Latest / The Trauma Therapist / The Creative Process & Trauma. Lisa Mitchell LMFT, ATR, LPC: from the archives

Transcript

The Creative Process & Trauma. Lisa Mitchell LMFT, ATR, LPC: from the archives · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Or today we even another episode from the archives with one of my incredible guests.
0:05
Enjoy or Welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gaymickperson.
0:20
My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible selves, to be
0:24
human, to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer
0:28
in who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires
0:32
cultivating authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn
0:38
more about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
0:43
That's the Trauma Therapist project dot com. Let's get started, all right,
0:48
guys. Welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gaymickperson
0:53
and very excited today to introduce my guest, Lisa Mitchell. Lisa, welcome
0:58
you. Ready to do this? I am? Thank you so much for
1:00
having me guy. All right, So, Lisa is the author of Creativity
1:04
as Cotherapist, The Practitioners Guide to the Art of Psychotherapy. An art therapist,
1:10
Lisa has specialized in helping teens and adults use art, creative expression to
1:14
overcome anxiety, depression, and trauma. For over twenty years. Lisa's online
1:19
and in person workshops are popular for the in depth, hands on creative experiences
1:23
she facilitates to help therapists find unique ways of approaching the therapeutic process as a
1:29
creative one. Lisa is also the organizer and host of create Fest, an
1:34
annual online creativity festival that provides inspiration and education for therapists to quote, get
1:40
out of the box into their right mind. I love that Lisa partners with
1:45
her own creativity through writing, knitting, and painting. Her blog features reflections
1:49
on all creative endeavors. And that's at intercampus dot com. We'll have that
1:53
linked up. So awesome. So welcome. Share with our listeners where you're
1:57
from, where you're calling from, and let's get going. Yeah, I'm
2:01
from Sacramento, California, And okay, yeah we are. I'd like to
2:07
declare that the drought is over in California, which is a great triumph.
2:12
It's a wonderful thing to have moisture in the air and on the ground.
2:15
Nice. Where are you from originally? Oh, it's a m I was
2:22
born in California, but I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So I'm
2:25
a sort of a multi coast person. That's very similar to me. So
2:29
I'm in Oakland right now, Oh you are, yeah, and originally from
2:32
the East coast, so no kidding, yeah yeah, yeah, so a
2:37
lot of us kind of move out to transplants. Yeah, so let's let's
2:43
start here, Lisa. As you know, we start with a quote,
2:46
a sentence something to kind of give our listeners a little glimpse into what's going
2:52
on with you and to set the stage. What do you have? So
2:54
yeah, I have a bit of an intro to the quote as well as
2:59
the actual quote. Quote. Um uh. Saki Santarelli, who is the
3:02
author of Heal Thyself, is just a such an inspirational writer to me in
3:08
person, and in his book he has he says this. He says,
3:15
if we are not careful, our growing expertise can easily become a prison.
3:22
To be a professional and to not know seems an oxy moron. Nothing could
3:29
be further from the truth. Okay, that's the intro. Then the act
3:35
okay, yeah yeah yeah. So then he says, and this is this
3:38
is what I've carried around in my back pocket a lot. He says,
3:40
when we stay closely and non judgmentally with someone exploring pain, we find beauty
3:47
in the midst of the ruins. Wow, that's pretty pretty awesome. So
3:53
break that down for why that quote? When did that become? When did
3:59
that blossom for you? In the sense? Yeah? I mean for me,
4:02
um, there was. It really captures the essence of the creative process.
4:09
For me, that the idea of uh, sort of taking that which
4:16
is you know, in your memory, in your experience at your ready in
4:23
terms of art materials and putting it all together in a way that is really
4:29
sort of hands on and visceral that you can't help but find gems, you
4:34
can't help but find beauty. And I think that, uh, you know,
4:40
it teaches this idea that we have to tolerate the ruins, We have
4:44
to be in the ruins, We have to accept that they're there, the
4:47
struggles of life, you know, the sort of imperfections of art making,
4:53
of the creative process or there. But when we stay with it in a
4:58
non judgmental, really brave sort of open way, then the beauty comes.
