them to school.
For my research I particularly emphasised an additional way of knowing – knowing through art or creative making. (Note, these are not original ideas, a quick internet search of ‘different forms of knowing’ will result in thousands of references though, for those who are interested, for my research, I relied heavily on Heron and Reason’s (1997) four ways of knowing.) This knowing through creative expression is about taking what is known from experience and shaping a non-conceptual response to it. There are many benefits to utilising this kind of approach:
In the process of making you are also exploring your experience; what comes up for you as you make is valuable information;
- You do not need words, prior understanding or meaning in order to make; you make first, the rest comes later;
- You allow for the possibility of surprise if you put aside what you think you already know;
- You use all of your senses in the process of making art;
- You can see what you know before you;
- You can share and/or explore what is made with others;
- You can explore what is made with more creative expressions as well as conceptually;
- A creative expression in response to a question does not require artistic skill, days or months of crafting, a studio, copious materials or advanced procedures;
- This kinds of expression and inquiry can be done with professional others, friends, family or alone.
I took this photo of my son at an exhibition by Rone at Burnham Beeches. I knew, as I was taking it, that I was looking at him differently and that I felt something new but not yet articulate about our relationship. I saw his reflection in the water and his expression mirrored that of the woman made of books. When I considered the photo later, I noticed that the sunken room, the contrasting light, the beauty found in decay, told me that I now understood my son was growing up. I felt sad about this loss as his world became more and more his own but also grateful that I would have the chance to ask him what he was thinking, what did the room mean for him? Or was he just wondering when we'd get lunch...
If we ask ourselves what holding is like for us thoughts or ideas will arise, sometimes immediately, but exploring holding creatively invites the not quite known into awareness as we shape a feeling with our hands or camera or paints or movement. We access more information by approaching our experience from a different angle. Increasing what we know about holding can help develop and enhance our holding experiences. When I hold my son now, it's with the knowledge that photograph gave me, bittersweet but so meaningful in it's brevity.
There is a huge field of research, theory and practice that describes, explains and explores arts-based approaches to inquiry and therapy, and I would encourage anyone interested to dive in. For an excellent introduction to arts-based exploration and its benefits, check out Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul by Shaun McNiff. For examples of ways in which you can explore and enhance your holding experiences, see my Creative, Quick and Easy Ways of Exploring Holding post.
We had such a wonderful time exploring, hope you do too,
Ariel
This post is written by Dr Ariel Moy. She is passionate about developing mother/child relationships, she has a private practice as a creative arts therapist, is a Professional member of ANZACATA and is an academic teacher at The MIECAT Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
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