back to the frontline
“Are you going to fix me?”
These were the first words uttered to me by one of my clients. Like so many, they had magically encapsulated a large metaphysical debate in one question and indeed later in just one image. Since then this question has resonated through my clinical practice like a thin red line, twisting and winding itself around the issues presented to me by every client. Am I fixing them? … and if not, then what am I doing?
That client worked with gentle tactile fabrics, using sharp needles that at times appeared dangerous as through awkward movements they tried to sew the pieces together, stabbing and piercing. At the end of treatment they walked away, fixed or not, assuring me they’d had enough therapy for now.
Friends have posed the question to me as to whether Art Therapy is just about enabling disabled people to conform to a more able, controlling world, readying them back for the front line of life, rather than anything about loosening up their true selves. I can’t argue with this.
Like any of us that work for state funded institutions like the Health Service I find it hard to remove myself from the apparent aims of enabling a healthy, but more obedient, working and hassle free population; curing people who become aggressive and take up valuable time and resources. I try to find the path that is best for my client, but I often find myself listening to the pleas of families and carers to fix people, and of course there in my own inner voice aswell, so desperate to help.
I remember in Pat Barker’s novel ‘Regeneration’ the real 1914 psychiatrist WH Rivers has a conversation with the fictional Billy Prior, a soldier back from the front at the Great War being treated for mutism. After what appears a ‘fix’ Prior now able to speak suggests that Rivers has nothing more to offer than mending soldiers, repairing ‘fighting units’ for the front lines, ready for the next push.
As a trainee I was on placement with a day-centre for people living with drug use/abuse. I ran a weekly studio group that was open for any service user to attend as part of their treatment, often part of a Court Order. We started each session sat in a circle. Everyone then found their own space to work, ending again at the circle. Service users chose themes each week based on our circle discussions, such as home and identity. There was a vibrant energy in the room, everyone occupied with their own work but bouncing ideas and jokes off one another before sharing images together at the end. Week by week the faces would change, some would stay for the whole ten week term, some for just one session.
Staff warned me of hardened criminals - knives were mentioned. I was told to watch my back. It felt tribal, tattoos, smoking and gentle ‘gouching’ on each others’ shoulders in sessions.
I had read Neil Springham’s writing on narcissism in drug use and tried to look beyond appearance. The artwork gave this route in, opening mindful discussions that surprised my middle class judgment. Time after time staff appeared shocked at the depth that could open up in just one session; images of stories that appeared long held inside; moments of acknowledgement and maybe nothing more.
One key worker said that a client had expressed more in one session than in months of case work, enabling them a way in, a connection. I saw that client only once; I don’t know where they went after that. Sometimes I think I see them in the street asking for money. I wonder whether it was worth it, whether anything was fixed. Maybe we just help them back on their feet, another statistic in a government programme, or maybe back to the front line in their own war against the past … and maybe that’s enough, for any of us.