5:05
Um. And I think for me, wait, wait, I have to
5:10
have to recognize that. Go ahead, yeah, what is that in the
5:14
background roosters? Or oh no, can you hear it? Yeah? My
5:16
headphones on. Well, yes, um, my office is actually in a
5:23
little suburb of Sacramento, and we have this strange history of having been a
5:29
farm many many years ago, and the leftover is wild roosters that just roam
5:35
around. Okay, that's that's that's perfect. I mean it. I just
5:40
wanted to recognize that in the background talk about beauty in the midst of the
5:44
rooms, right, yeah, yeah, so that's out of there. So
5:47
also so when well, let's I think, as we kind of get into
5:51
how you got into this, I think, why this quote unfold? So
5:56
let's let's get in there talk tell her listener, is how you get into
6:00
this field? And tell the story for us Lisa. Yeah, So,
6:08
I mean my my career has sort of just unfolded incredibly. But the start
6:13
of it was all It was in a sculpture studio that was a huge quancit
6:20
hut warehouse like many many blocks long, cold as heck um, but opened
6:27
twenty four hours a day on the Sacramento State University campus. And at the
6:34
time I was making these gigantic life size While they weren't they were life size,
6:40
but they felt gigantic to me. Sculptures of pregnant women, and I
6:46
thought I was the biggest hot shot artist there ever was, and uh,
6:49
you know, had sort of a shaved head with white bangs coming out,
6:55
and I meaning I did the whole eighties bit right. And in the process
7:00
I figured out that what I was making was so personal and so important to
7:08
me in terms of my own history and my own life journey that the critiques
7:15
that the professors and the other classmates were giving me were really hurtful. They
7:23
were hard to take. They weren't on target because I wasn't trying to make
7:27
something that would stand in a gallery. I was trying to express something that
7:30
was really deeply personal and transform it into something beautiful. And what I found
7:38
was when I dialed in the atmosphere is what I was really thriving on.
7:43
The everybody being in sync with one another, creating their own thing, but
7:48
working in that same creative process, struggling in the same way to find ideas.
7:56
So let them form, holding each other in that process in the sense
8:00
that, you know, if one of us was on a roll, we
8:03
could all feel it and we would stay, you know, into the night,
8:07
and it was it was just fabulous. The upshot of it was is
8:11
that I learned through that process that it wasn't just the art product that was
8:18
so healing and transformative, it was the process that to be steeped in that
8:26
energy, that endeavor that had a commonality between people. For me was something
8:31
that I wanted to do for a long long time and recreate over and over
8:37
again in my own studio. And so that's how I found art therapy.
8:41
It was sort of by accident. There was a program on the campus.
8:46
I went to the one professor who was a very small department, who was
8:48
the head of the department. She said, well, what do you want
8:52
to do and I said, well, I want to have a community where
8:54
people can explore their own creative process and feel what it feels like to be
9:01
in it and the possibility that comes with it. And she she just sort
9:05
of waved her hand at me and said, um, oh, you want
9:07
to be an art therapist. And that day I signed up. So that
9:13
was, you know, thirty years ago, and the journey for me has
9:18
been a deepening into what that process means in terms of healing the potential that
9:26
it has for myself as well as for my clients, and then passing it
9:28
onto therapists in their own work with clients as well as in their own art.
9:35
So, um, that's how it all started. So the idea that
9:41
you were kind of in love with not only the act of making art or
9:46
or the art product in a sense, but the whole process and what that
9:52
means. And this whole idea of art and therapists is very interesting to me.
