Analysing guided and recorded self-generated visual and expressive personal constructs as adjuncts to the counselling process

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to see how meaningful and practically challenging a combined and structured arts therapy approach can be for an island-style counselling scenario. The overarching rationale with this particular arts therapy approach was to enable the client to gain self-insight by means of constructing a holistic view of present concerns and aspirations by capturing them in personal, functional and professional-looking artefacts conveying relevant self-messages. The client self-generated the content of each exercise, according to a manual and strategic interventions, and was guided by the counsellor in the user-friendly application of the arts. Apart from the unique combination of arts therapies in this study, another factor that may contribute to counselling practice is the attempt to make use of video as a non-threatening integrating medium. Throughout the process, the client made rehearsed video appearances to consolidate personal gains. At the end of the counselling process, the respondent enjoyed an “objective” screening of the process and he left with the personal constructs, a video tape and a CD-Rom application of the recorded process. The literature study reveals the numerous techniques, exercises and most common combinations spread across the domain of the 26 expressive modalities that were scrutinised to gain insight into this vast field. The empirical process revealed that it is possible to utilise the arts therapy approach meaningfully to enable a client to build a “visual narrative”. To optmise the potential this approach holds, the environment facilitating the process needs to be adequately equipped and the counsellor needs to be skilled in the application of particular electronic media or, alternatively, a group of experts need to co-operate.