10:03
I have a background in art as well, but I also know that
10:05
a lot of therapists are like, yeah, that's something over there, Well,
10:13
that's what they do. And so I know this is kind of a
10:18
bigger question. And I'm assuming you create Fest even addresses this too, But
10:22
what do you say to therapists about if they want they're intrigued with art and
10:28
they don't know how to kind of implement it or integrate it into the work
10:33
they do. Maybe they even think they can't because they're not artistic. You're
10:37
probably an answers for all these questions. Well, I mean, I think
10:41
what's interesting. It's actually this is actually a huge passion of mine at this
10:46
point because it's fascinating to me. So I've come to consider therapy as an
10:52
art form. In my talking with and working with therapists. I've really started
10:58
to overlay the creative process to the therapeutic process. And when you do that,
11:07
the parallels. It's not just a parallel, it's that the therapy becomes
11:15
to a therapist what a painting is to an artist. So when therapists can
11:22
start to see their work already as an art form, that they utilize the
11:30
same not knowing the same need for seeing things new ways, the same way
11:39
of thinking, pulling together disparate ideas or ideas from the past and ideas from
11:45
the present, and helping their clients see them all kinds of approaches that artists
11:52
use. Therapists get really excited and they say, oh my gosh, I
11:54
guess I am a creative person. And then it is not at all all
12:01
far, you know, step over to say and guess what you can You
12:07
can paint, you can write, you can draw, you can collage,
12:11
you can manifest other creative things that only for their nurture your ability to be
12:16
a creative therapist. Um and I'll tell you what. When therapists see their
12:22
work that way, it's like a falling in love all over again. It's
12:26
like, oh my gosh, I have this really special way of being in
12:31
the world that I didn't see before, and then they then they have more
12:35
confidence to share it with their clients as well. Yeah, I love that.
12:37
I love that idea because it really invites us to, um, explore
12:43
who we are really as I think, as as humans and as individuals and
12:48
bring that to the work we do. And oftentimes I think a lot of
12:52
us initially get into this field. I'll speak for myself really not with that
12:58
idea. I mean, this whole unknowing, this whole idea of unknowing kind
13:03
of can be scary. Yeah, I mean I don't. I'm going to
13:07
school to know right right not know? What do you? How do you
13:15
respond to that? Um? Well, the first thing is is that the
13:22
more you live into the creative process, the more you understand that anxiety is
13:24
a necessary part of it, and that if you're going to have you I
13:31
mean, you're gonna have anxiety no matter what. You're gonna have anxiety if
13:35
you don't dive in with a client, if you don't you know, if
13:39
you have a plan, know exactly how it's going to go. But then
13:43
you know, maybe you hit a dead end with a client in that session,
13:48
and there's the anxiety again, or you're gonna have anxiety going in not
13:52
knowing what's going to happen. And so what I say is it's part of
13:56
the creative process, and you just might as well face it. You know
14:00
that when we are best, when we're most creative, it's when we are
14:09
walking side side by side with that anxiety rather than being paralyzed by it.
14:16
And I also say that it's a muscle. It's something that when you're conscious
14:20
and aware that it's happening and you practice going through it, diving through,
14:24
diving into it as opposed to shying away from it, it becomes it's like
14:28
an exposure technique. It becomes almost excitement rather than something to shy away from.
14:35
Um. I was talking with somebody, Um, you know, well,
14:39
there's daring greatly, there's fearless creating. There's all these beautiful juxtapositions of
14:46
these terms in relationship to the creative process that feel like again oxymoron's, but
14:52
they're not. And I was I was diving into this big create fest process
14:58
where you know, I'm interviewing all these really well known, wonderful, amazing
15:03
contributors to our field and feeling like I have this big, huge project ahead
15:09
of me and really uncertain am I going to be able to pull it off?
15:11
And it was just a couple weeks ago where I was just flooded with
15:16
this sort of dread and this anxiety and sort of like should I do it
15:22
again? It's so big? Why am I doing this anyway? Maybe you
15:26
know it could be this big failure And what about these guest speakers. You
15:30
know, maybe they're not going to be this good or someone will say no,
15:33
or you know, all this doubt and anxiety just facing me. And
15:37
the thing is is that when you're in it that big, you can't tell
15:41
the difference of whether it's sort of this signal like, oh, just give
15:45
it up, you know, forget about it, it's not worth it,
15:48
or this is just anxiety that's part of the creative process, right, just
15:52
accept it. And so you know I was noticing it myself, living into
15:58
what I teach, and I did that. Okay, you know, no
16:00
matter what, I'm going to have this anxiety and I just need to go
16:03
forward and see where it takes me, as opposed to stop in my tracks
16:08
and forget it, because that's not going to serve me either. So you
16:14
got into and correct me if I'm wrong here. You came into the role
16:18
of therapists knowing you wanted to be an art therapist. Yes, absolutely has.
16:26
How has that or your understanding shifted or unfolded in a sense from when
16:33
you first started to even now, well, you know, our brain research
16:41
and a personal neurobiology information m has really informed my work since I went I
16:49
first began as art as an art therapist, and so now I feel better
16:57
equipped to explain why why art therapy works from a brain research standpoint, and
17:04
in particular it helps me understand and even explain to clients and then therapists that
17:11
I teach what that sort of disregulation process looks like and feels like for a
17:18
client and how we can help them through that so that they're not retraumatized,
17:22
they're not overstimulated and overdysregulated. So that so, you know, when I
17:29
went into art therapy, it was sort of yeah, it feels good and
17:33
it's sort of magic and it transforms. And now the field has grown so
17:37
much in our information and research has informed it so much that we can say,
17:41
no, well, it feels like magic, but here's what's happening in
17:45
the brain. It's the real deal. Yeah, share where our listeners Lisa
17:51
an early clinical error? What you like? Oh boy? Yeah, Well
17:53
that's a good because I have a story that talks about that dysregulation piece and
18:03
a really dear client one who helped me actually write a chapter or a little
18:07
vignette in my book, who is doing really well today, but was a
18:12
very significant early mistake of mine. So he and I were working quite intensely
18:22
for about three months. He had some significant, big te trauma as well
18:29
as attachment stuff as a result of the trauma. And I won't bore you
18:37
with all of the sort of historical details, but the upshot of it was
18:41
is we were working on trying to form a therapeutic relationship that would help him
18:49
then start to process some of what happened and be able to hold on to
18:55
himself in the process. Okay, so a cohesive narrative per se, or
19:00
you know, an attachment relationship that would help him regulate and integrate some of
19:04
the trauma. Well, I moved way too fast with him. I thought
19:11
I was fairly new to my private practice, and I thought that he and
19:15
I had established a really safe, solid connection, an attachment that could help
19:22
help you know what I called ground him at the time. Now we would
19:26
call it help him regulate. And had sort of embarked on this endeavor where
19:33
he and I were working on the same large piece of paper together, painting,
19:40
and we were doing a conversation in color where he would take a turn,
19:42
I would take a turn. We'd go back and forth, back and
19:45
forth, adding to the page as a way of affirming establishing communication. That
19:53
was you know, safe, secure, gentle, affirm that kind of thing.
20:00
Now, the part of that was is that I had established we weren't
20:06
to use words, that we were to converse in color and line on the
20:11
page, and he was game for it. We were going along doing,
20:17
you know, just fine. And pretty soon the fairly quickly, actually,
20:22
the painting became kind of a brown, mucky, what I call poopy mess,
20:30
and before I knew it, he had his hands in the paint on
20:36
the page, sort of scribbling around, and he got you know, over
20:44
over stimulated, disregulated in a really significant way, got up out of his
20:48
chair, left my office, got in his car and drove home, which
20:55
is not a safe situation at all, you know, with that kind of
20:57
dysregulation. The you know, his executive functioning, wasn't online, It wasn't
21:03
you know, equipped to deal with the traffic signals and that kind of thing.
21:08
And and it was a big mistake of mine to get to let it
21:14
get to that point. He was fine, he texted me and let me
21:22
know he was okay. We reconnected, did a lot of repair works afterwards.
21:27
But that was a mistake on my part because I let it get to
21:36
a point of retraumatizing him, really putting his brain in that soupy chaotic,
21:42
overflooded, overwhelmed state that was not at all transformative and healing. It was
21:49
the opposite. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. And it's
21:53
really instructive story looking back on it, now, excuse me, do you
22:00
think you would have stopped sooner or not done that particular exercise? Well,
22:07
I mean I think it is instructive in a sense that okay, So looking
22:11
back on it, I'm much more feedback oriented with my clients now, I
22:22
would have asked him at first of all, at the start and even before
22:26
I proposed the art invitation for him, I would have wanted more feedback information
22:33
about how he was experiencing our relationship. You know, I think as a
22:37
new therapist. And this is true with other you know, new therapists that
22:41
I talked to. Is we're shy of saying how does this feel? You
22:45
know? And how am I doing? Or how are we doing? You
22:48
know, what's this like for you? Rather than just assuming that since it
22:56
felt solid and connected to me, that that was the same for him.
23:03
So then I wouldn't have relied so very much on the connection that I thought
23:07
we had. Um. And secondarily, I think, um, you know
23:14
that that idea of checking with your client in every session, you know,
23:22
not assuming that you know. Again, if you think you know, you
23:25
probably don't because you haven't checked, um, you know, how is this
23:30
for you or how is this feeling or what's going on for you? And
23:33
yes I had established a no talk rule, but UM, with him,
23:37
knowing that he had that big T trauma background and was easily overwhelmed and flooded,
23:44
I would have been more cautious about that and used words to to check,
23:48
you know, in terms of where he was with the process. Awesome,
23:52
Yeah, thank you so much for for for that. That's just so
23:56
valuable a gold nugget I think for our listeners, Um, why do you
24:02
do this work? Lisa, What's what's your why? So? You know
24:07
my why is because it's again it's my art, um and when I'm in
24:17
the in my art, in my creative element, I think I'm the best,
24:21
you know, the best human being I can be. And if I
24:25
witness the creative process and the fact that, you know, the reminder again
24:30
and again and again there's beauty in the ruins. There's beauty in the ruins,
24:33
you know, finding the gems in the mess, all that kind of
24:37
stuff. Um, it helps me live a better life and then be a
24:42
better therapist, be a better you know wife, mother, you know daughter,
24:47
all that kind of stuff. Um. So I think it's sort of
24:51
this, uh, living into a philosophy and a belief and enriching it in
24:55
a way that can both enrich my life and others that keeps me going.
25:00
How about advice for people just getting into this field and we can even kind
25:07
of talk about your book and create fest as well. But for people who
25:14
for for therapists who are like, you know what, I don't use our
25:18
quote unquote art or anything creative or I don't think I'm being creative in my
25:23
yea, What do we say to them? What advice. So, um,
25:33
you know what I without. I'm hesitating because I don't want to sound
25:38
like it's coming from a judgmental stance. But what I do say is there's
25:45
a significant amount of research that says that if we aren't using experiential, body
25:52
based or creative based work with our clients, we're really not making lasting change,
25:59
and that therapists crave that. And if they're not doing something creative,
26:06
something new or novel or experiential with their clients, they're missing out on a
26:11
lot. And so what I tell you know, new therapists as well as
26:15
old therapists, is that it's a way to get renewed and to get inspired
26:21
and to inspire your clients and feel a deeper sense of change and transformation.
26:27
That's not just going to be thought or insight, you know, oriented,
26:32
It's going to be more lasting. And I also tell therapists that, you
26:37
know, in that very same sense, you don't have to be a manual.
26:42
You don't have to follow a protocol exactly. You have to learn the
26:47
protocols and you have to learn the you know, science spot behind it.
26:52
But once you do, the humanness that comes out when you make it your
26:56
own and you work with a client collaborate is so revitalizing that it's really worth
27:02
it, and people get so excited. They just love it. You know,
27:07
it's like, oh my gosh, there was a treasure trove that they
27:10
weren't even you know, not knew it they had when they start to use
27:15
it that way. Yeah, I love those those two bits. Um.
27:19
This the importance of kind of experiential work, just kind of getting in there
27:25
shifting things up a bit. If you're not doing that. And this idea
27:29
of you don't have to be a manual, no, do you find that
27:34
a lot of therapists. I mean, it's hard to generalize understand that.
27:38
But do we as a group cling two manuals? Are they kind of like
27:45
our life rafts in a sense. Well, I mean I think what we
27:51
as a as a group want to do is help and that I think are
27:56
field Because of managed care and the large agencies, we've been sold this idea
28:06
that if you follow a particular protocol, then you're going to help, and
28:11
here's the standard protocol to do that, and that that's been a model,
28:17
and I think that's been helpful to a certain extent. But our model hasn't
28:22
really incorporated the research that we know about experience based therapy. Now some of
28:30
them have, and then if you dive into those kinds of models, they
28:33
really do say jump off, use whatever you can't. You collaborate with your
28:38
client, you know. So there's there's definitely that that instruction as well.
28:44
But this idea of having to know if you have a step by step and
28:51
you're convinced it's going to work, it makes you feel more comfortable and so
28:56
you know you're going to be helpful. Well, you know Scott Miller's worked
29:00
us that that's all you know, a whole I don't know, whatever,
29:04
you want to call it, a load of bull that it really comfort does
29:08
not equal effectiveness. Um. And so back to that not knowing that the
29:15
more we can be in the new and the novel and the experiential and the
29:18
collaboration and the humanness of that interaction in therapy, UM, the more change,
29:26
the more help we're gonna provide for our clients. Awesome, awesome,
29:30
I love it, I love it. Um. How about go to book?
29:36
Oh boy um okay I mentioned Saki Santarelli's Heel Myself irv Yalum. Creatures
29:41
of the Day uh, you know, any any anytime I feel like I
29:47
need to pick me up, I read yalum um and then the other I
29:51
just want to stick one in. There is an art therapy book Kathy Highland
29:53
Moon Studio Art Therapy, Studio Art Therapy. She um. She tell stories
30:02
about her clients and her work and they're just really inspiring, awesome and of
30:06
course mine. Let's talk about your book. Creativity is co Therapist The Practitioners
30:11
Guide to the Art of Psychotherapy. You're going, I'll have that linked up
30:14
at the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Why did
30:18
you write this book? So? I wrote it because I wanted to show
30:25
therapists that they were artists and that what they were doing already was an art
30:30
form. And so the book breaks down the creative process into five stages.
30:37
It also breaks therapy down and the therapy session down into five stages and they
30:41
match perfectly. And so it's it's a book full of stories about my practice
30:51
with therapists as well as clients, the creative process, and then it has
30:55
activities for therapists to do for themselves as well as with clients to explore that
31:00
and basically, you know, what I say is it's an invitation for therapists
31:04
to fall back in love with the work they do, because I think that's
31:08
really what it takes to be a good therapist, I think. And that's
31:11
a great kind of reminder invitation for those of us who are working with trauma.
31:17
I mean, you know, it can often be extremely draining and daunting,
31:22
and oftentimes we can feel like we don't know what the hell we're doing.
31:27
We're not going any difference. So awesome, and what about Create Fest.
31:33
Let's talk about that too, because I love this Create Fest is so
31:36
wonderful. So Courtney Armstrong and I created this online creativity festival where it's the
31:45
exact conference that we would want to go to if we weren't going to travel.
31:49
So twelve expert speakers over two days, and the first half hour is
31:57
an interview by the expert, and then the second half hour, you know,
32:01
to my word in terms of philosophy of cheaching is an experiential activity that
32:07
the speaker has offered for the viewers, and we interact via the zoom chat
32:15
and Facebook. And it's just this community that has thrived around this. It's
32:20
for mental health professionals. Absolutely, Yeah, yeah, and I just yesterday
32:24
I had the privilege of interviewing Rick Hanson about his positive neuroplasticity training. Courtney
32:32
is going to be on there and some other incredible hands on experiential art therapists
32:40
as well as artists, and so it's going to be it's in May twenty
32:45
seventeen, and people can find out about it from my website out. Yeah,
32:51
and that, well, you'll have to I'll definitely you know, can
32:54
promote that as well when that comes around. But people can access info at
33:01
www dot create Fest what TTX dot com. It's t X create Fest t
33:09
X create Fest tx dot com. Okay, awesome, Well, um,
33:15
it's been a pleasure you're you are so inspiring to talk to you, and
33:21
I think you open up a lot of eyes. I think a lot of
33:24
our listeners are like, whoa, you know, this is something that I
33:29
want to learn more about that I can uh kind of rediscover in a sense,
33:34
and um, it's exciting. Great. Thanks, I'm glad that that
33:37
sounds inspiring. So awesome, Lisa, take care of Thank you so much.
33:43
You're so welcome. Thanks for having me guy. All right, bye
33:45
bye bye,